What Is Gnosticism?

by Karen L King and Karen L. King

Book Overview

A distinctive Christian heresy? A competitor of burgeoning Christianity? A pre-Christian folk religion traceable to "Oriental syncretism"? How do we account for the disparate ideas, writings, and... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 067401071X
• ISBN13: 9780674010710
• Release Date: June 2003
• Publisher: Belknap Press
• Length: 343 Pages
• Weight: 1.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 6.4" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

A helpful overview of a complex field

King, who has published widely in the field of gnostic literature, provides a good overview of scholarly writings on gnosticism, evaluating the different views on the subject in a scholarly way that is easy to understand without in any sense being oversimplified. Gnosticism has long been understood as a perversion of "normative" Christianity (and, of course, there's disagreement over what that was or is); this has led people to evaluate gnosticism in light of Christianity rather than looking at what gnosticism is in and of itself; there is still disagreement over the roots of gnosticism and how its original practitioners understood it. King's work addresses the issues that have become attached to the study of this movement, interpreting them and offering her own conclusions as well. Chapter titles include "Gnosticism as Heresy," "Adolf von Harnack and the Essence of Christianity," and "The History of Religions School." She deals with the Nag Hammadi finds in some depth as well. This book would be particularly helpful for people who are new to the study of Gnosticism; it is not necessary to be a scholar to understand King's writing.

Understand ancient religion, not the unreal polemical category "Gnosticism"

This book by Karen King is not about Gnosticism, because Gnosticism never existed. This book is about the history of the modern folly of inventing an unreal category and then purporting to describe it. This book is about the history of modern scholarship of a fabricated construct labelled 'Gnosticism'. King reveals Gnosticism as an artificial, synthetic, nonexistent entity. Ancient and modern studies of Gnosticism have approached the subject with motives of defining true Christianity. No individual writing fits the various definitions of Gnosticism. Gnosticism is an unreal, artificial, false, and harmful category. All definitions of 'Gnosticism' have always been artificial and unreal and have heavily misrepresented, to the point of complete polemical fantasy, the writings they purport to generally categorize. The only way we can begin to understand the writings that have been lumped together into the fantastically ill-fitting category of 'Gnosticism' is to read each individual writing and analyze it in its cultural context. Individual writings must be considered individually on their own terms: what was the actual context for the writing? What did the author mean and mean to accomplish? How did various audiences of that writing read it; what did that particular writing mean to them? King provides a concrete example of such an approach to understanding ancient religious thought on its own terms, in her subsequent book The Secret Revelation of John. Michael A. Williams falls into the same kind of trap as other scholars in his advice to rename the chimera of Gnosticism 'Biblical Demiurgicalism'. We can hint at the problem by stating that there were diverse Chrisitianities, diverse Judaisms, diverse Gnosticisms, and diverse paganisms, but such a move isn't effective; grossly oversimplifying reification instantly sets in again. It's not merely that there were diverse variants of Gnosticism. Rather, there were diverse combinations of philosophy, quasi-Christian, quasi-Jewish, quasi-Hellenistic, and quasi-Persian elements all over the map. It is not the case that certain of these combinations clearly group together forming a distinct, discernible religion that was or should be called 'Gnosticism'. King reveals it as embarrassing how modern scholars were so uninterested in understanding each so-called 'gnostic' writing on its own terms, and were wholly motivated by polemic and apologetic concerns, to define who are the true Christians. They have been motivated by theological concerns, while claiming to be presenting scientific history. Various groups of ancient writers were involved in a project of deliberate hermeneutic and polemical reinterpretation of various venerable source materials; modern scholars need to read the resulting writings as such. King provides various other detailed points about the modern and ancient folly that has brought about the completely problematic framework that is now failing and collapsing, for defi

From polemics to pragmatics

King has done historians of philosophy and religion an immense service with this study. A thorough, comprehensive and closely analysed investigation of the historiography of "Gnosticism", this book will keep students and scholars engaged for some time. Although the title isn't answered in a strict, straightforward manner, the content of the book demonstrates why this is nearly impossible. In fact, King even offers the views of those who would dispense with the term altogether. In the end, the author shows that a tight definition of the term is of less importance than gaining an understanding of what Gnosticism is about. The author starts from a firm position. "Gnosticism" in the West has long been labelled a "heresy" among the Christian churches. Most of the Christian churches, at least, since there are those who have adopted some tenets of Gnosticism into their creeds. The early Christian movements, striving for survival in the "pagan" Roman Empire, all sought some form of unity and discipline as a foundation. They sought an "orthodoxy" under which to operate. Others, nearly as many in number, granted the individual the primary role. The former group, typified by the bishop of Lyons, Irenaeus, laid the beginnings of what would become "orthodox" Christianity. They decreed the "outsiders" as "heretics". King brings Irenaeus and other critics of non-conformity together under the rubric of the "polemicists". For centuries, what we knew of the Gnostics was contained in the writings of those who condemned them. The era of "Higher Criticism" of biblical texts may have helped foster modern examination of Gnostic writings. Among the leaders of this "wave" of research was Adolf von Harnack. Von Harnack viewed Gnosticism as an offshoot of Greek - or Hellenic - culture and philosophy. If anybody can be named as detaching Gnosticism from being a branch of Christianity, it is this scholar. Casting Christianity against a Hellenic background, von Harnack sought to find elements that would give the movement unique status and explain its expansion. Following von Harnack, more [mostly] German scholars in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries formed the Religious History School. King examines the work of such figures as Richard Reitzenstein, Wilhelm Bousset, Rudolf Bultmann. Detaching Jesus from traditional Christianity, these scholars developed what has come to be known as the "Gnostic Redeemer" myth. Revising the roots of the Jesus myth, they pushed the story back in time and place to the Persian [Iran] region. It migrated westward to be absorbed by peoples along the Levant, thence into western Europe. The essence of this version of Christianity centres on Jesus lacking a human body, and providing a more direct link to the Deity. King notes how strong a challenge this proved to orthodoxy, since it transformed how followers of this idea viewed their relation to the deity. For King, two books published in the mid-1930s, set a new cours

Sometimes it is necessary to clean

Here's a chance to experience a gifted scholar struggling to come to terms with a challenging subject without compromising any of its difficulties. At the very conclusion of the book, King explicitly states what this book was about: "This book by no means offers a complete analysis of the twentieth-century study of Gnosticism. Its aim was more limited - to locate some of the incrongruities in the construction of Gnosticism in order to aid in 'thinking hard and speaking differently' about religious identity formation." The book is basically an examination of how the study of Gnosticism has gotten in the way of the study of Gnosticism. Speculations have piled up upon each other, hardened in apparent facts, and made discerning what may have been happening in early Christianity difficult. "What is Gnosticism?" is essentially "What is Scholarship?" when scholarship has gone awry and clouded our way of evaluating the facts. It's to her credit that King highlights this problem, which is not unique to the study of Gnosticism. A particular problem with Gnosticism is that the term was coined relatively recently and implies a unity. Another problem is that so little has been known about the early Christians held to be heretics by those who "won", even with the finding of Nag Hammadi texts, themselves hard to assess due to previous scholary speculations. The orthodox Church knew what they were doing when they destroyed such texts or discouraged their being copied. But what may be a barrier for scholars focused on the past needn't stop seekers today whose heartfelt longings carry them beyond the blinders of orthodoxy. When Elaine Pagels suggested in her "The Gnostic Gospels" that orthodoxy needed to win in order to insure the survival of Christianity, she didn't reflect on whether a survival of that kind was really positive. It's good news that nowadays Gnosticism, however defined or even if undefined, lives. In what forms Christianity survives remains open. Perhaps orthodoxy was indeed needed back then so that Gnostic Christianity would be alive today. "What is Gnosticism?" is a clearing of the way in preparation to studying what was going on in early Christianity that led to charges of heresy at a time when "What is Christianity?" was also at best hard to answer and hard to find a unity within. Even today, in a world of Roman Catholics, Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons, and Baptists, capturing a single sense for "Christian" may not be that easy or even possible. Whatever the names or how well they apply, there has been something going on in ancient AND MODERN times that can be addressed as gnostic and that will always go beyond the efforts of scholars to grasp. Whether intentionally or not, King has thankfully revealed that. P.S. I just read King's thrilling "The Gospel of Mary of Magdala". She also addresses there the problems she has with the term "Gnosticism". The two books go together well, with "The Gospel of Mary of Magdala" providing a concr

Gnosticism - there's no such thing!

This is a good book for those who are fascinated with early Christianity and wish to know more about the diversity of the "Jesus Movement(s)" before Constantine and the Roman Empire made their famous "deal" with the mainstream group of the Christian Church in the fourth century.Karen King's primary thesis in this book, if I understand it correctly, is that the term "gnosticism" is becoming useless in early Christian studies as it carries a whole bunch of baggage which does not illuminate our understanding of many of the early movements which, while considering themselves Christian (in a broad sense of the word), did not fit into what came to be the orthodox view of what it meant to be Christian.To discard, ignore or discredit whole works by early Christians because they contain a few references to "gnostic" ideas (for example, finding God within or not accepting the Pauline version of salvation) is an unnecessary putdown in scholarly terms according to King.King's book is written primarily to influence her scholarly colleagues who are actively writing books and papers on the (relatively) recent discoveries at Nag Hammadi and who are re-visiting other early non-canonical Christian material. As a lay person, it makes sense to me not to "tag" a text as "gnostic" and thus automatically diminish its relevance to the study of early Christian development. King argues that each text needs to be read and understood in its own context rather than lumping it in with other "gnostic" stuff. The study of early Christian origins and the related texts has helped me in my faith journey as I now see that diverse understandings of Jesus have ALWAYS been a part of our tradition. This may be scary for the orthodox believer, but books like Karen King's are liberating and enlightening for me.I give the book only 4 stars out of 5 as it is a bit dense for the lay person and certainly is, by and large, focused on making key scholarly arguments relevant to the study of early Christianity. Recommended for anyone interested in the Nag Hammadi texts or early Christian texts in general.