Book Review

By Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat

The Gnostic Bible
Revised Edition
Willis Barnstone, Marvin Meyer
New Seeds 03/09 Paperback $26.95
ISBN: 9781590305669

Gnosticism has been in the news lately, thanks to the bestselling novel The Da Vinci Code, Elaine Pagels' current bestselling Beyond Belief, widespread interest in the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas, and The Matrix movie trilogy. Now translator Willis Barnstone and biblical scholar Marvin Meyer have assembled this sturdy collection of Gnostic sacred writings. Dating from the first to the thirteenth centuries, coming from Egypt, the Greco-Roman world, the Middle East, Syria, Iraq, China and France, the selections include Pagan, Jewish, Christian, Hermetic, Mandaean, Manichaean, Islamic, and Cathar forms of spirituality.

As Meyer points out, the Gnostics were religious mystics who proclaimed that knowledge was the path of salvation. They sought wisdom in diverse places and discovered epiphanies wherever they happened. They loved creation stories and were fascinated by the clash between good and evil, light and darkness. As Elaine Pagels showed in her much-read The Gnostic Gospels, these freethinkers advocated a direct experience of the divine, unmediated by church hierarchy. Gnostic religions also emphasized, according to Meyer, "the vision of a radically enlightened life that transcends the mundane world and attains to the divine."

This substantive work contains a generous sampler of Gnostic texts of mystical wisdom from ancient and medieval worlds, a glossary of terms, a bibliography, and additional study aids.

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by Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat