19 Facts About Elaine Pagels

Elaine Pagels is the Harrington Spear Paine Professor of Religion at Princeton University.

Elaine Pagels's best-selling book The Gnostic Gospels examines the divisions in the early Christian church, and the way that women have been viewed throughout Jewish history and Christian history.

Elaine Pagels was born February 13,1943, in California.

Elaine Pagels is the daughter of Stanford University botanist William Hiesey.

Elaine Pagels found it to be "the most spiritual of the four gospels".

Elaine Pagels remained fascinated by the power of the New Testament.

Elaine Pagels started to learn Greek when she entered college, and read the Gospels in their original language.

Elaine Pagels graduated from Stanford University, earning a BA in 1964 and MA in 1965.

Elaine Pagels completed her PhD in 1970, and joined the faculty at Barnard College.

Elaine Pagels headed its Department of Religion from 1974 until she moved to Princeton in 1982.

In 1975, after studying the Pauline Epistles and comparing them to Gnosticism and the early Church, Elaine Pagels wrote the book, The Gnostic Paul which argues that Paul the Apostle was a source for Gnosticism and hypothesizes that Paul's influence on the direction of the early Christian church was great enough to inspire the creation of pseudonymous writings such as the Pastoral Epistles, in order to make it appear that Paul was anti-Gnostic.

Elaine Pagels follows the well-known thesis that Walter Bauer first put forth in 1934 and argues that the Christian church was founded in a society espousing contradictory viewpoints.

In 1982, Elaine Pagels joined Princeton University as a professor of early Christian history.

In both The Gnostic Gospels and Adam, Eve, and the Serpent, Elaine Pagels focuses especially on the way that women have been viewed throughout Jewish and Christian history.

Elaine Pagels's New York Times bestseller, Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas, contrasts the Gospel of Thomas with the Gospel of John, and argues that a close reading of the works shows that while the Gospel of Thomas taught its adherents that "there is a light within each person, and it lights up the whole universe [-] If it does not shine, there is darkness", the Gospel of John emphasizes the revelation that God as Jesus Christ is the "light of the world".

Elaine Pagels argues that the Gospel of John was written as a rebuttal to the viewpoints put forth in the non-canonical Gospel of Thomas.

Elaine Pagels married theoretical physicist Heinz Pagels in 1969, with whom she had a son and adopted two children.

Elaine Pagels married law professor Kent Greenawalt from Columbia University in June 1995.

Elaine Pagels had a son and a daughter, while Greenawalt had three sons.