Millions of readers have turned to Elaine Pagels for her clear and insightful books about the Gnostic Gospels-the teachings of Jesus that have been lost for centuries. Sounds True is proud to present
Emerging from the Thomasine Traditions Group of the Society of Biblical Literature, 12 studies consider the social context of passages and themes in the Gospel of Thomas. Their topics include Thomas 4
Rediscovered in modern times, these are the "non-canonical" gospels, epistles, and other pieces excised from the standard Bible by various church councils. Enhanced with 32 illustrations from ancient
The narrative of 3 Maccabees is episodic, rather bombastic, and a ripping read in and of itself, but its possible implications to the Christian community are significant. Croy provides a very helpful
James (early Jewish studies, U. of St. Andrews, Scotland) investigates what sort of positive evidence leads scholars to extrapolate a Jewish origin for a pseudepigraphon transmitted by Christians but
Secret Mark first became known to modern scholarship in 1958 when a newly hired assistant professor at Columbia University in New York by the name of Morton Smith visited the monastery of Mar Saba nea
Five major apocryphal Acts survive from the early period of the Christian church, the so-called Acts of Andrew, of Paul, Peter, John, and Thomas. In the canonical New Testament, the apostle Andrew, br
This book considers the early history of Jewish-Christian relations focussing on traditions about the fallen angels. In the Book of the Watchers, an Enochic apocalypse from the third century BCE, the 'sons of God' of Gen 6:1–4 are accused of corrupting humankind through their teachings of metalworking, cosmetology, magic, and divination. By tracing the transformations of this motif in Second Temple, Rabbinic, and early medieval Judaism and early, late antique, and Byzantine Christianity, this book sheds light on the history of interpretation of Genesis, the changing status of Enochic literature, and the place of parabiblical texts and traditions in the interchange between Jews and Christians in Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages. In the process, it explores issues such as the role of text-selection in the delineation of community boundaries and the development of early Jewish and Christian ideas about the origins of evil on the earth.
Written at the beginning of the 2nd century, the text known as 4 Baruch (or Paraleipomena Jeremiou) reflects the situation in Palestine on the eve of the Bar-Kokhba War by retelling the story of the B
"A new key to understanding the Gospel of Thomas and other Lost Scriptures. Proposes a theory called Binary Soul Doctrine which allows for both reincarnation and an eternal afterlife. Offers fresh ins
This commentary on the Greek text of the Jewish-Hellenistic Sentences of Pseudo-Phocylides, a sapiential poem of the first century BCE or first century CE, offers a full treatment of its sources, stru
"Introduction to and scholarly consideration of how Jesus Ben Sira (Jesus, the son of Sirach and Jewish wisdom teacher of the late third and early second century B.C.E) communicated his wisdom teachin
While most people think that the twenty-seven books of the New Testament are the only sacred writings of the early Christians, this is not at all the case. A companion volume to Bart Ehrman's Lost Chr
A new edition of our classic, The Other Bible, including a new index, new cover, and a new introduction from the author to bring The Other Bible up to date. The Other Bible gathers in one comprehensi
The Gospel of Philip: Annotated and Explained unravels the discourses, parables and sayings of this second-century text to explore a spiritual, non-literal interpretation of the Bible. Along with his
The Apocalypse of Abraham is one of the most significant ancient documents to have been preserved solely in translation into Slavonic, says Kulik (Hebrew U. of Jerusalem), and its lost Hebrew, or perh
The rediscovery of Enochic Judaism as an ancient movement of dissent within Second Temple Judaism, a movement centered on neither temple nor torah, is a major achievement of contemporary research
The Book of Jubilees, or, as it is sometimes called, The Little Genesis, purports to be a revelation given by God to Moses through the medium of an angel and contains a history, divided up into "jubil
This volume offers 17 essays on the apocryphal/deuterocanonical books of Ben Sira (Ecclesiasticus) and Tobit. Four essays explore Tobit's connections with Genesis (Irene Nowell), Job (Anathea Portier-