The Origin of Satan: How Christians Demonized Jews, Pagans, and Heretics [Paperback]

From the religious historian whoseThe Gnostic Gospelswon both the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award comes a dramatic interpretation of Satan and his role on the Christian tradition. With magisterial learning and the elan of a born storyteller, Pagels turns Satan’s story into an audacious exploration of Christianity’s shadow side, in which the gospel of love gives way to irrational hatreds that continue to haunt Christians and non-Christians alike. Arresting . . . brilliant . . . this book illuminates the angels with which we must wrestle to come to the truth of our bedeviling spritual problems.   —Boston Globe

Pagels is a wonderful writer. . . . She has a gift for bringing ancient texts alive. . . . Fascinating.   —San Francisco Chronicle

Lively reading . . . a book that makes familiar concepts disturbingly fresh and provocative. —The New York Times

Pagels has achieved something important. . . . Thoughtful scholarly works that are also original and adventurous are not common.The Origin of Satanis such a work, and we should be correspondingly grateful.   —New York Review of Books

Lucid and closely reasoned. . . . Pagels remains always a lively writer who discerns the human implications of esoteric texts and scholarly disputes. —Chicago TribuneElaine Pagels is the Harrington Spear Paine Professor of Religion at Princeton University and the author of Reading Judas, The Gnostic Gospels—winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award and the National Book Award—and the New York Times bestseller Beyond Belief. She lives in Princeton, New Jersey.US