Gnosticism and the History of Religions

Building on critical work in biblical studies, which shows how a historically-bounded heretical tradition called Gnosticism was ''invented'', this work focuses on the following stage in which it was "essentialised" into a sui generis , universal category of religion. At the same time, it shows how Gnosticism became a religious self-identifier, with a number of sizable contemporary groups identifying as Gnostics today, drawing on the same discourses. This book provides a history of this problematic category, and its relationship with scholarly and popular discourse on religion in the twentieth century. It uses a critical-historical method to show how and why Gnosis, Gnostic and Gnosticism were taken up by specific groups and individuals - practitioners and scholars - at different times. It shows how ideas about Gnosticism developed in late nineteenth- and twentieth-century scholarship, drawing from continental phenomenology, Jungian psychology and post-Holocaust theology, to be constructed as a perennial religious current based on special knowledge of the divine in a corrupt world.David G. Robertson challenges how scholars interact with the category Gnosticism, and contributes to our understanding of the complex relationship between primary sources, academics and practitioners in category formation.>

Product details

• Authors: David G Robertson, David G. Robertson
• Assisted by: Donald Wiebe (Editor), Dimitris Xygalatas (Editor)
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 31.03.2023
• EAN: 9781350258594
• ISBN: 978-1-350-25859-4
• No. of pages: 240
• Dimensions: 154 mm x 232 mm x 14 mm
• Series: Scientific Studies of Religion; Scientific Studies of Religion: Inquiry and Explanation
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Religion/theology > Christianity; RELIGION / History, RELIGION / Biblical Studies / General, Christianity, RELIGION / Gnosticism, Religion & beliefs, History of Religion, Religion and beliefs, Criticism and exegesis of sacred texts, Biblical Studies & Exegesis, Gnosticism