Description: When her young son was diagnosed with fatal pulmonary hypertension, religion professor Pagels' spiritual and intellectual endeavors took on a new urgency, leading her to investigate what Jesus and his teachings meant to his followers before the invention of doctrine.
Review Quotes: "Pagels has accomplished a very rare thing, an examination of early religious writings that is a good read, accessible, and at times even dramatic and poignant." --The Columbus Dispatch
"This remarkable book will stir and provoke thought. It offers rewards to any reader concerned with the promise and power of faith, and the hunger for spiritual discovery." --The Christian Science Monitor
"Just as topical today as it was nearly two thousand years ago. . . . Pagels is great at pulling together the details that allow us to understand not only what people were arguing about but why." -San Jose Mercury News "Majestic. . . . Exhilarating reading, Pagel's book offers a model of careful and thoughtful scholarship in the lively and exciting prose of a mystery writer." -Publishers Weekly "This luminous and accessible history of early Christian thought offers profound and crucial insights on the nature of God, revelation, and what we mean by religious truth." -Karen Armstong "As relevant as today's front page." -The Washington Post Book World