Miracles and Wonder: The Historical Mystery of Jesus

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From the award-winning author of The Gnostic Gospels comes a captivating new account of the life of Jesus that explores the mystery of how he inspired a religion that reshaped the world.

Elaine Pagels changed our understanding of the origins of Christianity with her work on the Gnostic Gospels. Now, in the culmination of a decades-long career, she explores her most ambitious subject, the life of Jesus himself. Miracles and Wonder unfolds like a historical mystery, with each chapter addressing a fascinating question. Why is Jesus said to have had a virgin birth Why do we say he rose from the dead Did his miracles really happen and what did they mean

The story Pagels tells is thrilling and tense. Not just Jesus comes to life, but his desperate, hunted followers as well. They were writing in wartime and under occupation, she reminds us, endangered for spreading the gospel of a man who was executed as an insurrectionist. Some of the most electrifying details in the Gospels, Pagels writes, may have been crafted by his disciples to avoid persecution and explain inconvenient facts. So Jesus wasnt illegitimate; instead, his mother conceived by God. Jesus body wasnt humiliatingly tossed into a common grave; he was seen alive and whole by his followers. He wasnt a failed messiah; his kingdom lives in us.

Reviews

"[T]his title is notable not just for the depth and breadth of Pagels scholarship but for the way she becomes part of the story. There is almost a yearning to her quest for answers that personalizes her writing. . . . Part history, part mystery, all enlightening."

Booklist (starred review)

"No matter how familiar readers are with the gospels, the stories Pagels has woven together offer new takes on who Jesus was and what it means to bring facts to faith with clarity and curiosity."

Library Journal

Author Bio

ELAINE PAGELS is the Harrington Spear Paine Professor of Religion at Princeton University. In 2015 she received the National Medal for the Humanities from President Barack Obama. The Gnostic Gospels won both the National Book Critic's Circle Award and the National Book Award. Her books include Why Religion, Beyond Belief, and Adam, Eve, and the Serpent. She has been profiled in TIME, The Atlantic Monthly, Vogue, The New Yorker and more.