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.
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Produktdetaljer
ISBN
9781350137707
Publisert
2021
Utgave
1. utgave
Utgiver
Vendor
Bloomsbury Academic
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Digital bok
Forfatter