Jesuit scholar: Elaine Pagels "is a very naughty historian."

Father Paul Mankowski, S.J., has an impressive CV: he is "a lector in Biblical Hebrew at the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome. He obtained a B.A. from the University of Chicago, an M.A. in classics and philosophy from Oxford, an M. Div. from Weston Jesuit School of Theology, and a Ph.D. in Semitic philology from Harvard. He was ordained in the Society of Jesus in 1987."

He is also fed up with the MSM's longtime love affair with Elaine Pagels, author of The Gnostic Gospels and Beyond Belief (and many other neo-gnostic, anti-orthodox works). In a great piece for CWNews.com, he writes: "Two weeks ago, at the height of the Gospel of Judas mania, a Google News search of "Elaine Pagels" plus "expert" scored 157 hits; she was the media's prime go-to person for a scholarly read on the import of the Coptic manuscript."

After providing a detailed example of how Pagels' plays fast and loose with primary sources (Irenaeus, in this case), he minces no words:

The Gnostic Gospels, like those portions of Pagels's later work with which I am familiar, is chock-full of tendentious readings and instances where counter-evidence is suppressed. The example of "creativity" here discussed may fairly be called a representative specimen of her methodology, and was singled out not because it's the worst example of its kind but because it's among the most unambiguous. No one who consults the source texts could give Pagels a pass, and that means she forfeits the claim to reliability as a scholar. Attractive as her ideological sympathies may be to many persons -- including many academics -- she does not deserve to be ranked with serious textual scholars like Claremont's James Robinson, and her testimony on the accuracy of inventions such as Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code cannot be solicited without irony.

I am not calling for academic sanctions but, more simply, for clarification. Pagels should be billed accurately -- not as an expert on Gnosticism or Coptic Christianity but as what she is: a lady novelist. Her oeuvre is that of fiction -- in fact, historical romance. Had New York Times reporters sought Barbara Cartland's views on discoveries in Merovingian religion or paleography, most of us would find it odd, but we'd expect them to make it plain that was romance, not history, in which she had the right to an opinion.

The problem, of course, is that Pagels actually possesses a PhD (from Harvard), which gives her more than adequate cover when it comes to the MSM and a popular audience. Here's hoping that Father Mankowski will not stop with just one example of Pagels' dubious scholarship.

Comments

[Jackson]

It's sad and annoying to see those like Pagels, who claim to be "only interested in the truth," constantly twist the truth. grrrr....

[Ed Peters]

Don't ever, ever, come within the crosshairs of Mankowski.

[Little Gidding]

This reminds me of Irenaeus' comparing the Gnostics' misuse of their original sources to an incompetent or dishonest dabbler in mosaics:

"It is as if someone destroyed the figure of a man in the authentic portrait of a king, carefully created by a skillful artist out of precious stones, and rearranged the stones to make the image of a dog or fox, declaring that this badly composed image is that good image of the king made by the skillful artist. ... In the same way these people compile old wives' tales and then, transferring sayings and words and parables, want to accommodate the words of God to their fables." Heresies, Book 1.8.1 [Robert M. Grant, Irenaeus of Lyons (New York: Routledge, 1996), p. 66.]

[Deacon John M. Bresnahan]

Father Mankowski proves what many of us have known for years--that if you get a degree or degrees or teach in the right universities--like Harvard-- you can lie, plagiarize, fabricate, and distort all you want and the media will worship at your feet. But be associated with Podunk State College and be a proponent of Accurate and Absolute Truth--especially with regard to religion--- then the MSM can never find your phone number.

[Cristina A. Montes]

There is also the question of what, exactly, does Pagels have a PhD in. As I read in "Not InDaVincible" (forgot the link), her PhD may be in underwater basket weaving for all we know.

[Ed Peters]

CAM, good point. Just today, I was reading about Sr. Joan Chittister getting yet another honorary degree from yet another a Catholic college, and the article mentioned what her real doctorate is in. I was thinking theology, church history, religious studies. Nope: ready for this? Communication Arts.

[Carl Olson]

I just saw today in the new issue of THIS ROCK that I have a Masters in Pastoral Ministry. Wow! That was easy.

[Mark Brumley]

Good work on that degree, Carl. At least the obtaining of that one was not influenced by me.

[Salome]

Fr Mankowski is not alone in demolishing Pagels. I pray that he is not alone in being largely ignored in doing so. Some years ago I read a very enjoyable demolition of Pagels and of the whole feminist uptake of (misinterpreted) gnosticism by Susanne Heine, the Professor of Evangelical (= protestant) Theology at the University of Vienna. While I don't necessarily endorse everything that Frau Prof. Dr. Heine wrote, I think it sad that, on the whole, the world still prefers to take more notice of Pagels. Let us pray that Fr Mankowski's words will fall in fertile ground!
On another tack, if I may, I recently watched a television program (made in the UK) called Who Wrote the Bible? In it was reference to The Gospel of Mary (Magdalene), and to the all-male Ecumenical Councils that left it out of the canonical scriptures because it was written by, or from the point of view of, a woman. Nowhere was it said that the real reason for leaving it out (along with the Gospels of Peter, Thomas and Judas: all men, I note), was because it was a load of gnostic twaddle. Perhaps there is a recognition that the word 'gnostic' is sufficient to turn some of the faithful off.

[Nancy]

PhD = Piled Higher and Deeper

[Plato's StepFoot]

"Communication Arts."

Headline:

Sr Chissiter shares academic pedigree with PAC-10 Football stars:

"My name is Manfred Drake. I have a 22" neck and I am majoring in Communication Arts at UCLA."