Pagels - Adam, Eve, and the Serpent: Sex and Politics in Early Christianity

T HE J OHANNINE G OSPEL IN G NOSTIC E XEGESIS

T HE G NOSTIC P AUL: G NOSTIC E XEGESIS
OF THE P AULINE L ETTERS

T HE G NOSTIC G OSPELS

B EYOND B ELIEF: T HE S ECRET G OSPEL OF T HOMAS

F IRST V INTAGE B OOKS E DITION , SEPTEMBER 1989
Copyright 1988 by Elaine Pagels

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Originally published, in hardcover, by Random House, Inc., New York, in 1988.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Pagels, Elaine H., 1943
Adam, Eve, and the serpent / Elaine Pagels.1st Vintage Books ed.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-0-307-80735-9
1. SexBiblical teaching. 2. Bible. N.T.Criticism, interpretation, etc. 3. SexReligious aspectsChristianityHistory of doctrinesEarly church, ca. 30600. I. Title.
BS2545.S36P34 1989
241.6609015dc20 89-40147

Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following for permission to reprint previously published material:

Harvard Theological Review: Excerpts from Christian Apologists and the Fall of the Angels: An Attack on Roman Imperial Power? by Elaine Pagels, which appeared in Harvard Theological Review 78, 34 (1985), pp. 301325; and The Politics of Paradise: Augustines Exegesis of Genesis 13 Versus That of john Chrysostom, by Elaine Pagels, which appeared in Harvard Theological Review 78, 12 (1985), pp. 6795. Copyright 1985 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Reprinted by permission.

Hendrickson Publishers, Inc.: Excerpts from Exegesis and Exposition of the Genesis Creation Accounts in Selected Texts from Nag Hammadi, by Elaine Pagels, in Nag Hammadi, Gnosticism, and Early Christianity, edited by C. Hedrick and R. Hodgson, pp. 257286. Used by permission of Hendrickson Publishers, Inc., Peabody, Mass.

T&T Clark Ltd.: Excerpts by Elaine Pagels from The New Testament and Gnosis Essays in Honour of R. McL. Wilson, edited by A.H.B. Logan and A.J.M. Wedderburn (Edinburgh, Scotland, 1983), pp. 146175.

National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A.: Scripture quotations are from the Revised Standard Version Bible. Copyright 1946, 1952, 1971 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. Used by permission.

v3.1

T O OUR BELOVED SON , M ARK,
WHO FOR SIX AND A HALF YEARS
GRACED OUR LIVES WITH HIS PRESENCE

October 26, 1980April 10, 1987

T HIS BOOK is based upon research originally presented, for the most part, in scholarly publications (cited at the beginning of each chapters footnotes), and revised to make it more generally accessible. During the eight years of research and writing, I have consulted with many scholars and friends. I am especially grateful to those who read the entire manuscript and helped me with corrections, criticism, and encouragement: Thomas Boslooper, Peter Brown, Elizabeth Clark, Linda Hess, Martha Himmelfarb, Bentley Layton, Wayne Meeks, William Meninger, O.C.S.O., Alan Segal, S. David Sperling, and Robert Wilken; and to those who offered comments and criticism on portions of the work as it was in progress, especially Harry Attridge, Glen Bowersock, Bernadette Brooten, Mary Douglas, Theodor H. Gaster, John Gager, Marilyn Harran, Dennis MacDonald, Birger Pearson, Gilles Quispel, Morton Smith, and Lewis Spitz. Helmut Koester, formerly my thesis adviser, remains for me, as for many others, a respected and loved mentor and friend. I owe special thanks, too, to those friends and fellow writers who not only shared to some extent in the process of the work, but also read the manuscript and helped me with their criticism: Lydia Bronte, Elizabeth Diggs, Nick Herbert, Ralph Hiesey, my brother, Emily McCulley, Richard Ogust, and Sharon Olds.

Soon after I had begun the research for this book, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation astonished me with the award of a MacArthur Prize Fellowship, which gave me the most welcome and unexpected gift of alltime for research and writing. For this, and for the continuing work of the foundation on behalf of other recipients, I will always be grateful. Ellen Futter, president of Barnard College, and Charles Olton, then dean of the faculty, graciously arranged the first year of leave from full-time teaching and chairing the Department of Religion, so that I could devote the time to this research. I wish to thank my present colleagues in the Department of Religion at Princeton University, both for conversations that have contributed much to the process, and for their considerable grace during the years of research and writing, and also to thank the students, both graduate and undergraduate, who have struggled through these texts with me.

There are certain people without whose participation I cannot imagine having written this book. I have enjoyed working with Jason Epstein as editor, and deeply appreciate the insight, wit, and passion for clarity he has brought to this process, along with his enthusiastic support. My colleague Tom Boslooper has participated in the entire process of research and the preparation of the manuscript with an equanimity, generosity, and wisdom that always amaze me. John Brockman and Katinka Matson have seen the project through from the beginning, and have contributed in innumerable ways with sage advice and encouragement. I am very grateful to William T. Golden, who has lent me the use of an office for research and writing, which has proven to be a haven from the noises of New York: much of this book was written there. I wish to thank Richard Lim, too, for his prompt and increasingly expert assistance in finding research materials, and Dotty Holliger and Carol Shookhoff for their conscientious typing of parts of the manuscript.

Finally, I am grateful to those many friends whose presence and personal support in ways known to each of them have helped see me through these years, and mention in particular my parents, Louise and William M. Hiesey; Edith Davis; Jean Da Silva; Lita A. Hazen and Joseph H. Hazen; Betsy Herbert; Rev. Jane Henderson and Rev. Hugh Hildesley; Lucy and Robert Mann, Barbara Munsell, Richard Olney, and Katy Smith.

My most personal thanks I owe to my husband, Heinz Pagels, not only for reading the manuscript and offering excellent criticism while he was working on his own most recent book, but much more, of course, for his constant and loving presence during these years that included the lifetime and the death of our son, Mark, and the arrival of our daughter, Sarah.

C HAPTERS 13

(Revised Standard Version)

I N THE BEGINNING God created the heavens and the earth. 2The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters.

3 And God said, Let there be light; and there was light. 4And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. 5God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day.

6 And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters. 7And God made the firmament and separated the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament. And it was so. 8And God called the firmament Heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, a second day