Richard Valantasis

A light book, much more an overview of the varieties of Christian belief in the first few centuries. Sethians and Valentinians were gnostic because of their focus on secret knowledge. Other Christianities may have had elements of gnostic thought, but Valantasis doesn't categorize them as Gnostic, merely alternative strands of thought. He does a fairly good job of showing how diverse thought was concerning the Christ in those first few centuries, going right back to disagreements between Paul and Peter. I appreciated the albeit brief discussions of Marcion, the Manicheans, the Hermetic tradition, Plotinus and the NeoPlatonists.
The book loses points for me because it far too frequently states something definitively, when in fact it there remains a lot of ambiguity concerning the subject. I first noticed this in the dating of the books of the bible - instead of giving a range of possible dates for their creation, he gives a single year and never indicates that there is often wide disagreement amongst scholars (even excluding the fundagelicals, who want everything to be way earlier than they probably are). As a fer instance: Acts was most likely written after 94 CE, as "Luke" is almost definitely cribbing from Josephus' Antiquities of the Jews, but the date given in the text is 115, and no reason given as to why it's that late. This is somewhat sloppy, and if I can find problems like this in the stuff I know, what sort of wrong impressions am I getting in the stuff I don't?
Still, it's a handy guide to have, and a good place to get an overview for further research.
2.5 stars oc.… (mere)