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Elaine Pagels

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Educator

The Resume

    (February 13, 1943- )
    Born in Palo Alto, California
    Birth name was Elaine Hiesey
    Head of the religion department at Barnard College (1974-82)
    Harrington Spear Paine Professor of Religion at Princeton (1982- )
    Wrote 'The Gnostic Paul' (1975), 'The Gnostic Gospels' (1979), 'Adam, Eve and the Serpent' (1988), 'The Origin of Satan' (1995) and 'Beyond Belief: The Gospel of Thomas' (2003)
    With Harvard professor Karen King wrote 'Reading Judas: The Gospel of Judas and the Shaping of Christianity' (2007)

Why she might be annoying:

    She briefly studied modern dance with Martha Graham before deciding to get a PhD.
    She is a favorite talking head for shows about 'The DaVinci Code,' appearing in 'Secrets of the Code' and 'The Real DaVinci Code.'
    Many of her theories about the early Christian church are well outside of mainstream scholarship.
    The conservative Intercollegiate Studies Institute listed 'The Gnostic Gospels' as one of the 50 Worst Books of the 20th Century.

Why she might not be annoying:

    She has been lauded for the readability of her writing and her ability to make the early history of Christianity interesting for non-specialists.
    'The Gnostic Gospels' won a National Book Award and a National Book Critics Circle Award.
    She learned Latin, Greek, Hebrew and Coptic to study early religious texts.
    She left an evangelical church as a teen after being told that a close friend who had died in a car crash was eternally damned because he was Jewish.
    She joined the Episcopal Church in response to a spiritual re-awakening following personal tragedy: her six-year-old son died (1987) and her husband was killed in a mountain climbing accident (1988).

Credit: C. Fishel


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    In 2023, Out of 7 Votes: 28.57% Annoying
    In 2022, Out of 1 Votes: 0% Annoying
    In 2021, Out of 10 Votes: 80.0% Annoying
    In 2019, Out of 10 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2018, Out of 1 Votes: 0% Annoying
    In 2017, Out of 4 Votes: 75.00% Annoying
    In 2016, Out of 7 Votes: 57.14% Annoying
    In 2015, Out of 10 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2014, Out of 16 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2013, Out of 13 Votes: 53.85% Annoying
    In 2012, Out of 13 Votes: 76.92% Annoying
    In 2011, Out of 13 Votes: 69.23% Annoying
    In 2010, Out of 16 Votes: 87.50% Annoying
    In 2009, Out of 41 Votes: 53.66% Annoying
    In 2008, Out of 21 Votes: 52.38% Annoying