About Elaine Pagels

Elaine Pagels is the Harrington Spear Paine Professor of Religion at Princeton University and a leading scholar on early Christianity. Her research on the Nag Hammadi manuscripts, discovered in Egypt in 1945, uncovered a wide spectrum of belief and practice in the early church and exploded the myth of a monolithic Christianity. Results of her research were published in the book The Gnostic Gospels, which won the National Book Award. Six other books on the origin, evolution, and meaning of Christian thought provide fresh insight into complex issues of faith.