Pen Pals Series: Dr. Elaine Pagels

While a graduate student at Harvard, Dr. Elaine Pagels spent years studying the Nag Hammadi Library manuscripts, and she has turned that research into a sort of Gnostic cottage industry. Her 1979 classic, The Gnostic Gospels, won both the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award, and was included on the Modern Library’s list of the hundred best books of the twentieth century. Throughout her subsequent work, Pagels has demonstrated a dogged and occasionally controversial scholarship, as she has consistently probed and questioned the early history of Christianity, often in the context of her own faith. She continues to pose big and important questions for believers and skeptics alike. Hopkins Center for the Arts, 1111 Mainstreet, Hopkins; 651-209-6799.