The Origin of Satan

This was a pretty fascinating, slightly dry book about the motivations of early Christian writers more than anything else. I felt it did not touch on the origins of Satan in Christian mythology that much.

I kept waiting for it to get to a grand conclusion and it was a tenuous thread at best.

That being said, the discussions on the gospels as polemics against Jews are thought provoking and timely. Over the course of bible reading I have come to loathe the epistles and Pagels takes the reader on a contextual journey of motivation for those fateful letter writers.

It's interesting how the lens of the writer can be so influential. I read Bart Ehrman's Misquoting Jesus several years ago and came away from that book thinking Celcus was an utter whack job. In Pagels' book he's somewhat of a hero doing battle against Irenaus.

I'd recommend this if you are interested in the political climate of early Christianity. I'd also recommend it if you are interested in the history of Christian heresy, the discussion of the Nag Hammadi works was super neat.