Birger A. Pearson

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Birger A. Pearson (born 1934 in California, United States) is an American scholar and professor studying early Christianity and Gnosticism. He currently holds the positions of Professor Emeritus of Religious Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara and Professor and Interim Director of the Religious Studies Program at the University of California, Berkeley.

Contents

Earlier life

He has a B.A. in Classical languages from Upsala College in East Orange, New Jersey; a Bachelor of Divinity in Biblical Studies and Theology from Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary in Berkeley, CA; an M.A. in Greek from the University of California, Berkeley; and a Ph.D. in New Testament and Christian Origins from Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. [1] Pearson was elected a Member of the Catholic Biblical Association in 1978.

Work

Pearson was one of the original translators of the Nag Hammadi library, and was also involved with the 2007 translation by Marvin Meyer. In his writings, he explores the origins of Gnosticism and Christianity. Unlike many scholars, who see Gnosticism as a Christian heresy, Pearson believes that it emerged from Jewish mystics disaffected with the Jerusalem religious authorities, who were influenced by Platonism and mystery religion.

Publications

His book, Ancient Gnosticism: Traditions and Literature, examines the primary texts for Gnostic beliefs, including Christian Gnosticism, Hermetic Gnosticism, Mandaeanism, and Manicheanism.

Honors

In 2002 Pearson received an honorary doctorate from the Faculty of Theology at Uppsala University, Sweden. [2]

In 2013, Practicing gnosis: ritual, magic, theurgy and liturgy in Nag Hammadi, Manichaean and other ancient literature was published in honor of Pearson. [3]

Related Research Articles

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Gnosticism is a collection of religious ideas and systems which originated in the late 1st century AD among Jewish and early Christian sects. These various groups emphasised personal spiritual knowledge (gnosis) above the orthodox teachings, traditions, and authority of traditional religious institutions. Viewing material existence as flawed or evil, Gnostic cosmogony generally presents a distinction between a supreme, hidden God and a malevolent lesser divinity who is responsible for creating the material universe. Gnostics considered the principal element of salvation to be direct knowledge of the supreme divinity in the form of mystical or esoteric insight. Many Gnostic texts deal not in concepts of sin and repentance, but with illusion and enlightenment.

The Nag Hammadi library is a collection of early Christian and Gnostic texts discovered near the Upper Egyptian town of Nag Hammadi in 1945.

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Allogenes is a repertoire, or genre, of mystical Gnostic texts dating from the first half of the Third Century, CE. They concern Allogenes, "the Stranger", a half-human, half-divine capable of communicating with realms beyond the sense-perceptible world, into the unknowable.

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John D. Turner was the Cotner Professor of Religious Studies and Charles J. Mach University Professor of Classics and History Classics & Religious Studies at the University of Nebraska. He was well known for his translations of the Nag Hammadi library.

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Marvin W. Meyer was a scholar of religion and a tenured professor at Chapman University, in Orange, California.

April D. DeConick is the Isla Carroll and Percy E. Turner Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at Rice University in Houston, Texas. She came to Rice University as a full professor in 2006, after receiving tenure at Illinois Wesleyan University in 2004. DeConick is the author of several books in the field of Early Christian Studies and is best known for her work on the Gospel of Thomas and ancient Gnosticism.

Pheme Perkins is a Professor of Theology at Boston College, where she has been teaching since 1972. She is a nationally recognized expert on the Greco-Roman cultural setting of early Christianity, as well as the Pauline Epistles and Gnosticism.

Johannes (Hans) van Oort Dutch academic

Johannes (Hans) van Oort is a Dutch academic who is the Professor of Patristics and Gnostic Studies at Radboud University, Nijmegen, and at the University of Pretoria, South Africa. He is best known for his specialty in the study of St. Augustine, the gnostic world religion of Mani (Manicheism), and the Gospel of Judas. In 2006 van Oort presented, with the National Geographic Society, the discovery of this gnostic “gospel” to the Dutch speaking world.

Nicola Denzey Lewis is a Canadian academic of lived religion, early Christians, material culture of late antique Roman Empire, and women studies. She is a professor at Claremont Graduate University as the Margo L. Goldsworth Chair in Women's Studies in Religion.

References

  1. veritas-ucsb Curriculum Vitae
  2. "Honorary Doctors of the Faculty of Theology - Uppsala University, Sweden". www.uu.se (in Swedish). Retrieved 2017-02-17.
  3. Conick, April (2013). Practicing gnosis: ritual, magic, theurgy and liturgy in Nag Hammadi, Manichaean and other ancient literature: essays in honor of Birger A. Pearson. Leiden: Brill. ISBN   978-90-04-24852-6. OCLC   852968014.