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Sethianism - Wikipedia

Sethianism - Wikipedia

Sethianism

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Not to be confused with Setianism.
"Sethian" redirects here. For the Finnish progressive metal band, see Sethian (band).
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The Sethians were one of the main currents of Gnosticism during the 2nd and 3rd century CE, along with Valentinianism and Basilideanism. According to John D. Turner, it originated in the 2nd century CE as a fusion of two distinct Hellenistic Judaic philosophies and was influenced by Christianity and Middle Platonism.[1] However, the exact origin of Sethianism is not properly understood.[2]

History[edit]

Mentions[edit]

The Sethians (Latin Sethoitae) are first mentioned, alongside the Ophites, in the 2nd century, by Irenaeus and in Pseudo-Tertullian (Ch. 30).[3][4] According to Frederik Wisse, all subsequent accounts appear to be largely dependent on Irenaeus.[5] Hippolytus repeats information from Irenaeus.

According to Epiphanius of Salamis (c. 375), Sethians were in his time found only in Egypt and Palestine, but fifty years earlier, they had been found as far away as Greater Armenia.[6][note 1]

Philaster's (4th century CE) Catalogue of Heresies[note 2] places the Ophites, Cainites, and Sethians as pre-Christian Jewish sects.[note 3] However, since Sethians identified Seth with Christ (Second Logos of the Great Seth), Philaster's belief that the Sethians had pre-Christian origins, other than in syncretic absorption of Jewish and Greek pre-Christian sources, has not found acceptance in later scholarship.[8]

Origins and development[edit]

Hans-Martin Schenke was one of the first scholars to categorize several texts in the Nag Hammadi library as Sethian.[9]

According to John D. Turner, British and French scholarship tends to see Sethianism as "a form of heterodox Christian speculation," while German and American scholarship views it as "a distinctly inner-Jewish, albeit syncretistic and heterodox, phenomenon."[1] Roelof van den Broek notes that "Sethianism" may never have been a separate religious movement but that the term rather refers to a set of mythological themes that occur in various texts.[10] According to Turner, Sethianism was influenced by Christianity and Middle Platonism, and six phases can be discerned in the interaction of Sethianism with Christianity and Platonism.[1]

Phase 1. According to Turner, two different groups, existing before the 2nd century CE,[11] formed the basis for the Sethians: a Jewish group of possibly priestly lineage, the so-called Barbeloites,[12] named after Barbelo, the first emanation of the Highest God, and a group of Biblical exegetes, the Sethites, the "seed of Seth."[13]

Phase 2. The Barbeloites were a baptizing group that in the mid-2nd century fused with Christian baptizing groups. They started to view the pre-existing Christ as the "self-generated (Autogenes) Son of Barbelo," who was "anointed with the Invisible Spirit's "Christhood"." According to Turner, this "same anointing [was] received by the Barbeloites in their baptismal rite by which they were assimilated to the archetypal Son of Man." The earthly Jesus was regarded as the guise of Barbelo, appearing as the Divine Logos, and receiving Christhood when he was baptized.[13]

Phase 3. In the later 2nd century CE, the Christianized Barbeloites fused with the Sethites, together forming the Gnostic Sethianists. Seth and Christ were identified as bearers of "the true image of God who had recently appeared in the world as the Logos to rescue Jesus from the cross."[14]

Phase 4. At the end of the 2nd century, Sethianism grew apart from the developing Christian orthodoxy, which rejected the Docetian view of the Sethians on Christ.[14]

Phase 5. In the early 3rd century, Sethianism was fully rejected by Christian heresiologists, and Sethianism shifted toward the contemplative practices of Platonism, while losing their interest in their own origins.[15]

Phase 6. In the late 3rd century, Sethianism was attacked by neo-Platonists like Plotinus, and Sethianism alienated from Platonism. In the early to mid-4th century, Sethianism fragmented into various sectarian Gnostic groups, like the Archontics, Audians, Borborites, and Phibionites. Some of these groups existed into the Middle Ages.[16]

Relationship with Mandaeism[edit]

Various scholars have noted many similarities between Mandaeism and Sethianism. Kurt Rudolph (1975) has observed many parallels between Mandaean texts and Sethian Gnostic texts from the Nag Hammadi library.[17] Birger A. Pearson also compares the "Five Seals" of Sethianism, which he believes is a reference to quintuple ritual immersion in water, to Mandaean masbuta.[18] According to Buckley (2010), "Sethian Gnostic literature ... is related, perhaps as a younger sibling, to Mandaean baptism ideology."[19] Mark J. Lofts (2010) makes a bolder claim by arguing that Mandaeism is in fact a living tradition of Sethian Gnosticism.[20]

Mythology[edit]

Sethianism attributed its gnosis to Seth, third son of Eve and Adam, and Norea, wife of Noah, who also plays a role in Mandeanism and Manicheanism. The Sethian cosmogonic myth gives a prologue to Genesis and the rest of the Pentateuch, presenting a radical reinterpretation of the orthodox Jewish conception of creation, and the divine's relation to reality. The Sethian cosmogony is most famously contained in the Apocryphon of John, which describes an Unknown God, the same as Paul had done in the Acts of the Apostles 17:23.[note 4] Many of the Sethian concepts derived from a fusion of Platonic or Neoplatonic concepts with the Old Testament, as was common in Hellenistic Judaism, exemplified by Philo (20 BC - 40 AD).[citation needed]

Creation[edit]

From the “Unknown God” emanate aeons, a series of paired female and male beings. The first of these is Barbelo, who is coactor in the emanations that follow. The aeons that result are representative of the various attributes of God, which are indiscernible when they are not abstracted from their origin.[note 5] God and the aeons comprise the sum total of the spiritual universe, known as the Pleroma.

In some versions of the myth, the Aeon Sophia imitates God's actions, performing an emanation of her own, without the prior approval of the other aeons in the Pleroma. This results in a crisis within the Pleroma, leading to the appearance of the Yaldabaoth, a "serpent with a lion's head." This figure is commonly known as the demiurge, the "artisan" or "craftsman," after the figure in Plato's Timaeus.[note 6] This being is at first hidden by Sophia but subsequently escapes, stealing a portion of divine power from her in the process.

Using this stolen power, Yaldabaoth creates a material world in imitation of the divine Pleroma. To complete this task, he spawns a group of entities known collectively as Archons, "petty rulers" and craftsmen of the physical world. Like him, they are commonly depicted as theriomorphic, having the heads of animals. Some texts explicitly identify the Archons with the fallen angels described in the Enoch tradition in Judaic apocrypha.

At this point the events of the Sethian narrative begin to cohere with the events of Genesis, with the demiurge and his archontic cohorts fulfilling the role of the creator. As in Genesis, the demiurge declares himself to be the only god, and that none exist superior to him. However, the audience's knowledge of what has gone before casts this statement, and the nature of the creator itself, in a radically different light.

The demiurge creates Adam, during the process unwittingly transferring the portion of power stolen from Sophia into the first physical human body. He then creates Eve from Adam's rib, in an attempt to isolate and regain the power he has lost. By way of this he attempts to rape Eve who now contains Sophia's divine power; several texts depict him as failing when Sophia's spirit transplants itself into the Tree of Knowledge. Thereafter, the pair are "tempted" by the serpent, and eat of the forbidden fruit, thereby once more regaining the power that the demiurge had stolen.

Theological significance[edit]

As is evident, the addition of the prologue radically alters the significance of events in Eden. Rather than emphasizing a fall of human weakness in breaking God's command, Sethians (and their inheritors) emphasize a crisis of the Divine Fullness as it encounters the ignorance of matter, as depicted in stories about Sophia. Eve and Adam's removal from the Archon's paradise is seen as a step towards freedom from the Archons.[citation needed] Therefore, the snake in the Garden of Eden becomes a heroic, salvific figure rather than an adversary of humanity or a 'proto-Satan'. Eating the fruit of Knowledge is the first act of human salvation from cruel, oppressive powers.[citation needed]

Sethian texts[edit]

Most surviving Sethian texts are preserved only in Coptic translation of the Greek original. Very little direct evidence of Gnostic teaching was available prior to the discovery of the Nag Hammadi library, a collection of 4th-century Coptic translations of Gnostic texts which were apparently hidden in reaction to Athanasius of Alexandria's Easter letter of 367 which banned the use of non-canonical books. Some of these texts are known to have been in existence in the 2nd century, but it is impossible to exclude the presence of later syncretic material in their 4th-century translations.

The Gospel of Judas is the most recently discovered Gnostic text. National Geographic has published an English translation of it, bringing it into mainstream awareness. It portrays Judas Iscariot as the "thirteenth spirit (daemon)",[23] who "exceeded" the evil sacrifices the disciples offered to Saklas by sacrificing the "man who clothed me (Jesus)".[24] Its reference to Barbelo and inclusion of material similar to the Apocryphon of John and other such texts, connects the text to Barbeloite and/or Sethian Gnosticism.

See also[edit]

Notes[edit]

  1. ^ Turner: "Around 375 C.E., Epiphanius has difficulty recalling where he had encountered Sethians, and says that they are not to be found everywhere, but now only in Egypt and Palestine, although fifty years before they had spread as far as Greater Armenia (Pan. 39.1.1 2; 40.1)."[6]
  2. ^ One of the sources of Epiphanius, the lost Syntagma of Hippolytus of Rome, was also the source for Christian heresies before Noetus.
  3. ^ Nathaniel Lardner (1838): "Philaster has three chapters of Ophites, Cainites, and Sethians. They are placed by him among the heresies before Christ, and are the very first in his catalogue. Nor has he any thing that might lead us to think them Christians"[7]
  4. ^ In contrast to cataphatic theology, which describes God through a series of positive statements such as omniscient and omnipotent, the Sethian mythology approaches God by Apophatic theology ("negative theology"), stating that God is immovable, invisible, intangible, ineffable.
  5. ^ In this way, Barbelo and the emanations may be seen as poetic devices allowing an otherwise utterly unknowable God to be discussed in a meaningful way amongst initiates.
  6. ^ Greek δημιουργός dēmiourgós, Latinized demiurgus, meaning "artisan" or "craftsman", literally "public or skilled worker", from δήμος demos (belonging to the public) + έργον ergon (work).[21]

References[edit]

  1. ^ Jump up to:a b c Turner 2001, p. 257.
  2. ^ Tuomas Rasimus Paradise Reconsidered in Gnostic Mythmaking: Retaining Sethianism in Light of the Ophite Evidence BRILL, 31.10.2009 ISBN 9789047426707 p. 9
  3. ^ Klijn 1977, p. 82.
  4. ^ Schaff n.d.
  5. ^ Wisse 1981.
  6. ^ Jump up to:a b Turner 2001, p. 300.
  7. ^ Lardner 1838, p. 552.
  8. ^ Segal 2002, p. 254 text and footnote 24 comment on Wisse.
  9. ^ Schenke, H.-M., "Das sethianische System nach Nag-Hammadi-Handschriften," in: P. Nagel (ed.), Studia Coptica, Berlin: Akademie-Verlag 1974, 731–746.
  10. ^ Broek 2013, p. 28.
  11. ^ Turner 1986.
  12. ^ Turner 2001, p. 257-258.
  13. ^ Jump up to:a b Turner 2001, p. 258.
  14. ^ Jump up to:a b Turner 2001, p. 259.
  15. ^ Turner 2001, p. 259-260.
  16. ^ Turner 2001, p. 260.
  17. ^ Kurt Rudolph, “Coptica-Mandaica, Zu einigen Übereinstimmungen zwischen Koptisch-Gnostischen und Mandäischen Texten,” in Essays on the Nag Hammadi Texts in Honour of Pahor Labib, ed. M. Krause, Leiden: Brill, 1975 191-216. (re-published in Gnosis und Spätantike Religionsgeschichte: Gesämmelte Aufsätze, Leiden; Brill, 1996. [433-457]).
  18. ^ Pearson, Birger A. (2011-07-14). "Baptism in Sethian Gnostic Texts". Ablution, Initiation, and Baptism. De Gruyter. pp. 119–144. doi:10.1515/9783110247534.119.
  19. ^ Buckley, Jorunn J. (2010). Mandaean-Sethian connections. ARAM, 22 (2010) 495-507. doi:10.2143/ARAM.22.0.2131051
  20. ^ Lofts, Mark J. (2010). "Mandaeism: the sole extant tradition of Sethian Gnosticism". ARAM Periodical. 22: 31–59. doi:10.2143/ARAM.22.0.2131031.
  21. ^ Online Etymology Dictionary
  22. ^ Meyer 2007, p. 247.
  23. ^ Gospel of Judas, pg 44. translated by Kasser, Meyer, Wurst.
  24. ^ Gospel of Judas, pg 56. translated by Kasser, Meyer, Wurst.

Sources[edit]

  • Broek, Roelof van den (2013), Gnostic Religion in Antiquity, Cambridge University Press
  • Hancock, Curtis L. (1991), "Negative Theology in Gnosticism and Neoplatonism", in Wallis; Bregman (eds.), Studies in Neoplatonism: Ancient and Modern, Volume 6, SUNY Press, ISBN 0-7914-1337-3
  • Klijn, Albertus Frederik Johannes (1977), Seth: in Jewish, Christian and gnostic literature, BRILL
  • Lardner, Nathaniel (1838), The works of Nathaniel Lardner
  • Meyer, Marvin (2007), The Nag Hammadi Scriptures: International Edition
  • Segal, Alan F. (2002), Two powers in heaven: early rabbinic reports about Christianity and Gnosticism, BRILL
  • Schaff (n.d.), Ante-Nicene Fathers Volume 1
  • Turner, John (1986), "Sethian Gnosticism: A Literary History", Nag Hammadi, Gnosticism and Early Christianity, archived from the original on 2012-12-11
  • Turner, John D. (1992), "Gnosticism and Platonism: The Platonizing Sethian texts from Nag Hammadi in their Relation to Later Platonic Literature", in Wallis, Richard T.; Bregman, Jay (eds.), Neoplatonism and Gnosticism, SUNY Press, ISBN 0-7914-1338-1, archived from the original on 2007-06-22
  • Turner, John D. (2001), Sethian Gnosticism and the Platonic Tradition, Presses Université Laval
  • Wisse, Frederik (1981), "Stalking those elusive Sethians", Studies in the History of Religions

External links[edit]

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The Classic Gnostics ("Sethians") - Gnosticism Explained

The Classic Gnostics ("Sethians") - Gnosticism Explained

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The Classic Gnostics (“Sethians”)
A modern Russian icon of Seth (photo by Shakko)

As the term “classic Gnostics” implies, the classic Gnostics were the original group of Gnostics in antiquity. Back then, they were known as simply “Gnostics,” and almost certainly referred to themselves as such.[1] Today, they’re sometimes called the “classic Gnostics” to differentiate them from the other theologically Gnostic group of early Christians, the Valentinians.[2] They arose sometime in the late first or early second century AD, and by the year 180, they were spread throughout the Roman Empire. (See The Origins of Gnosticism for a discussion of when, how, and from what they arose.)

Terminology: “Classic Gnostics” vs. “Sethians”

Ever since a 1974 publication by Hans-Martin Schenke, modern scholars have sometimes nicknamed the classic Gnostics “Sethians” due to the importance they placed on the Old Testament figure of Seth, the third son of Adam and Eve.[3] This usage of “Sethian” is somewhat unfortunate, since the term originated with the unscrupulous third-century heresiologist (“heresy hunter”) Hippolytus of Rome. Hippolytus used “Sethian” to denote what he imagined to have been a sect within the group of early Christians that his more careful predecessor Irenaeus of Lyons had called simply “Gnostics.” As with Hippolytus’s other imagined “Gnostic sects,” it’s virtually certain that no sect called the “Sethians” ever existed in antiquity.[4]

Although modern scholars who use the term “Sethian” do so as a nickname for the classic Gnostics as a whole, it’s easy for readers to confuse this recent use of the word “Sethian” with Hippolytus’s use of it. “Classic Gnostics” (a term coined by Bentley Layton in 1995, but based on Irenaeus’s usage of “Gnostics”[5]) is clearer and more straightforward, so that’s the term that we’ll use throughout this website when referring to the original group of Gnostics and their texts.

The “Race of Seth”

Despite the unnecessary confusion introduced by the term “Sethian,” it’s rather easy to see why Schenke and others after him have liked to use that word to refer to the classic Gnostics. The classic Gnostics’ scriptures don’t explicitly refer to them as “Gnostics;” instead, they call them an “immovable” or “unshakeable” race that had been founded by Seth in time immemorial.[6]

Seth is mentioned in the fourth and fifth chapters of Genesis. After one of Adam and Eve’s sons, Abel, was murdered by their other son, Cain, Eve became pregnant once more. In the words of Genesis 4:25, “Adam knew his wife again, and she bore a son and named him Seth, ‘For God has appointed another seed for me instead of Abel, whom Cain killed.’”[7] Genesis 5:3 says much the same in a different way: “When Adam had lived one hundred thirty years, he became the father of a son in his likeness, according to his image, and named him Seth.”[8]

For the classic Gnostics, these two brief passages contained a great wealth of meaning. The classic Gnostics pointed to and emphasized the particular images used by Genesis: Seth was of “another seed,” “in the likeness” of Adam, and “appointed by God.” This is how they interpreted those images in the context of the rest of their theology and mythology:

For the classic Gnostics – as for the New Testament writers Paul and John before them – the world was ruled by demonic beings called “archons.” The classic Gnostics held that the lecherous archons had raped Eve shortly after she was created, but Eve’s spirit left her body before the horrible deed began. This purely fleshly intercourse produced two purely fleshly sons: Abel and Cain.

But Eve later had voluntary, loving sex with Adam, and their spirits (their spiritual “likenesses” that had been placed in them by God) were fully intact and present. Seth was conceived as “another seed” – that is, a spiritual seed, as opposed to the merely physical “seed” of Cain and Abel. (See The Gnostic Creation Myth for the full story.)

The sons of Adam and Eve founded “races” of people according to whether or not they possessed spirit. Since no spirit had been imparted to Abel or Cain, their “races” cared only for sensory pleasure and earthly well-being, with no capacity for serious spirituality. But the “race” of Seth, the one “appointed by God,” possessed spirit like its progenitor, and was capable of achieving salvation, which the Gnostics called “gnosis.” The classic Gnostics identified themselves with the “race” of Seth, and the rest of humankind with the “races” of Cain and Abel.

The archons did everything in their power to prevent Seth’s insightful descendants from achieving their true potential, ruling them through astrological fate and placing all kinds of worldly temptations in their path. But one day a savior would come who would give the spiritual descendants of Seth the upper hand in this struggle – a retrospective literary prophecy that had already been fulfilled by Christ.[9][10]

These “races” were spiritual ones, not biological ones. In the ancient Mediterranean world, people spoke of race and religion as if they were one and the same; each race had its own religion and vice versa. This way of speaking largely made sense back then, because each people tended to have its own ethnic religion with its own god or gods. But even for religions like Christianity, in which membership was in principle open to anyone from any people, racial language was still used to mark off religious identity. Various non-Gnostic early Christian writings refer to Christians as a “new race,” a “third race” other than Jews and Greeks, and the “God-loving and God-fearing race,” among other such designations.[11]

So when the classic Gnostics called themselves the “race of Seth,” they were marking themselves off as a group of people with a distinct spiritual/religious identity and destiny – a narrower version of the wider ancient Christian usage of racial language.

But the idea of belonging to the “race of Seth” had an additional meaning for the classic Gnostics. Everyone else in society around them belonged to the races of Cain and Abel, which made the classic Gnostics strangers in a foreign land no matter where they went. Indeed, since the “other seed” from which Seth had come was from an incorporeal and incorruptible world that was starkly different from this world, the “race of Seth” wasn’t only foreign to the societies in which it lived; it was foreign to the material world altogether.[12] Seth, the father of the race, was the prototype of the Gnostic who had transcended the material world and become alien to it.[13]

Just as the classic Gnostics’ use of racial language didn’t imply genetic determinism, it also didn’t imply spiritual determinism (or “predestination,” if you like), the idea that some people are born saved and some aren’t, and that nothing that anyone does can change the category to which he or she belongs. The heresiologists sometimes claimed that the classic Gnostics did believe in spiritual determinism,[14] but the heresiologists made that claim because it furthered their polemical interests. They were trying to convince people to join their brand of Christianity (which is often called “proto-orthodox Christianity” today) rather than that of their rivals, the Gnostics. If only the Gnostics were saved, the heresiologists argued, then anyone who wasn’t already a Gnostic must not be one of the fortunate souls, and therefore wouldn’t gain anything by trying to join the Gnostics.

But when we look at the Gnostic texts themselves, we see quite clearly that that wasn’t what the classic Gnostics (or the Valentinians) believed. Instead, when one was baptized as a classic Gnostic, one was reborn or adopted into the race of Seth, and apostasy meant leaving the race.[15][16] Thus, one chose whether or not to be part of the race of Seth by choosing whether or not to be a classic Gnostic.

Community Life

Some scholars have argued that the classic Gnostics were a loose-knit confederation of mostly solitary mystics who seldom got together for any kind of fellowship.[17] But the picture painted by the classic Gnostic texts themselves is one of a religious community with an organized and vibrant social life.

As we’ve just seen, the classic Gnostics defined themselves as spiritual kin and placed great importance on the “us vs. them” distinction between their own group and everyone else. Some classic Gnostic texts explicitly criticize other Christian groups for their shortcomings from a Gnostic point of view. The texts also contain formulas for baptisms, liturgies, hymns, and other communal rituals, many of which are written in the first-person plural (“we”). The group evidently also shared a strenuous ascetic lifestyle that featured celibacy, fasting, and other techniques to detach themselves from earthly cares and draw closer to God.[18][19]

Unlike the Valentinians, who worshiped with other Christians but held additional meetings of their own, the classic Gnostics seem to have worshiped only with other classic Gnostics.

Classic Gnostic Texts

The question of which Gnostic texts come from the classic Gnostics is a difficult one to answer, and there’s no firm scholarly consensus on the matter. For my part, I suspect that most of the texts in the Nag Hammadi Library that aren’t Valentinian are classic Gnostic works. If it’s correct that there were no other “Gnostic” sects within early Christianity besides the classic Gnostics and the Valentinians, then it would follow that any text with distinctively “Gnostic” features must come from one of those two groups.

Nevertheless, the list of texts that scholars widely agree were authored by the classic Gnostics (or “Sethians,” as some scholars prefer to call them for the reasons noted above) is a relatively short one: the Secret Book of John, Zostrianos, Allogenes, Marsanes, the Book of Zoroaster, the Revelation of Adam, the Reality of the Rulers, Three Forms of First Thought, the Holy Book of the Great Invisible Spirit (also known as the Gospel of the Egyptians), the Three Steles of Seth, Melchizedek, and the Thought of Norea.[20]

Those texts all share readily identifiable features that seem to point to a distinct social identity behind them, such as an emphasis on the figure of Seth and the particulars of their cosmology.[21] (There’s a general framework or template of cosmology that the classic Gnostics and the Valentinians shared, but some of the details of the classic Gnostic version of that cosmology are different from the Valentinian version or versions.) The rest of the texts that could potentially be classic Gnostic texts are widely disputed.[22]

References:

[1] Brakke, David. 2010. The Gnostics: Myth, Ritual, and Diversity in Early Christianity. Harvard University Press.

[2] Layton, Bentley. 1995. The Gnostic Scriptures. Yale University Press. p. 5-8.

[3] Brakke, David. 2010. The Gnostics: Myth, Ritual, and Diversity in Early Christianity. Harvard University Press. p. 41.

[4] Wisse, Frederik. 1981. “Stalking Those Elusive Sethians.” In The Rediscovery of Gnosticism, Volume Two: Sethian Gnosticism. Edited by Bentley Layton. E.J. Brill. p. 569-573.

[5] Layton, Bentley. 1995. The Gnostic Scriptures. Yale University Press. p. 5-8.

[6] Brakke, David. 2010. The Gnostics: Myth, Ritual, and Diversity in Early Christianity. Harvard University Press. p. 41-50.

[7] Genesis 4:25, NKJV. https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+4%3A25&version=NKJV Accessed on 4-21-2019.

[8] Genesis 5:3, NRSV. https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+5%3A3-5&version=NRSV Accessed on 4-21-2019.

[9] Brakke, David. 2010. The Gnostics: Myth, Ritual, and Diversity in Early Christianity. Harvard University Press. p. 65-66.

[10] Lewis, Nicola Denzey. 2013. Introduction to “Gnosticism:” Ancient Voices, Christian Worlds. Oxford University Press. p. 125-126.

[11] Burns, Dylan M. 2014. Apocalypse of the Alien God: Platonism and the Exile of Sethian Gnosticism. University of Pennsylvania Press. p. 86-87.

[12] Ibid. p. 87.

[13] Ibid. p. 103-104.

[14] Ibid. p. 88.

[15] Brakke, David. 2010. The Gnostics: Myth, Ritual, and Diversity in Early Christianity. Harvard University Press. p. 72-73.

[16] Lewis, Nicola Denzey. 2013. Introduction to “Gnosticism:” Ancient Voices, Christian Worlds. Oxford University Press. p. 125-126.

[17] Brakke, David. 2010. The Gnostics: Myth, Ritual, and Diversity in Early Christianity. Harvard University Press. p. 88.

[18] Ibid.

[19] Burns, Dylan M. 2014. Apocalypse of the Alien God: Platonism and the Exile of Sethian Gnosticism. University of Pennsylvania Press. p. 131-138.

[20] Brakke, David. 2010. The Gnostics: Myth, Ritual, and Diversity in Early Christianity. Harvard University Press. p. 50-51.

[21] Wisse, Frederik. 1981. “Stalking Those Elusive Sethians.” In The Rediscovery of Gnosticism, Volume Two: Sethian Gnosticism. Edited by Bentley Layton. E.J. Brill. p. 573-576.

[22] Brakke, David. 2010. The Gnostics: Myth, Ritual, and Diversity in Early Christianity. Harvard University Press. p. 50-51.

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Gnosticism Explained strives to provide a reliable, accessible, and engaging introduction to the type of early Christianity known as Gnosticism, with scholarly sources cited throughout.
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Mindful of The Body - A Study Guide - Thannisaro Bhikkhu | PDF | Noble Eightfold Path | Vipassanā

Mindful of The Body - A Study Guide - Thannisaro Bhikkhu | PDF | Noble Eightfold Path | Vipassanā
Mindful of The Body - A Study Guide - Thannisaro Bhikkhu


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Virtual Orientalism: Asian Religions and American Popular Culture - Oxford Scholarship



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Virtual Orientalism: Asian Religions and American Popular Culture
Jane Iwamura


ABSTRACT


Saffron-robed monks and long-haired gurus have become familiar characters on the American popular culture scene. This book examines the contemporary fascination with Eastern spirituality and provides a cultural history of the representation of Asian religions in American mass media. Initial engagements with Asian spiritual heritages were mediated by monks, gurus, bhikkhus, sages, sifus, healers, and masters from a wide variety of ethnic backgrounds and religious traditions. Virtual Orientalism shows the evolution of these interactions, from direct engagements with specific individuals, to mediated relations with a conventionalized icon. Visually and psychically compelling, the Oriental Monk becomes for Americans a “figure of translation” - a convenient symbol for alternative spiritualities and modes of being. Through the figure of the solitary Monk, who generously and purposefully shares his wisdom with the West, Asian religiosity is made manageable — psychologically, socially, and politically — for popular culture consumption. On an historical level, the books argues that American mass awareness of Asian religions coincides with the advent of visually-oriented media (magazines, television, and film) and examines how technological transformations ushered in a new form of Orientalism — virtual Orientalism — prevalent since the late 1950s. Although popular engagement with Asian religions in the U.S. has increased, the fact that much of this has taken virtual form makes stereotypical constructions of “the spiritual East” obdurate and especially difficult to challenge. Representational moments in Virtual Orientalism’s development that are examined include: D.T. Suzuki and the 1950s Zen Boom; the Maharishi Mahesh and his celebrity followers in the 1960s and; Kwai Chang Caine in the popular 1970 television series, Kung Fu.

Keywords: virtual orientalism, Asian religions, U.S. popular culture, mass media, icon, stereotypes, visual culture, monk, guru, spirituality

BIBLIOGRAPHIC INFORMATION
Print publication date: 2011 Print ISBN-13: 9780199738601
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: January 2011



Review
Easily accessible, this work will interest students of American popular culture, media studies, and Asian American religiosity. Highly recommended.
--Choice
About the Author


Jane Naomi Iwamura is Visiting Scholar at the UCLA Asian American Studies Center. Her research focuses on Asian American religions, race and popular culture in the United States (with an emphasis on visual culture), and her publications include the co-edited volume, Revealing the Sacred in Asian and Pacific America (2003).



Sneezy777
별 5개 중 3.0 Very good.미국에서 2016년 9월 25일에 검토됨
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Those of us born, circa 1954, have lived every page of this book. Our feeble understanding of cultures of the East has not been improved by our exposure to Western media interpretation. Our generation is well rebuked for the intellectual laziness and dishonesty that allows history to be replaced by hokum. This book is a rare effort to enlighten us. Well done!

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Mark
별 5개 중 5.0 Virtually Hopeful미국에서 2014년 11월 16일에 검토됨
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Dr. Iwamura brings sensitivity and a critical eye to one aspect of a deeply troubling form of subtle media propaganda that happens all over the globe, in different ways and different forms. I love the way it looks at the uniquely American form of replacing an objected racial identity, and reconstituting it in favor of the marketing, political and social trends of the times; It is a helpful, and hopeful look at how we can begin to look critically, at how media is portraying race.

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Jimmy Otterby
별 5개 중 5.0 good book i purchased for school.미국에서 2015년 5월 28일에 검토됨
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good book i purchased for school.


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Angie Lee
별 5개 중 5.0 My Dear Professor's Work미국에서 2015년 2월 15일에 검토됨
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My dearest professor's work. Although as a foreign student I did not get it all, but now I am still able to sense how "uncanny" it is.

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Collin Sibley
별 5개 중 5.0 An excellent discussion of the construction of Orientalist images in Western ...미국에서 2015년 4월 24일에 검토됨
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An excellent discussion of the construction of Orientalist images in Western popular media. Well argued and contextualized, and Iwamura's selection of cases is on point.

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Steven R. Urquhart
별 5개 중 5.0 Excellent account of how the East met West미국에서 2014년 9월 9일에 검토됨
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Excellent account of how the East met West, especially interesting to fans of "Kung Fu".

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Sophia R Arjana
별 5개 중 5.0 This is such a good book! I just read it as part of ...미국에서 2018년 4월 19일에 검토됨

This is such a good book! I just read it as part of some research I am doing and could hardly put it down. Iwamura is one of those rare scholars who can write well, in an accessible way, but while presenting a great academic study. I would suggest this book for students of Buddhism, American Studies, history, Orientalism, and gender. It's really one of the best books I have read for a while. Looking forward to reading the next book by Dr. Iwamura!

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