Elaine Pagels | |
|---|---|
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| Born | Elaine Hiesey February 13, 1943 Palo Alto, California, U.S. |
| Known for | Nag Hammadi manuscripts Early Christianity |
| Spouses | |
| Father | William Hiesey |
| Awards | MacArthur Fellowship (1981) National Book Award (1980) National Book Critics Circle Award (1979) Guggenheim Fellowship (1979) Rockefeller Fellowship (1978) Howard T. Behrman Award for Distinguished Achievement in the Humanities (2012) |
| Academic background | |
| Alma mater | Stanford University (BA, MA) Harvard University (PhD) |
| Academic work | |
| Discipline | History of religion |
| Institutions | Princeton University Barnard College |
Elaine Pagels, née Hiesey (born February 13, 1943), is an American historian of religion. She is the Harrington Spear Paine Professor of Religion at Princeton University. Pagels has conducted extensive research into early Christianity and Gnosticism.
Her best-selling book The Gnostic Gospels (1979) examines the divisions in the early Christian church, and the way that women have been viewed throughout Jewish history and Christian history. Modern Library named it as one of the 100 best books of the twentieth century.