Michael Allen Williams is Professor of Comparative Religion at the University of Washington, and is currently chair of the Department of Near East Languages and Civilization. He is also the author of The Immovable Race: A Gnostic Designation and the Theme of Stability in Late Antiquity and co-editor, with Collett Cox and Martin Jaffee, of Innovation in Religious Traditions: Essays in the Interpretation of Religious Change.
"Rare is the book on gnosticism that is thoroughly grounded in the
primary sources in the ancient languages, widely conversant with
the secondary literature, controlled and sophisticated in its
historical method--and still intelligible and interesting, not only
for experts in its field, but also for religious historians and
educated readers in general. Michael Williams's Rethinking
`Gnosticism' is such a book. It is essential reading for scholars
of ancient Christianity and for anyone who wishes to use the terms
`gnostic' and `gnosticism,' but it can be read with profit by all
historians concerned with issues of methodology in studying
religious people of the past."
*Church History*
"There can hardly be a category more misused in contemporary
scholarly and not-so-scholarly discourse than `gnosticism,' so it
was probably inevitable that a serious scholar would come along
with an argument for the abandonment of the category altogether. In
this provocative book Williams does just that."
*Religious Studies Review*
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