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11 - The Gnostic Options

Routes Back to God

from Part III - Contested Heritage

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 August 2023

By
Pheme Perkins
Edited by
Bruce W. Longenecker  and
David E. Wilhite
Bruce W. Longenecker
Affiliation:
Baylor University, Texas
David E. Wilhite
Affiliation:
Baylor University, Texas
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Summary

Classification systems using terminology or a symbolic system that is not intuitive form the basis of scientific “knowledge.” In this system, particularly unusual phenomena are slotted into established patterns. Then, when features that do not fit present themselves, scholars treat them in different ways: (1) scrubbing the anomalous data as individual peculiarity, or as contaminated by some outside influence; (2) engaging in fine-tuning the classification system by subdividing or changing categories or by refining the mathematical analysis; or (3) declaring the entire approach invalid. As scholars have worked to incorporate a growing corpus of Gnostic texts from third- and fourth-century Coptic codices into patristic accounts of Gnostic sects, older heresiological categories do not fit. Some scholars call for dropping the terms “Gnostic” and “Gnosticism,” but the preferred approach remains fine-tuning or revising categories.1 A common variant of “scrubbing data” in this field organizes divergent material from a text into editorial layers added to an original core.

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Chapter
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The Cambridge History of Ancient Christianity , pp. 250 - 275
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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