Miracles and Wonder: The Historical Mystery of Jesus by Elaine Pagels; Doubleday, 336 pp., $30
Elaine Pagels is the great popularizer of early Christian history. In books such as The Gnostic Gospels (1979), The Origin of Satan (1995), and Revelations (2012), she has documented both long-repressed and still-influential strains of belief, and sometimes explored in personal terms the draws of religion and spirituality. As a translator of the Greek and Roman pagan classics myself, who has crossed over on a few occasions to translate and comment on sacred literature, I find her diverse and digestible discussions of canonical texts generally quite helpful. But in Miracles and Wonder, Pagels is so uncommitted to the results of objective analysis as to make me wonder whether she is fearful of hurting the feelings and inviting the wrath of religious conservatives.
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