April DeConick: Where Did Gnostic Ideas Come From? – Shirley Paulsen‘s YouTube Channel hosts April DeConick who theorizes about how gnostic ideas that emerged as a concept in antiquity keep reproducing themselves within different environments. This is one of the things that propelled religion toward its therapeutic aspect and individual relations to God. It came about during the desperate time of harsh Roman occupation, when people felt let down by their gods. Looking for some divine justice, they imagined a new kind of relationship to God, as children of God. Dr. April DeConick holds the Isla Carroll and Percy E. Turner Professorship in New Testament and Early Christianity at Rice University, Department of Religion.
Two paragraphs below by Marko Marina, Ph.D. at https://www.bartehrman.com/gospel-of-mary-magdalene/
Antti Marjanen, who once considered the gospel [Gospel of Mary Magdalene] Gnostic (check out his book The Woman Jesus Loved), later revised his view, suggesting in an essay published in 2002 that, without this key element, the Gospel of Mary Magdalene can’t be fully classified as Gnostic.
He notes: I have redefined my conception of Gnosticism such that I no longer regard the ‘Gospel of Thomas’, the ‘Dialogue of the Savior,’ and the ‘Gospel of Mary’ as gnostic. Even if the anthropology and the soteriology of these writings correspond to that of Gnosticism (or Platonism) with the emphasis on the return of the preexistent soul to the realm of light as a sign of ultimate salvation, none of these writings contains the other central feature of Gnosticism. They do not contain the idea of a cosmic world created by an evil and/or ignorant demiurge. (Emphasis mine)
