Thanks for drawing attention to Chilton's review! He did a good job pointing out inconsistencies and anachronisms in Pagels' approach. It was also nice to see his civility in honoring her initial work, despite his sharp disagreement with her. I had also noted the inconsistency that Pagels (and others in her camp) show in trying to compare gnosticism with modern liberalism.

I found two of Chilton's claims surprising: 1) he claims that Paul and some church fathers believed that Jesus' resurrection was spiritual, not physical; and 2) he claims that modern fundamentalism is committed to a gnostic-derived ransom-to-Satan theory of the atonement. That theory does not seem at all common in fundamentalism or evangelicalism, and I have a hard time believing it derived from gnosticism. Didn't it arise within medieval catholicism?

Gary