Celene Lillie, The Rape of Eve: Early Christian Texts of Resistance

The Nag Hammadi library discovered in 1945 has provided a number of alternative Christian texts.   They were not included in the Bible. Dr. Celene Lillie discusses three of these texts in her book, The Rape of Eve:  The Transformation of Roman ideology in Three Early Christian Retellings of Genesis. In each of these texts, “On the Origin of the World,” “The Reality of the Rulers,” and “The Secret Revelation of John,” Eve is portrayed as having been humiliated by the cosmic powers but experiences restoration.    They have been dismissed by many orthodox Christians as Gnostic or even heresy.     New scholarship has discovered that these texts are quite complex, even playful, as they provide alternative myths to the founding myths of Rome.  She sees these Nag Hammadi stories are myths of resistance to Roman imperial power and to Rome’s culture of rape and domination.      Dr. Lillie is the director of the Tanho Center in Longmont, Colorado.  The Tanho Center is dedicated to the exploration of the many discoveries of texts from the earliest Christ movements. The Tanhoe Center incorporates recently discovered texts into contemporary practices.  Dr. Lillie was the Director of Translations for A New New Testament:  A Bible for the 21st Century Combining Traditional and Newly Discovered Texts and the coauthor of The Thunder: Perfect Mind:  A New Translation and Introduction.