Monographs and Textbooks

• Comparing Christianities: An Introduction to Early Christianity. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2023.

• The Gnostic New Age: How a Countercultural Spirituality Revolutionized Religion. New York: Columbia University Press, 2016. Winner of Figure Foundation award, Best Book published by University Press in Philosophy and Religion.

• Holy Misogyny: Why the Sex and Gender Conflicts in the Early Church Still Matter.  New York: Continuum, 2011. 2013 paper edition with new preface.  

• The Thirteenth Apostle: What the Gospel of Judas Really Says.  London: Continuum, 2007. 2008: Translations published in Dutch and French. 2009: Paper edition expanded and revised.  

• The Original Gospel of Thomas in Translation, with a Commentary and New English Translation of the Complete Gospel. Library of New Testament Studies 287. London: T & T Clark, 2006. 2007: Paper edition.
  

• Recovering the Original Gospel of Thomas: A History of the Gospel and Its Growth. Library of New Testament Studies 286. London: T & T Clark, 2005. 2006: Paper edition.

• Voices of the Mystics: Early Christian Discourse in the Gospels of John and Thomas and Other Ancient Christian Literature. Supplements to the Journal of the Study of the New Testament 157.  Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press and London: T&T Clark, 2001. 2004: Paper edition published in T&T Clark Academic Paperbacks.

• Seek to See Him: Ascent and Vision Mysticism  in  the  Gospel  of Thomas. Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae 33.  Leiden: Brill, 1996. 2017: Paper edition published in Library of Early Christology, Waco: Baylor University Press.

Edited Books

• Gnostic Afterlives in American Religion and Culture.  With Jeffrey J. Kripal. Leiden: Brill, 2021.

• Gnostic Countercultures: Terror and Intrigue. With Lautaro Roig Lanzillotta. Leiden: Brill, 2020.

• Gnosis in America. Part 3: The Gnostic in Popular American Culture. Special Issue of Gnosis: Journal of Gnostic Studies 5.1. With Jeffrey J. Kripal. Leiden: Brill, 2020.

• Gnosis in America. Part 2: (Neo-)Gnostic Movements in America.  Special Issue of Gnosis: Journal of Gnostic Studies 4.2. With Jeffrey J. Kripal. Leiden: Brill, 2019.

• Gnosis in America. Part 1: Theorizing the Gnostic in Modernity. Special Issue of Gnosis: Journal of Gnostic Studies 4.1. With Jeffrey J. Kripal. Leiden: Brill, 2019.

• Gnostic Countercultures.  Special Issue of Gnosis: Journal of Gnostic Studies 1.1-2.  With Lautaro Roig Lanzillotta. Leiden: Brill, 2016.

• Religion: Secret Religion. Macmillan Interdisciplinary Handbooks. Farmington Hills: Gale Cengage Learning, 2016.

• Histories of the Hidden God: Concealment and Revelation in Western Gnostic, Esoteric, and Mystical Traditions.  Gnostica Series.  With Grant Adamson.  Durham: Acumen, 2013.

• Practicing Gnosis: Ritual, Magic, Theurgy and Liturgy in Nag Hammadi, Manichaean and Other Ancient Literature.  Essays in Honor of Birger A. Pearson.  Nag Hammadi and Manichaean Studies 85. With Gregory Shaw and John D. Turner.  Leiden: Brill, 2013.

• The Codex Judas Papers: Proceedings of the International Congress on the Tchacos Codex, Rice University, Houston, Texas, March 13-16, 2008.  Nag Hammadi and Manichaean Studies 71. Leiden: Brill, 2009.

• Israel’s God and Rebecca’s Children: Christology and Community in Early Judaism and Christianity. With David Capes, Helen Bond, and Troy Miller. Waco: Baylor University, 2007.

• Paradise Now: Essays on Early Jewish and Christian Mysticism. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2006.

• Thomasine Traditions in Antiquity: The Social and Cultural World of the Gospel of Thomas. Nag Hammadi and Manichaean Studies 59. With J. Asgeirsson and R. Uro. Leiden: Brill, 2005.

Journal Articles and Book Chapters

• “Eugnostos and The Sophia of Jesus Christ as Third-Century Ecumenical Gnostic Christofictions.” Gnosis: Journal of Gnostic Studies 10: 1-45, 2025.

• “The Gnostic Imagination and Its Imaginaries.” Gnosis: Journal of Gnostic Studies 8: 144-166, 2023.

• “Mani’s Ascendancy: Revelatory Events and the Emergence of a New Religious Movement in Antiquity.” Pages 123-142 in The Medinet Madi Library of Manichaean Codices at 90: Papers from the Symposium at the Chester Beatty Library in Dublin, 18-19 October 2019. Edited by Jason BeDuhn, Paul Dilley, and Iain Gardner. Leiden: Brill, 2023.

• “Artifact Migration and the Transport of Ancient Knowledge into Modernity: The Role of Human Cognition in the Process of Immigration.” Pages 33-65 in The Dead Sea Scrolls and Nag Hammadi. Edited by Dylan Burns and Matthew Goff. Nag Hammadi and Manichaean Studies. Leiden: Brill, 2022.

• “Keeping Secrets: The Social Practice of Gnostic Secrecy.” Pages 131-150 in The Routledge Handbook of Religion and Secrecy.  Edited by Hugh B. Urban and Paul Christopher Johnson.  London: Routledge, 2022.

• “The Sociology of Gnostic Spirituality.” Pages 15-71 in Gnostic Afterlives in American Religion and Culture.  Edited by April D. DeConick and Jeffrey J. Kripal.  Leiden: Brill, 2021.

• “Going Back to College: The Survival of Unitarian Universalism Depends on It.” In Educating Humanists: The Challenge of Sustaining Communities in the Contemporary Era. Studies in Humanism and Atheism.  Edited by William David Hart. Spring Nature Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2021.

• “Gnosis/Gnosticism.” 6,110 words. Brill Encyclopedia of Early Christianity Online. https://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/brill-encyclopedia-of-early-christianity-online/gnosisgnosticism-SIM_00001439, 2020.

• “The One God is No Simple Matter.” Pages 263-292 in Monotheism and Christology in Greco-Roman Antiquity. Edited by Matthew Novenson. Supplements to Novum Testamentum 180. Leiden: Brill, 2020.

• “Traumatic Mysteries: Pathways of Mysticism among the Early Christians.” Pages 11-51 in Jewish Roots of Eastern Christian Mysticism: Studies in Honor of Alexander Golitzin.  Edited by Andrei A. Orlov. Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae 160. Leiden: Brill, 2020.

• “The Sociology of Gnostic Spirituality.” Gnosis: Journal of Gnostic Studies 4.1: 9-66, 2019.

• “Mentoring Women as Women: An Autobiographical Reflection.” Pages 261-274 in Women and the Society of Biblical Literature.  Edited by Nicole L. Tilford. Biblical Scholarship in North America 29.  Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature Press, 2019.   

• “Introduction: The Gnostic Flip in the Mandaean Book of John.”  Pages 13-20 in The Mandaean Book of John: Critical Edition, Translation, and Commentary.  Edited by Charles G. Häberl and James F. McGrath. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2019.

• “Deviant Christians: Romanization and Esoterization as Social Strategies for Survival Among Early Christians.” Gnosis: Journal of Gnostic Studies 3.2: 135-76, 2018.

• “Naturally Supernatural.” Religion, Brain and Behavior 8: 1-36, 2018.

• “Soul Flights: Cognitive Ratcheting and the Problem of Comparison.” Aries: Journal for the Study of Western Esotericism 17: 81-118, 2017.

• “The Countercultural Gnostic: Turning the World Upside Down and Inside Out.”  Gnosis: Journal of Gnostic Studies 1: 7-35, 2016.

• “Introduction: Religion in the Margins.” Pages xv-xxxviii in Religion: Secret Religion. Macmillan Interdisciplinary Handbooks. Farmington Hills: Gale Cengage Learning, 2016.

• “Early Christian Mysticism.” Pages 69-80 in The Cambridge Handbook of Western Mysticism and Esotericism. Edited by Glenn Alexander Magee. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016.

• “Criticisms, Debates, Futures: The Historical Method and Cognitive Historicism.” Pages 383-406 in Religion: Social Religion. Edited by William B. Parsons. Macmillan Interdisciplinary Handbooks.  Farmington Hills: Gale Cengage Learning, 2016.

• "Secret Religion: The Challenge from the Margins." Pages 93-106 in Religion: Sources, Perspectives, and Methodologies.  Macmillan Interdisciplinary Handbooks. Volume 1. Edited by Jeffrey J. Kripal.  Farmington Hills: Gale Cengage Learning, 2016.

• "Review of Dylan M. Burns, Apocalypse of the Alien God: Platonism and the Exile of Sethian Gnosticism." Vigiliae Christianae 69: 447-451, 2015.

• “Escape From the Wheel of Time: The Cognitive Basis for Gnostic Ascent Practices.”  Pages 1-29 in The Open Mind: Essays in Honour of Christopher Rowland.  Edited by Jonathan Knight and Kevin Sullivan. London: T&T Clark, 2014.

• “Crafting Gnosis: Gnostic Spirituality in the Ancient New Age.”  Pages 285-308 in Gnosticism, Platonism and the Late Antique World: Essays in Honour of John D. Turner.  Edited by Kevin Corrigan and Tuomas Rasimus.  Nag Hammadi and Manichaean Studies 82.  Leiden: Brill, 2013.

• “Why are the Heavens Closed? The Johannine Revelation of the Father in the Catholic-Gnostic Debate.” Pages 147-179 in John’s Gospel and Intimations of Apocalyptic.  Edited by Catrin H. Williams and Christopher Rowland. London: T&T Clark, 2013.

• “Who is hiding in the Gospel of John?  Reconceptualizing Johannine theology and the roots of Gnosticism.”  Pages 13-29 in Histories of the Hidden God: Concealment and Revelation in Western Gnostic, Esoteric, and Mystical Traditions.  Edited by April DeConick and Grant Adamson.  Gnostica Series.  Durham: Acumen, 2013.

• “The Road for the Souls is through the Planets: The Mysteries of the Ophians Mapped.”  Pages 37-74 in Practicing Gnosis: Ritual, Magic, Theurgy and Liturgy in Nag Hammadi, Manichaean and Other Ancient Literature.  Essays in Honor of Birger A. Pearson.  Edited by April D. DeConick, Gregory Shaw and John D. Turner.  Nag Hammadi and Manichaean Studies 85. Leiden: Brill, 2013.

• The Memorial Mary Meets the Historical Mary: The Many Faces of the Magdalene in Ancient Christianity.”  Pages 267-290 in The Tomb of Jesus and His Family? Exploring Ancient Jewish Tombs Near Jerusalem’s Walls. Edited by James H. Charlesworth.  Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2013.

• “Gnostic Spirituality at the Crossroads of Christianity: Transgressing Boundaries and Creating Orthodoxy”.  Pages in Beyond the Gnostic Gospels: Studies Building on the Work of Elaine Pages.  Edited by Eduard Iricinschi, Lance Jenott, Nicola Denzey Lewis and Philippa Townsend.   Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013.

• “Gospel of Thomas.” Entry for The Encyclopedia of Ancient History.  Wiley Online Library, 2013.

• “From the Bowels of Hell to Draco: The Mysteries of the Peratics.”  Pages 3-38 in Mystery and Secrecy in the Nag Hammadi Collection and Other Ancient Literature: Ideas and Practices.  Studies for Einar Thomassen at Sixty.  Edited by Christian H. Bull, Liv Ingeborg Lied, and John D. Turner.  Nag Hammadi and Manichaean Studies 76.  Leiden: Brill, 2012.

• “How the Mother God Got Spayed.” Biblical Archaeology Review 38 (September/October): 26 and 63, 2012.

• “Mysticism Before Mysticism: Teaching Christian Mysticism as Historian of Religion.” Pages 26-45 in Teaching Mysticism.  Edited by William B. Parsons.  Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011.

• “After the Gospel of Judas: Reassessing What We Have Known to Be True about Cain and Judas.”  Pages 627-662 in “In Search of Truth”:  Augustine, Manichaeism and other Gnosticism. Edited by J.A. van den Berg, et al.  Nag Hammadi and Manichaean Studies 74.  Leiden: Brill, 2011.

• “Jesus Revealed: The Dynamics of Early Christian Mysticism.” Pages 299-324 in With Letters of Light: Studies in the Dead Sea Scrolls, Early Jewish Apocalypticism, Magic, and Mysticism.  Edited by D.V. Arbel and A.A. Orlov. Ekstasis 2.  Berlin: DeGruyter, 2010.

• “Apostles as Archons: The Fight for Authority and the Emergence of Gnosticism in the Tchacos Codex and Other Early Christian Literature.” Pages 243-288 in The Codex Judas Papers: : Proceedings of the International Congress on the Tchacos Codex, Rice University, Houston, Texas, March 13-16, 2008. Edited by April D. DeConick. Nag Hammadi and Manichaean Studies 71. Leiden: Brill, 2009.

• “Transgressive Gnosis: Radical Thinking about the Gospel of Judas.” Pages 555-570 in Gnosis and Revelation:  Ten Studies on Codex Tchacos.  Edited by M. Scopello.  Rivista di Storia e Letteratura Religiosa 44:3, 2008.

• “The Mystery of Betrayal:  What Does the Gospel of Judas Really Say?” Pages 239-266 in The Gospel of Judas in Context. Proceedings of the First International Conference on the Gospel of Judas.  Edited by M. Scopello. Nag Hammadi and Manichaean Studies 62.  Leiden: Brill, 2008.

• “Gnostic Letters from Bilthoven.” Pages xv-xxi in Gnostica, Judaica, Catholica. Collected Essays of Gilles Quispel. Edited by J. van Oort. Nag Hammadi and Manichaean Studies 55. Leiden: Brill, 2008.

• “Human Memory and the Sayings of Jesus: Contemporary Experimental Exercises in the Transmission of Jesus Traditions.”  Pages 135-180 in Jesus, the Voice, and the Text: Beyond The Oral and the Written Gospel. Edited by T. Thatcher. Waco: Baylor University Press, 2008.

• “Conceiving Spirits. The Mystery of Valentinian Sex.” Pages 23-48 in Hidden Intercourse:  Eros and Sexuality in Western Esotericism. Edited by W. Hanegraaff and J. Kripal. Leiden: Brill, 2008.

• “The Gospel of Thomas.” Pages 13-29 in The Non-Canonical Gospels. Edited by P. Foster London: T&T Clark. 2008. Reprint from Expository Times 2007.

• “The Gospel of Judas: A Parody of Apostolic Christianity.” Pages 96-109 in The Non-Canonical Gospels. Edited by Paul Foster. London: T&T Clark, 2008.

• “Mysticism in the Gospel of Thomas.” Pages 206-221 in Das Thomasevangelium: Entstehung-Rezeption-Theologie. Edited by Jörg Frey, et al. BZNW 157. Berlin: DeGruyter, 2008.

• “How We Talk about Christology Matters.” Pages 1-23 in Israel’s God and Rebecca’s Children: Christology and Community in Early Judaism and Christianity. Edited by David Capes, April D. DeConick, Helen Bond, and Troy Miller.  Waco: Baylor University Press, 2007.

• “The Gospel of Thomas.” Expository Times 118: 469-479, 2007.

• “Corrections to the Critical Reading of the Gospel of Thomas.” Vigiliae Christianae 60: 201-208, 2006.

• “What is Early Jewish and Christian Mysticism?” Pages 1-26 in Paradise Now: Essays on Early Jewish and Christian Mysticism. Symposium Series 11.  Edited by April D. DeConick.  Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2006.

• “On the Brink of the Apocalypse: A Preliminary Examination of the Earliest Speeches in the Gospel of Thomas.”  Pages 93-118 in Thomasine Traditions in Antiquity: The Social and Cultural World of the Gospel of Thomas.  Edited by J. Asgeirsson, A.D. DeConick, and R. Uro.  Nag Hammadi and Manichaean Studies 59. Leiden: Brill, 2005.

• “Reading the Gospel of Thomas as a Repository of Communal Memory.” Pages 207-220 in Memory, Tradition, and Text: Uses of the Past in Early Christianity.  Edited by A. Kirk and T. Thatcher.  Semeia 52.  Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2005.

• “The Great Mystery of Marriage: Sex and Conception in Ancient Valentinian Traditions.” Vigiliae Christianae 57: 307-342, 2003.

• “The Original Gospel of Thomas.” Vigiliae Christianae: 167-199, 2002.

• “The True Mysteries: Sacramentalism in the Gospel of Philip.” Vigiliae Christianae 55: 225-261, 2001.

• “John Rivals Thomas: From Community Conflict to Gospel Narrative.” Pages 303-312 in Jesus in Johannine Tradition: New Directions.  Edited by T. Thatcher and R. Fortna. Westminster John Knox Press, 2001.

• “Heavenly Temple Traditions and Valentinian Worship: A Case for First-Century Christology in the Second Century.” Pages 308-341 in Historical Origins of the Worship of Jesus Conference Volume, St. Andrews, Scotland 1998. Edited by J. Davila and C. Newman. Supplements to Journal for Study of Judaism. Leiden: Brill, 1999.

• “‘Blessed are those who have not seen’ (John 20:29): Johannine Dramatization of an Early Christian Discourse.”  Pages 381-398 in The Nag Hammadi Library after Fifty Years, Proceedings of the 1995 Society of Biblical Literature Commemoration.  Edited by J. Turner and A. McGuire. Nag Hammadi and Manichaean Studies 44. Leiden: Brill, 1997.

• “The Dialogue of the Savior and the Mystical Sayings of Jesus.” Vigiliae Christianae 50: 178-199, 1996.

• “Stripped before God: A New Interpretation of  Logion  37  in  the Gospel  of  Thomas.” With Jarl Fossum. Vigiliae Christianae 45: 123-150, 1991.

• “The Yoke Saying  in  the  Gospel  of  Thomas 90.” Vigiliae Christianae  44: 280-294, 1990.