Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1971. / Typescript. Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliography.

Thesis (M.C.S.)--Regent College, Vancouver, BC, 2001. / Abstract and vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 195-200).

Thesis (M.A.E.T.)--Covenant Theological Seminary, 2005. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 76-78).

This dissertation is a response to the call for the application of sociological methods to the study of Gnosticism. It treats the economic and social origins of Gnosticism as a case study in the sociology of religious movements and situates Gnosticism in relation to the social and psychological dislocations produced by the expansion of the Roman Empire. In particular, it examines the transformation in the mode of production in Egypt during the Ptolemaic and early Roman periods, and correlates changes in economic conditions to changes in outlook and ideology amongst a stratum of upper-class, Hellenized but disenfranchised Jewish intellectuals. It traces many Gnostic themes to Jewish origins, and links the emphasis on individualism in Gnostic ethos, behaviour and social organization to the process of economic privatization in Ptolemaic-Roman Egypt. Finally, the dissertation addresses the dialectical relationship between culture and consciousness in terms of the anomie and fragmentation of the Egyptian Jewish community.

Thesis (Th. M.)--St. Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary, 2008. / Description based on microfiche version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 206-220).

Thesis (Th. M.)--Dallas Theological Seminary, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 53-55).

Thesis (M. Div.)--Holy Cross-Greek Orthodox School of Theology, 1994. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 56-60).

Thesis (Th. M.)--St. Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 206-220).

Scholars have long noted the number of similarities that seem to exist between Gnosticism and Jewish Apocalypticism. Numerous hypotheses have been suggested to account for them, but no one has yet attempted to examine these similarities in detail in order to define what it is that makes Apocalypticism apocalyptic and Gnosticism gnostic in spite of these similarities. The present work is an attempt to define, examine and classify these similarities by comparing the two systems. For it is our working hypothesis that such similarities can only be characterized when they are examined in terms of their function and form within their respective systems. Consequently, a number of similarities are traced through the concepts of world, God, man and salvation that exemplify both systems. First, we note, many of those similar features, i.e. motifs, mytholo-gumena and attitudes that characterize both movements such as the importance of Wisdom, the Primal Parents, and the anti-godly powers, to name but a few. Such common features, while interesting, are significant only when they are examined in terms of their function. Here we find that both systems do use many of the same features to serve the same function. Both systems are attempts to provide a soteriological theodicy, i.e. a theodicy which itself functions to bring man salvation even as it is revealed to him. But it is in terms of form that the distinction between Gnosticism and Apocalypticism is finally to be made. Both systems are dualistic in form, yet each has its own type of dualistic expression. Gnosticism is ontologically dualistic while Apocalypticism is ethically and eschatologically dualistic. As a result the common features appear in both systems in ways that are consistent with their respective forms (dualisms). The Gnostic thus rejects world understood as matter while the Apocalyptist rejects world understood as history. Thus it is in examining both systems as systems that we find that Apocalypticism and Gnosticism maintain a consistent correspondence in features, form and function. Although such a correspondence does not in itself provide proof of an historical relationship between the two systems, it does demonstrate that Apocalypticism was the Jewish counterpart of Gnosticism and so may well deserve being categorized as a Jewish Gnosis.

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