Simon Magus?

The Sources and Stories of Christianity’s First Archenemy

This book is simple but radical: rather than letting heresy writers define the story of "Simon Magus," it allows The Great Declaration (or Apophasis Megale) to lay the groundwork for Simon and Simonian thought. Building on this foundation, it adds details from other reports and stories about Simon, carefully filtering out the layers of slander and fiction. Simonian Christianity was real, and it evolved in different ways in different regions. The Great Declaration, a gnostic text likely written in Alexandria between 120 and 150 CE, reflects a different form of Simonian thought than what developed in mid-second century Rome and fourth-century Palestine. As our only secure Simonian source, it can serve as a baseline against which we can evaluate later heresiological claims about Simon (the Great Power), Helen (divine Wisdom or Thought), and their ancient followers (Simonians aka Helenians).

Great book - Virtual Audio Not Bad

What an amazing book! I know Simon not just from the Bible, but also some histories of magic - which of course cast Simon as a "magus." Litwa sets out a very plausible portrait of Simon as one of a number of messianic figures in first century Palestine, and delineates some possible texts and sources for a Simonian movement.

Props to Litwa for writing in a modest vein - his picture of Simon is plausible but not "proven." Fair enough. It's still quite provocative,

I'm reminded of Robert Eisenman's book on James the brother Of Jesus - another book that lays out a plausible and provocative alternative picture of the ancient world.

Virtual narrator - for a nonfiction book, Virtual Voice does a pretty good job. It might not work for a novel or an inspirational text - but for an academic tome, this is very easy to listen to (more than some human readers...). The narration is crisp and clear - and the names seem to be pronounced the same as a US narrator might, which is impressive for a book about ancient history. I only heard one glitch (the computer interpreted a dash as meaning "minus" when it was intended as "to" -- as in "from 60-40 BCE".)

For an academic text that otherwise might not be recorded, Virtual Voice is a winner.

voice

I'm sorry, it is a fantastic book with some very good insights. I just didn't like the narrators voice...

Virtual voice reads annoying textual citations

Good research and explanation of Simon Magus' interesting role in early Christianity. Litwa may sound pro-Simon Magus to Christians only familiar with the Acts and Church Fathers, but his approach is scholarly, objective and well-researched. The British-accented Virtual Voice narration is quite understandable, but the many citations (for example: two dot twenty dot thirty; two Core, see eff; eff eff; twelve dot four minus six) interrupt the flow, but sometimes elicit a smile..