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The scholarly Elaine Pagels is maybe best known for her work exploring the themes of Christianity that emerged from a collection of ancient texts uncovered near Nag Hammata Egypt in 1945.

These are early and Gnostic writings found sealed in an earthenware jar.

And the books focused more on spiritual and mystical knowledge than institutional religion.

And Pagel's work on them helped to reveal an early Christian landscape that was way more diverse in esoteric than anyone realized.

But before any of all that, Elaine Pagels had a conversion experience. This was in San Francisco at Candlestick Park, where the evangelist

Billy Graham had taken his crusade for Christ. When I was about 14, someone invited me to San Francisco, and I didn't know what we were going to.

I didn't know who this person, Billy Graham was, but we ended up in this massive sports stadium with 18,000 people and an evangelical preacher who is quite charismatic.

Have mercy upon me and Jesus touched him and he was healed.

And he spoke very powerfully about what his faith meant to him.

And then about what you could be born again and have a new life.

And I thought that was great. The son of man has come to seek and save that which was lost and went down with thousands of us.

So I was very overwhelmed with emotion and went down with thousands of other people to be saved and give my heart to Jesus and exactly as he said.

And after that I joined an evangelical church until a moment when I suddenly had to leave that church.

There were some friends of mine who were in a car going very fast, the car flipped, and my friend who was 16, very close friend, was suddenly crushed to death.

And the other two were thrown out of the car.

And it was a tremendous shock to everyone, how somebody that alive and that young and full of

energy and gifts sort of he was an amazing painter was suddenly dead so I went back to the church

and I said my friend has been killed in an accident and they said said, that's terrible.

Was he born again?

And I said, no, he was Jewish.

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