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There were two separate substantive attacks on Pagels and her seminal work The Gnostic Gospels. The first was published in America, Feb 16,1980 written by Joseph Fitzmyer S.J. Throughout the next twenty five years (1980 to 2005) many scholars accused Pagels of shoddy scholarship twisting the writings of the Gnostics to suit her agenda. Theses can be accessed whenever she had a new book published especially Beyond Belief which was called by some as “How I Pay the Rent”.
Pagels was accused of scholarly fraud in 2006 by Paul Mankowski S.J.a Jesuit scholar in the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome He stated that Pagels in the Gnostic Gospels constructed a quotation from Irenaeus by omitting critical words to alter meaning. There were several other examples given where her duplicity was alleged.