From my journal notes in 2005, when I read this book. It was a new acquisition at my previous place of work. Though I am not religious, I always strive to read items about religion to learn more about others as well as about history:

>>This Gospel, along with others, was suppressed by the mainstream church for being against dogma. Yet, upon reading this book, one gets such a better sense of the roots of Christianity, and those roots were for inclusiveness and more egalitarian roles for men and women. Fascinating on the view of the divine as balanced between male and female, and the concept of the nuptial chamber as the holy of holies certainly counters the repressive dogma of mainstream Christianity of sex as sinful. Sex between two people who love each other is not only beautiful, but is an expression of the divine. That Pope Innocent III (1160-1216) stated that "the sexual act is so shameful that it is intrinsically evil" is just repression and hypocrisy at its worst, a "power trip" that seems to get away from nature and likely from Jesus's teachings. After all, Jesus was human as well as divine. If he was human, why would he not love a woman? And even if he did not love Mary Magdalene, would Jesus really condemn married couples and the nature of love? Probably not, and this book seems to make Jesus closer to humans as well as more loving, and the sexual act of love as the beautiful expression it is. That some arrogant pope and a few males seeking to keep their power made such horrible pronouncements that have led so many to feel guilty or dirty over something natural is simply terrible, and in my view, at least, unconscionable. . . . The book overall was good with a solid introduction to put the text in context, and the text itself is short, simple, yet thought provoking. You really get a sense of how early Christians, some at least, were like.<<