first known, became known to the world, it was for looking at these what became known as the nostic gospels which changed the story, right, and made it a whole history of religion, early christian religion, messier in some ways. >> much messier. >> much messier. you also write about how hard the reception was at the time, right, disdain in some ways among your peers. i'm wondering where does that stand now? in terms of in the academy or in the kind of -- among historians, is that story more accepted now? >> yes, and there are many stories there. that's a great question. see, i don't think it's a matter of just believing or not believing in something, but when you suddenly find a whole bunch of secret gospels that were censored 1600 years ago and burned, and they're wonderful, some of them, then you can think about it. a lot of people don't know you can think about religion as well as feel about it. to me it's mostly a language of emotion but it's also, as you say, it contains values. it contains perceptions. it contains convictions. this enables us to really think about it very differently.