Elaine Hiesey Pagels (born 1943), historian of religion, was a leading interpreter of the Nag Hammadi gnostic texts and their implications for understanding the origins and development of Christianity.

Elaine Hiesey Pagels was born on February 13, 1943, in Palo Alto, California, daughter of William McKinley and Louise Sophia (Boogaert) Hiesey. She received both her B.A. (1964) and M.A. (1965) from Stanford University and her Ph.D. from Harvard University (1970). Pagels joined the faculty of the department of religion of Barnard College, Columbia University, as an assistant professor in 1970. She was promoted to associate professor in 1974 and to full professor in 1976. She joined the faculty of Princeton University in 1982 as Harrington Spear Paine Foundation professor of religion. Among the honors and fellowships accorded her were a Rockefeller fellowship (1978-1979), a Guggenheim fellowship (1979-1980), and the MacArthur Prize fellowship (1980-1985).

In 1969 she married Heinz R. Pagels, a theoretical physicist. The couple had...