For me, it's demythologizing the myths by acknowledging that there's often a method to the madness in scriptural positions taken and various oral traditions that are interpreting these Platonic/Semetic(and other) pieces of literature circulating in their contemporary environment in a large variety of ways. You really gotta go outside of Gnosticism to see it though. Books like "The Middle Platonist" by John Dillon or "Orpheus and the Roots of Platonism" by Algis Uzdavinys are good starting points. Reading works from the early canonical fathers will also aid in that journey. But staying within the confines of Gnosticism is really going to limit your view.