The Gospel of Judas

[Jnyusa]

Thank you, Faramond.

By the way, historians also consider the reason given for why Joseph and Mary were in Bethlehem to be absurd, and they usually conclude that Jesus was really born in Nazareth.

If Herod could be removed from the picture it would simplify things quite a bit! But I honestly don't know where scholars place the probable birth of Jesus ... in what year, you know.

I'm trying to remember what the whole story with Herod was ... there was a census, right? And also a story about his killing the male children? - but perhaps that is a carry-over from the story of Moses.

Kushana had written something else on TORC, which I did not copy, about the early Christians using OT stories and inserting NT actors into them because the OT was the only text they had available and they had to use it somehow to tell the story of Jesus. So something like the Moses story would be a good carry-over, and Herod was infamous enough to be recognizable to the listeners generations after his death.

Scholars also believe that the Gospels we now have were all written at least 40 years after the events of the Gospels.

Yes, that is my understanding too. I am not as dismissive of oral history, though, as modern thought in general might be. People who rely on oral history have tools for maintaining the faithfulness of the story. It's not the game of 'telephone' as typically portrayed.
Jn

[Kushana]

I'm here to report that the standard, scholarly edition of the Gospel of Judas (complete with about life-sized photos by National Geographic) will be published this coming Spring. (In fact, it will not be the be-all-end-all edition that such scholarly editions are supposed to be: there are still fragments that need to find a home (one with an ancient page number: 108) and additional pages of the codex currently held up in a lawsuit. ) The scholars in charge of the project would rather have the book out and available for study by everyone, as soon as possible ... the ability to take endless pains for completeness has delayed past translations by decades (or sometimes forever. ) The National Geographic team is anxious to do the right thing and publish promptly.

There are, as previously announced, three other texts in Codex Tchacos: the only second copy of First Apocalypse of James (Meyer, one of the translators of the Gospel of Judas, did his dissertation on this text -- so he's a good person to translate it), the only second copy of the Letter of Peter to Philip, and a new work called Allogenes (The Stranger. ) We know of the first two from the Nag Hammadi Library, the last one is new, just as Judas is.

I'm most excited about the photos. Nearly all of the other scholarly photos I've worked with are in black and white -- very clear, but it can be hard to tell apart a dark patch on the papyrus (or parchment), an ink blot, a bit of dark backdrop, and the detail of a letter or word you're trying to make out. Color photos will help -- and the ones published already in National Geographic were *beautiful* -- beautiful, detailed, and clear.

Frankly, I can't wait.

I may also have mentioned a codex discovered near Luxor ny a Polish archaeological expedition (I nearly went blind trying to read the one newspaper photo of it I could find. ) That will be a bit longer in coming: it got damp (or wet) at some point and now most of its pages are a solid paper-mache brick. (Papyrus wasn't made with glue, but with the sticky sap of the plant itself ... wetting it and putting it under pressure (as in a book binding) would replicate the process used to layer individual pages -- with the entire book. ) Word is the discoverers are hoping a future technology will allow reading/spearating the pages without damaging them.

-Kushana

[axordil]

Word is the discoverers are hoping a future technology will allow reading/spearating the pages without damaging them.

Hmmm...fine enough MRI scans could do that in theory, but only if the pigments of the MS had the right stuff in them to make them stand out.

The scholars in charge of the project would rather have the book out and available for study by everyone, as soon as possible ... the ability to take endless pains for completeness has delayed past translations by decades (or sometimes forever.

I think they're doing the right thing. It can always be amended later when the other materials are available. Thanks so much for the update!

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Thanks for the report, Kushana!

It's always a pleasure to see you here.

[Jnyusa]

Jn

[Kushana]

Hmmm...fine enough MRI scans could do that in theory, but only if the pigments of the MS had the right stuff in them to make them stand out.

Lamp soot, water, and some kind of glue or binder -- probably not. Certainly we can hope, though!

I think they're doing the right thing. It can always be amended later when the other materials are available. Thanks so much for the update!

I think they are, too -- after all, they were trained by the very generation that chafed under the prior monopolies (and they experienced most of the Dead Sea Scroll one, themselves. )

You're welcome. It's good to see both of you. The book is coming along well, if slowly....

-Kushana

[Kushana]

The publication of the critical edition (a revised translation, a revised transcription of the Coptic, with an index to the Coptic, and full photos done by National Geographic) has evidently been delayed, again. My best guess is that this is the reason:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news ... judas.html

The only other thing I have learned is this -- go to this page,


http://www.nationalgeographic.com/lostg ... ument.html

go to the top left corner of the page, and blow up the first few lines of the text on page 33 as large as they'll go. See how faded the ink is? That's strange, I've never seen ink fade like that ... well, it's because some well-intentioned antiquities dealer froze the codex. (Hoping to preserve it, I suppose.) This caused the layers of papyrus to separate ... including the layers with ink on them ... i.e. the ink is just lost. Evidently much of the text is like this and the official team's transcription may be worth more than the photos to other scholars -- ancient texts are clearer in person, and there are little (non harmful) tricks one can do to see the ink more clearly that won't work with photos.

Also, Dr. Karen King and Dr. Elaine Pagels should be putting out a book on GJudas in early March 2007.

Yours,
Kushana

[Kushana]

I am most of the way through Dr. Elaine Pagels and Dr. Karen King's new book Reading Judas. Is anyone else reading it? It is a good book, and talks about many complex things in an accurate and readable way ... but I am not sure of their main thesis that GJudas was written in a time of persecution. I wish they could show me where and when GJudas was written and that persecution was going on at that time and in that place.

(I have been picking through GJudas in Coptic, this Spring, and while it's clear the author of GJudas is angry about something (Jesus sounds more sarcastic in the original; refreshing, really), the dreams King and Pagels point to are difficult and highly symbolic ... and the text is neither complete nor always easy to translate. (For example, the word translated as "sacrifice" isn't at all the normal Coptic way of talking about animal sacrifices. And what Pagels and King understand as the eucharist at the start of the text in Coptic is a clunky terms that means something like "doing godly style stuff" -- not the normal term for "eucharist" or "prayer" or anything I can make heads or tails of.))

Reading the GJudas is a bit like turning on a (somewhat staticy) talk radio show where a caller is so angry -- and has launched into some personal, off-the-cuff analogy -- that it's hard to sort out the concrete matter there fulminating about. "OK, something religious... mad at the Twelve... Why?"

I remember how little we could once make of the Dead Sea Scrolls, they just seemed like strange ranting that had little to do with what we understood of the Judaism of the time. With only 15 years of comprehensive work on the Scrolls we've made a lot of sense out of them and they no longer seem half so strange -- I am sure the same will happen with GJudas and the other texts in its codex.

Yours,
Kushana

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I would like to read Pagel's and King's book, but I'm afraid it might be over my head. What do you think, Kushana? Is it written in a way that a layperson would get much out of it?

[Kushana]

I would like to read Pagel's and King's book ... Is it written in a way that a layperson would get much out of it?

Very much so, Dr. Pagels has specialized in writing about arcana for the non-arcanist for her entire career. Their book was very clear and I kept wishing *I'd* written this or that paragraph. (So far I don't have the sense that scholars are much interested in it, perhaps because it is non-technical. I try to read everything. )

At Dr. Meyer's talk, recently, he spoke on what our proper business is, as scholars -- should we look down at those of us who do interviews and write books an ordinary person can actually read? Is it our job to just talk to each other, really? (Sorry, he asked both questions more neutrally than I just did; the idea of shutting ourselves up in a tower makes me increacingly irritable.)

I'm being nipped at by a publisher, so let me be lazy for a moment and merely repost what I said elsewhere about Meyer's talk:
_____________________________________________________________

I recently heard a lecture by Prof. Meyer on the making of the Discovery Channel documentary on the Gospel of Judas. They wanted Dr. Meyer to say a certain cave was the exact discovery site: he would not do so. The forbid him to use the terms "Barbelo" (Divine Wisdom) or "Sethian Gnostic", although he was glad to take the airtime to explain both. (Both are among the first few things one must explain about the Gospel of Judas, after the fact that Judas would have been dead at least a century by the time it was written. )

Dr. Meyer is, bless his heart, still enthusiastic about the Gospel of Judas after a year of doing most of the English-language publicity on it America and Asia. (The rest of the National Geographic team speak French and German, primarilly.) He has made his career as a translator and a specialist on Gnosticism, his delight over the discovery of the Gospel of Judas is informed and complex -- but I can see how the media could portray or edit into something else. (Meyer has no interest in discovering the ipsissima verba of Judas Iscariot or in making a theological statement: I imagine he is happiest to have a second copy of the text he did his dissertation on (The Letter of Peter to Philip, if memory serves), a matter I've scarely seen mentioned in all the past year's publicity.)

Also, Dr. Meyer says the critical edition of the Gospel of Judas, with photos, should be published this year. There have been two conferences on it already, the first of which will publish its proceedings. I am proud for my profession that there are already two conflicting points of view on the text: one that holds that the author of "Judas" wished to completely refurbish Iscariot's reputation, the other which holds that Judas is only partly rewarded for his deeds. (He gets to ascend not to Heaven but to the realm of the lesser misguided being that created the world: a Gnostic booby prize.)

Dr. Meyer also spoke on speaking to the media and who owns a scholar's work: their employer or the scholar, themsevles. (*kof* National Geographic's lawyers called him once they noticed Prof. King's translation of the Gospel of Judas in her and Pagels' current book. Meyer gave her his working notes on the Coptic of the Gospel of Judas from the forthcoming critical edition: in scholarship that's the polite and collegial thing to do.) We've experienced the horn of scholars being too posessive of their own translation work with the Dead Sea Scrolls, now perhaps we're seeing the other horn of the dillema.
_____________________________________________________________

I have yet to see any book on the Gospel of Judas that I wouldn't recommended to anyone interested in the topic: the Paris conference volume will be tougher going, but it's not out yet.

-Kushana

[Kushana]

I tried to review Dr. Karen King and Dr. Elaine Pagels' book on the Gospel of Judas, Reading Judas. It isn't much of a review: I kept stopping myself and writing things down in my "Articles to Write" notebook (don't worry, you're only missing out on the fine details of how Sethian Gnosticism worked as a theology given the new evidence GJudas offers.) To read what I did write (including the authors' speaking to the claim they want to tinker with the New Testament), see:

http://kushanasbiblequestionpage.com/20 ... judas.aspx

To understand my question about Dr. Bock and Coptic, see:

http://kushanasbiblequestionpage.com/20 ... redux.aspx

(I wanted a place where I wouldn't put people to sleep when they were, rightly, expecting a perfectly good conversation about Tolkien. BTW, the chapter-by-chapter Silm thread is deeply wonderful.)

-Kushana

[Voronwë the Faithful]

BTW, the chapter-by-chapter Silm thread is deeply wonderful.)

Wow, there's some unexpectedly high praise!

[Kushana]

National Geographic Books is publishing for the first time the complete Coptic text, with English and French translations, of Codex Tchacos, the remarkable, 1,700-year-old papyrus manuscript that contains the Gospel of Judas and three other ancient texts.

To read more:
http://press.nationalgeographic.com/pre ... 0978801525

It promises to be a lovely book, I recommend taking a glance at the photos.

-Kushana

[solicitr]

Is anyone besides me rather disturbed by the tone of the press hype surrounding this discovery? While this is undoubtedly the most exciting find in years to a small community of specialist scholars, the press seems to be unaware of or purposefully reticent about GJ's context: no mention at all in most reports of the Christian Gnostic tradition and the plethora of "gospels" that community produced for its own didactic purposes. Instead you get Da Vinci Code-esque hints of ancient conspiracies and 'suppressing the truth.'

[Kushana]

Dear solicitr,

I love your .sig quote.

Is anyone besides me rather disturbed by the tone of the press hype surrounding this discovery?

/K. brushes her skirt and sits down

About a month ago, I had the good fortune to hear a member of the official National Geographic translation team speak to just this issue: he's rather disturbed himself. The entire subject of his talk (to a roomful of scholars) was exactly all the issues that get in the way of a scholar saying what is complex and truthful about such an find. (Presuming one isn't trying to be a sensationalist, like the folk behind the Jesus Tomb hoopla.)
He mentioned:

1) Exaggeration

(The director of the cable documentary wanted him to say, "This is the very cave where the Gospel of Judas was found!" It wasn't: he wouldn't. (Although the discoverer did say they were in the right ballpark...)

(Also, he highly suspected the cave had been 'enhanced' by props and set decoration: it was mighty well furnished with artifacts, unusually so... the documentary folks said nooo, it hadn't been set decorated....)

2) Censorship

(He'd given interviews where the folk had turned off the camera: "You can't use the words 'Sethian Gnosticism.'" "You can't use the word 'Barbelo' -- we won't start the interview back up again until you say it some other way and don't use that word at all, you'll scare off our viewers." The scholar promised to explain each term, simply and quickly, but no dice. (This is like trying to talk about Columbus without mentioning "Spanish Royalty" or "Queen Isabella", directly .... ))

3) Editing

How do you fit real information into the short quotes allowed in a brief article, where maybe one or two of your sentences will be used? How do you fit it into the three-act dramatic structure that news magazines and documentaries hew to -- where there must be conflict before each commercial break? How do you communicate when your image may be green screened onto any background the producer choses, or placed in a context, or edited into a meaning you never intended -- or re-used in any way by the filmmakers at a later date? How do you subvert the media's pre-conceived ideas about what new Christian manuscripts mean (and substitute how historians view them)?

The National Geographic team was sent to a high-powered media grooming place in New York, where politicians and actors are sent, in order to prepare them for what was to come: it's not the case that these scholars stumbled out of the ivory tower and didn't know what to make of the cameras (in fact every media thing I've seen with the team seems very on-the-ball.)

Additional factor: my field looks on people who do documentaries and interviews and book store events very dubiously. The proper place of a scholar is in esoteric presentations to fellow specialists in professional ergot. (haughty sniff.) Anyone seeking to talk to the public isn't really a scholar, you don't have to really do quality work to talk to the public -- anyone who does so must want money, or fame, or must just be lazy or somehow suspect ....

/K. returns to her normal voice

I've been slowly losing my temper about this over the past 20 years: the public is a good 50 years behind what people within my field know and study -- and that's all about the attitude I just mentioned (plus a few other factors within my field ...) I think it's absurd and disgusting: 1) I can't look down on people, no matter how many years of schooling I've been through 2) um, the public is where future scholars come from 3) the public fund our schools, fund our research grants, fill our classrooms, buys our books: we'd all starve if we truly only expected the few hundred of our fellow specialists to be our sole audience.

(After fulminating over the scholar's talk I started a blog: I bought a website. No one can edit, shape, or mold what I say there. It's an experiment, and it will probably flop, but it is rather charming to look at the reader map and see that I can now bore people on every continent. ) (Of course, I can here, too )

While this is undoubtedly the most exciting find in years to a small community of specialist scholars,

Perhaps a dozen or twenty, yes.

the press seems to be unaware of or purposefully reticent about GJ's context: no mention at all in most reports of the Christian Gnostic tradition and the plethora of "gospels" that community produced for its own didactic purposes.

What the scholar's talk taught me is that I shouldn't throw my foam-rubber brick at the tv every time someone who ought to know better doesn't mention all of that in some documentary or interview: they probably did mention it -- and it was edited out. (See, for example, the doctor commenting on King Hospital in Los Angeles in the film _Spin_ -- all his context and nuance are edited out as "too obtuse".)

/K. counts to twenty in Greek

Instead you get Da Vinci Code-esque hints of ancient conspiracies and 'suppressing the truth.'

I know, I don't like it either. The entire National Geographic team are responsible scholars with acres of context, detail, and training: there are many other scholars (more or less accessible to the media) who could give nearly as informed and detailed interviews -- no, they didn't translate GJudas, but they are well qualified to speak to its historical context and to what it is and isn't. (Note: I'm not speaking from jealously: no one's every heard of me and I rather like it that way. If interviewed, imagine I'd immediately put my foot in my mouth. )

It is true that National Geographic has put together a polished approach to international media outlets: they put up a tremendous amount of money for an irreplaceable manuscript that was literally falling apart -- after 20 years of prior failed purchase attempts where the manuscript what in somewhat worse shape, as the years passed. (Especially because someone froze it, though I imagine they meant well...) National Geographic has to make up that money. (Especially given that the codex will be going back to Egypt.)

Does this help? I doubt that any specialist in Gnosticism (or early Christianity) wants to contribute to the phenomenon you're picking up on.

Yours,
Kushana

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Yes, that helps. Thanks, Kushana.

[Kushana]

Dear Voronwë_the_Faithful,

You make me happy I went to that talk.

The story isn't: "Biblical Scholars Want to Destroy Christianity", we're not trying to upend or overturn anything. We have an unusual symbiotic relationship with the public (see Scholar on an Airplane) ... most of whom aren't clear on what we do, exactly. (A sitiuation we helped create.)

Some media go with that story, either they don't know better, or it's dramatic, or it's immediately accessible -- even if you don't know a thing about religion or care particularly about it.

(K. holds back from making the Treebeard "trees" speech about religions.)

I'm still thinking about what to do, I'm sure you are, too. (I am, at least, glad of the internet -- it's saved me from considering how to buy a shortwave station. )

-Kushana

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Some media go with that story, either they don't know better, or it's dramatic, or it's immediately accessible -- even if you don't know a thing about religion or care particularly about it.

I think it's that controversy sells, and money trumps the truth, every time.

(K. holds back from making the Treebeard "trees" speech about religions.)

I for one would very much like to hear the Treeboeard "trees" speech about religions.

But even more, I'm glad that you're here. I've learned a lot from you, that I would not know otherwise. And knowledge is such a precious thing.