Apocryphote of the Day: 7-25-08

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Jesus said, "Come to me, all who labor," that is, you who are seeking the truth and not finding it. And also he said, "My sheep hear my voice." And also, "Seek and find," since the truth does not lie on the surface.

Pseudo-Clementines, Homily 3.53 (third century; Syrian text that contains old traditions from Jerusalem)

Commentary: Even though this esoteric perspective was quite common in early Christianity, I think that this comment on Jesus' sayings was the type of perspective that the Sethian authors of the Gospel of Judas would have agreed with whole-heartily, and which formed the basis for their ability to rewrite the Judas story in the way they did. For them, the truth about Judas was not on the surface. It was subversive and had to be revealed.

Stephan Witetschek's review of The Thirteenth Apostle

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HERE is a link to the RBL review by Stephen Witetschek of my book, The Thirteenth Apostle: What the Gospel of Judas Really Says.

I want to say a few words in response because he raises a couple of questions. First he raises the question of this book's audience. This book was written for a broad general audience. Its title was created for that audience by my publisher. I wanted to call it something entirely different, but was vetoed, and with good reason. A book's title has to capture the thesis while also being of interest to the audience you hope will read want to read it.

Second, my academic work, upon which this book is based, contains many more details (as it should), details that will only be of interest to other scholars. These academic articles are just now beginning to see the light of day in terms of publishing. Why the lag time? Because academic presses take FOREVER to move articles through the process of publication. What is now being published on the Gospel of Judas in academic venues is already outdated, having been written in mid-2006! This is one of the reasons why I published The Thirteenth Apostle. I felt that I needed to get the information out in a timely manner to the public because I felt we were wrongly informed about what this gospel really says.

Third, the translation that I was criticizing was the original English translation, not the French.

Fourth, the book was in press long before The Critical Edition by the National Geographic team was released, an edition that cleaned up some of the problems in the original release. The NGS has since also released a new popular edition - the second edition of The Gospel of Judas - in which the clean-up work continues. The areas that were modified overlap with the areas of my criticisms, as well as the criticisms of other scholars. There wouldn't be any reason for concern IF these problems were not crucial spots in the texts for interpretation. But they are. So we need to address them, which is what I did and continue to do.

Fifth, I was surprised to read in the review Witetschek's statement that "a question remains that DeConick's book does not answer: If Judas is such a demonic villain in this text, why is he at the same time the hero of the text?" I wonder why my academic reviewer missed the main point of the book which my public reviewers articulate clearly? The point of my book: Judas isn't a hero in this text. He is a villian who learns about his fate from Jesus in a gnostic parody of the apostolic church. Here are some of the public reviewers' remarks taken right off the Amazon website:
Neil Godfrey
"For most of us who have read the National Geographic translation of the Gospel of Judas, be prepared for a radical re-think of what we have read there. The National Geographic translation depicts Judas as the only true saint; DeConick's, as the arch demon himself -- or at least destined to join with him in the end. Which immediately raises the question: Why would a gospel make the central character a demon? DeConick shows how the apparent structure and thematic development of the gospel aligns it with an agenda opposing that Christianity that traced its genealogy back to the Twelve Apostles...the Gospel of Judas was a parody and attack on apostolic Christianity and its doctrine of the atoning sacrifice of Jesus."

Spinozanator
"Judas, the good guy? No, indeed! He is even worse than previously thought. A closer translation and a thorough knowledge of gnostic mythology, derived partially from Plato, shows him to be a secret agent of the devil. The Gospel of Judas is a parody, written by someone from the Sethian subgroup of Gnostic Christians - to make mainstream Christians of the second century look asinine for relying on a demon ruler (Judas) and his minions (the twelve) for their teachings and practices. A more specific goal of the Gospel of Judas, according to DeConick, is to blast the doctrine of atonement and the effectiveness of the eucharist, on account of Judas's involvement."

Steve Esser
"According to DeConick, while Judas does have greater understanding than the other apostles (who are completely misguided), he is nonetheless a doomed and (literally) demonic figure. So while the text is still very much in opposition to apostolic Christianity (indeed she views it as a parody of sorts), the figure of Judas is still to be seen as a bad guy, not the good guy put forth by the National Geographic team."

Judas Note

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I have been getting a few e-mails already from my readers who have now purchased the new revised version of the National Geographic Society's The Gospel of Judas. So I thought it might quicker to address their issues in a short post on the blog.

They are telling me how disappointed they are that I did not contribute a chapter to NGS's revised version of The Gospel of Judas, or that the team editors did not interact more with The Thirteenth Apostle.

My response is that although The Thirteenth Apostle is marginalized (I didn't expect otherwise), I am happy that NGS at least included Gesine Schenke Robinson's chapter which presents the revisionist stance. Gesine is another scholar, along with John Turner, Louis Painchaud, Birger Pearson, Einar Thomassen, H.G.-Bethge, and Johannes Brankaer who have all already published in support of the demon Judas. Their publications have been in scholarly venues rather than in general audience books like mine. It should be recognized that all of these scholars came to this conclusion INDEPENDENT of other scholars.

If anyone knows of other scholars who have published on the demon Judas in the Gospel of Judas, please send along that information. I may have missed someone!

At any rate, if you are going to buy their publication, make sure that you purchase the second edition of The Gospel of Judas published by NGS. The covers look almost identical except for a small blue "Second Edition" below the title.

Mary Platt on Gospel of Judas

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Over the weekend Jim West posted his response to Mary Platt's comments about the Gospel of Judas. Mary Platt is the communications director at Marvin Meyer's college and this appears to be Chapman's response to Tim Bartlett's article in the Chronicle for Higher Education. Jim is correct to raise the questions and issues that he does. I would have raised similar questions, but Jim beat me to it.

UPDATE: A correction - Mary Platt was not responding to Tom Bartlett's article, but to another blogger who made a post HERE<<<

Marvin Meyer speaks out about the Gospel of Judas

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Marv contacted me this morning and asked me to post a comment on my blog on his behalf. I am happy to do so.
"How I regret this firestorm of hostility that is surrounding the Gospel of Judas! I refuse to add any fuel to the fire. This should be a time when we celebrate the appearance of a fascinating text and apply our collective wisdom to study it. As I told Tom Bartlett of The Chronicle, whatever else we might wish to say about the National Geographic Society, we should note that without the work of National Geographic and the Maecenas Foundation, Codex Tchacos and the Gospel of Judas might today be little more than a pile of papyrus dust in a box. My friend and colleague April DeConick invited Gregor Wurst and myself to give a public presentation at Rice University on the occasion of the recent Judas conference, and we did so. I attempted to indicate, in a clear and candid manner, the issues that arise when we scholars deal with the media and with other organizations. These issues are real issues, and they go far beyond the particular policies of the National Geographic Society. I said this in Houston, and I say it again: we need to move on in order to apply our scholarly energy to the Gospel of Judas and the rest of Codex Tchacos. And we need to discuss together how we may cooperate with organizations which have resources that may be applied to the examination and preservation of our cultural heritage, and how we may communicate our insights appropriately to our fellow scholars as well as to the interested public."

Marvin Meyer
Chapman University
I want to support Marv's statement with my own observations. I have watched Marvin Meyer and Gregor Wurst work hard the last few months in response to the criticism of scholars, including me, to revise their original publication of the Gospel of Judas. I have been impressed with their response to the criticism and their dedication to make corrections. I have come to understand what extraordinary pressure they were under when they "resurrected" this gospel.

This could have turned into a scholarly war zone, with none of us talking to each other, and everyone marking turf. But this is NOT what has happened, because it is not what any of us involved wanted to happen. This is one of the reasons we held the Codex Judas Congress as a working group or think tank. At the Codex Judas Congress, there wasn't anyone in the room that wasn't working together and listening to each other in order for us to make progress on the Gospel of Judas in terms of translation issues and interpretation issues. I asked Tom Bartlett to emphasize the fact that the Codex Judas Congress was a terrific example of how good scholarship is done, that it was a time of healing, and that the scholars involved were ready to move forward. Tom did mention this in his article, and I am grateful to him for doing so. But this seems to have gotten lost in the fray of on-line discussions, so I want to highlight this here.

I have been working on revising and updating The Thirteenth Apostle. I have written a second preface in which I discuss what has happened this year, and have included a new chapter which covers the material I presented at the Codex Judas Congress. I believe that the revised edition of my book will be published in the fall.

Marv and Gregor's revised popular edition of the Gospel of Judas should be released any day, and it is a much more "neutral" translation. Marv and Gregor asked each of us at the Codex Judas Congress to take a look at it and give input. Of course, they made the final decisions on what was changed and what was not, and there is not unanimous agreement. But their willingness to ask other scholars to be involved is exactly how the best scholarship is accomplished. It is too bad that the NGS policy did not allow for this the first time around, but that is water under the bridge now. Marv is right that we have to figure out as a collective group how to work with the media and organizations that fund projects in order to preserve these antiquities, while at the same time being able to work in the academic model or environment where things like non-disclosure statements and exclusive publication are more of a hindrance than a help. If any of you has suggestions for how this might be done in the future when another codex pops up on the market, please leave a comment.

Tom Bartlett responds to National Geographic's Press Release

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Tom Bartlett e-mailed me with his response to National Geographic's "sloppy bewildering" press release. He asked me to distribute his response. So here it is:
Tom Bartlett:
The press release that National Geographic issued in response to my article
"The Betrayal of Judas" is filled with errors and nonsense. Below are a few
of the more egregious inaccuracies:

-- "Contrary to the article's assertion, the translation took years (not
months) to complete."

Here's what the article actually says:

"It all happened in record time. In the cases of other newly discovered
ancient texts, the process of translation and interpretation has dragged on
for years. But it was only about eight months from the time Marvin Meyer was
brought on that the gospel was announced to the public."

Meyer confirmed this timeline to me in an e-mail. Meyer was the primary
English translator and it was his translation that other scholars, like Bart
Ehrman, used as the basis for their own critical essays. This part of the
project did not take years; it took months.

-- "This was an enormously complex project, but hardly a 'secret' in
biblical circles."

My article does not say that the existence of the Gospel of Judas was a
secret in biblical circles. I make it clear that other scholars knew of its
existence for decades. The article does say that other scholars complained
about the "secrecy" of the project, i.e., that the material wasn't shared
with scholars outside of the National Geographic team. There is a
difference.

-- "Virtually all issues your article raises about translation choices are
addressed in extensive footnotes in both the popular and critical editions
of the gospel. Unfortunately, Thomas Bartlett chose to ignore that fact ..."

I did not ignore that fact. I mention both the second edition and the
critical edition of the Judas book and note that some errors have since been
corrected and that alternate readings are now included. I even quote from
those footnotes. (For the record, the best-selling first edition of the book
and the television documentary watched by millions do not include these
caveats.)

-- "What Bartlett doesn't tell the reader is that DeConick's criticisms,
which appeared in an op-ed piece in the New York Times in December 2007,
were timed to coincide with the release of her own book about the Gospel of
Judas."

Wrong. Her book came out two months before the NY Times op-ed. Regardless,
I mention both her book and the op-ed in my article and I include the
publication dates for both.

I understand that National Geographic must be reeling from criticism of its
Judas project by biblical scholars. But your sloppy, bewildering response to
my article doesn't help your case.

Was the National Geographic's Gospel of Judas footnoted so that it should not be criticized?

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The National Geographic Society keeps trying to defend itself by insisting that the translation choices the team made were addressed in their extensive footnotes and therefore I cannot, or should not, be critical of them.
From NGS HERE<<< "Virtually all issues your article raises about translation choices are addressed in extensive footnotes in both the popular and critical editions of the gospel. Unfortunately, Thomas Bartlett chose to ignore that fact and instead gives much prominence to criticisms advanced by April DeConick." From NGS HERE<<< "Virtually all issues Professor DeConick raises about translation choices are addressed in extensive footnotes in both the popular and critical editions. As is the case in any translation, there can be differences of interpretation, word selection and nuance, and the Gospel of Judas is no exception."
Is this true? Let's have a look. Keep in mind that my work was written BEFORE the critical edition was released in June 2007. It was reacting to the initial publication of the Gospel of Judas by the NGS in April 2006 and the extensive media hype that went along with it.

1. p. 44.21: "O Thirteenth Demon" : I am critical of their choice "thirteenth spirit"
p. 31 NGS's Gospel of Judas, n. 74 "Or, 'thirteenth demon' (Coptic, from Greek, daimon). Judas is thirteenth because he is the disciple excluded from the circle of the twelve, and he is a demon (or daemon) because his true identity is spiritual. Compare tales of Socrates and his daimon or daimonion, in Plato Symposium 202e-203a."

Okay, here is a footnote. But does it help the reader understand that "daimon" in Gnostic texts means "demon", a negative entity? Is there any reference here to the fact that the Sethians used the number 13 to indicate the demiurge, Ialdabaoth-Saklas-Samael-Nebruel, who is the highest demon and archon living in the 13th realm of the cosmos (where the decan stars were)? This has been my criticism, and remains it. I see nothing in this footnote that is indicative of this discussion.

Note: in NGS's critical edition, and in the second edition of this popular book slated to be released this month, "spirit" has vanished and been replaced by "daimon."
2. p. 46.17. "separate from" : I am critical of NGS's choice "set apart for"
p. 32 NGS's Gospel of Judas, no note at all.

This is very serious because "set apart for" is not a meaning found in Coptic lexical aids, nor have I been able to find the Coptic expression used to mean this in any Coptic text I have examined yet.

Note: in NGS's critical edition, they added a note that "separate from" can be an alternative. Now in their second edition, this reads: "set apart from."
3. p. 46.5-46.7. "Teacher, enough! At no time may my seed control the Archons!" : I am critical of NGS's choice of phrasing it as a question instead of an emphatic, "could it be that my seed is under the control of the rulers?"
p. 32 NGS's Gospel of Judas. There is no footnote indicating that this is an emphatic construction. There is no footnote about this in the critical edition either.
4. p. 46.24-47.1. "you will not ascent to the holy [generation]." : I am critical of their emendation which alters the meaning of the sentence so that the negative is changed to "they will curse your ascent to the holy [generation]."
p. 33 NGS's Gospel of Judas. There is no footnote or textual mark in the translation indicating that the editors had emended the Coptic in their translation. This is very serious because it is standard practice that emendations are marked clearly even in the translation so readers will know that the editors have altered the original text. The editors did mark the emendation in the on-line Coptic transcription, which was how I figured it out, because the photos still hadn't been released at that time.

Note: in NGS's critical edition and in the second revised edition of the popular book, this emendation has been removed, and the translation reads similarly to what I have argued it should read.
5. p. 56.18. "you will do worse than all of them" : I am critical of their translation, "you will exceed all of them", since it doesn't take into account the negative context which demands that the comparative be translated "worse than".
p. 43 NGS's Gospel of Judas. There is no footnote to indicate the problems with the context, or that "exceed" should be understood in a negative sense. There is a footnote, n. 137, and it reads: "Literally, 'that bears me' (Coptic, from Greek, etrphorei emmoei). Judas is instructed by Jesus to help him by sacrificing the fleshly body ("the man") that clothes or bears the true spiritual self of Jesus. The death of Jesus, with the assistance of Judas, is taken to be the liberation of the spiritual person within."

NOTE: the NGS critical edition still does not have a footnote about this.
6. p. 56.23. "your star has ascended" : I am critical of their translation, "shone brightly" which I still cannot determine how they came up with.
The only footnote here, p. 43 NGS's Gospel of Judas, note 138, reads: "On the poetic lines depicting how Judas is prepared for his act of salvific betrayal, cf. passages from the Psalms. The last line may be restored to read, "[become strong]," or the like." So again, there is no footnote indicating that the Coptic means "to pass by" or "to reach" or that it denotes ascendancy.

NOTE: the NGS critical edition now reads "your star has passed by".
The evidence is very clear for anyone who cares to actually look at it. NGS is open to criticism. They cannot hide behind "a footnote strategy" to deflect the criticism, because the footnotes just are not there, at least in terms of my criticisms.

What I find so strange about all of this, is that the scholars on the NGS team have been very responsive to the criticisms of other scholars, and have improved their translation in the NGS critical edition and now in the second edition of the popular book. And the NGS has been responsive in that it finally released high resolution photos on their website (mid Jan 2008). So why the NGS puts out these press releases defending the faults of its initial publication is confusing to me.

The fact remains that the NGS DVD on the Gospel of Judas is still around, and will be for decades. I doubt any revisions to it are in the works. And the impression that their first faulty translation left in the media and among the public - that Judas is a hero - is still around, and will be for decades. The faults in that initial translation are not minor interpretative differences, but major translational errors that, when fixed, present us with a Judas who is a gnostic demon, not a historical hero.

National Geographic comes after Tom Bartlett now

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I am totally shocked that the National Geographic Society has written and posted on their website a long critical response to Tom Bartlett's article on the Gospel of Judas in the Chronicle for Higher Education this month. HERE<<< is NGS's response.

If the Society wishes to criticize me and the other scholars who are raising issues about the handling of the Gospel of Judas, that is one thing, but to strike out against a journalist who was covering a story appears to me to be another thing altogether. What is going on here?

The entire NGS response is strange to me since in a couple of weeks, a second revised edition of their book is going to be released in which the mistakes are acknowledged in the foreword, and the translation is corrected, and the commentary is rewritten to reflect the scholarly progress that we have made on this text, a progress that has happened due to the criticism that myself and others have raised in the last year and a half. So I am at odds frankly to understand the Society's continued defense of its initial publication.

Chronicle for Higher Education on the Gospel of Judas

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Tom Bartlett of the Chronicle for Higher Education attended the Codex Judas Congress back in March. He did extensive interviews with the scholars involved on the National Geographic team as well as others, myself included, who have criticized the initial work. I think that the piece will be coming out May 30th. I'll keep you posted.

UPDATE 5-26-08: The link has been located. HERE IT IS<<< Have fun reading this one!

P.S. Sorry that I haven't been on the blog in a couple of days, but I've been dealing with a few minor emergencies including a dying air conditioner (which is a living essential in Houston), cutting the bottom of my foot open by accident, and ending up with strep throat. Hope things settle down here!

Why we need to move beyond the old terminology

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This is further reflection on poly- or pluro- doxy given the comment by José in an earlier post that we don't need new language - that the old is good enough.

No it is not. Why? Because there wasn't an orthodox Christianity in the second or third centuries from which others deviated and were heretics. This language only works if (1) you have an established historical orthodoxy that dominates the scene or (2) you use it in terms of a theological self-reference, as in my way is orthodox and yours isn't.

Now some of my readers might like the apostolic church and identify with it, and therefore say that there was an orthodoxy and the apostolic church was it. Everyone else is a heretic. Fine, but this is not a historical perspective. It represents the reality of #(2), not #(1).

For instance, let's take Marcion. From a historical perspective (not the apostolic Christian one) Marcion in his era was as much a Christian as anyone else. He established a very viable church with the first NT canon! Jesus Christ was the redeemer. His theology was a radical exegesis of Paul. Now Tertullian hated him and so did Justin Martyr and Irenaeus, all who identified with the apostolic church and all who saw him as heretical. But thousands upon thousands of people loved him, thought him a brilliant Christian theologian, and were members of his churches. These same people saw the apostolic church and its theologians as ignorant. In many parts of Asia Minor, Marcionite churches were not just the mainstay, but the first churches established. They were productive into the 10th century according to Arabic reports.

Let's take the Gospel of Judas. Here is a gospel written by someone in the middle of the second century who knew for certain that the apostolic church was run by dupes. This person considered his own views about Jesus and salvation, and his own practices (some type of water ritual), to be the only way to God. He considered himself a gnostic Christian and was quite offended that the apostolic church would be using Jesus' name in such a disgraceful (and demonic) manner - to offer a sacrifice to the lesser god!

As historians we cannot be theologians. The texts tell us the story. And this story was a story of many competing orthodoxies, all who claimed for themselves the "Christian" name. At least in the pre-Constantinian period, the marking of a heretic comes from within each of these orthodoxies, and represents their individual understanding of what it means to be the "real" Christians.

Birger Pearson speaks out publically about the Gospel of Judas

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This is just published in BAR. Birger Pearson does an outstanding job (yet again!) making sense of it all in an full article on the Gospel of Judas called, "Judas Iscariot Among the Gnostics." I highly recommend reading the entire piece. Here Pearson weighs in as a "revisionist" and has some of his own words to say about the National Geographic fiasco.

A highlight:
Scholarly criticism of the National Geographic interpretation of the Gospel of Judas has been widespread. My own assessment of their work was presented in a paper at the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature in San Diego in November 2007. After I had prepared that paper, I received a copy of April DeConick’s new book [The Thirteenth Apostle: What the Gospel of Judas Really Says (New York: Continuum, 2007)]. I am happy to say that she and I have independently come to very similar conclusions regarding what the Gospel of Judas really says about Judas. There are others as well. In a very recent book, one of the National Geographic scholars, Marvin Meyer, refers to three scholars who have proposed “a revisionist understanding” of the Gospel of Judas. In addition to DeConick, Meyer names Louis Painchaud of the University of Laval, Quebec, and John Turner of the University of Nebraska—Lincoln, all outstanding Gnostic scholars. This is not to denigrate the distinguished reputation of the National Geographic scholars, only to emphasize the growing scholarly dissatisfaction with their work. I am happy to count myself as one of the group that Meyer calls “revisionists.”

Is Judas' gospel that ambiguous?

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JMS Providence asked me in one of the comments:
Dr. D, this isn't necessarily related to your post but last night, I was up rather late, and at 1AM the National Geographic Channel was airing their work on the Gospel of Judas. I'll tell ya, I haven't really studied any of this much, but I was quite shocked when I first saw it year or two ago. So does this mean that they still hold to their position and have not edited their program to show such opposing work as yours? Just wondering. And if so, is Judas' gospel that ambiguous?
What you are asking is important. So important that I am making a post about it, and I hope that some of you pass this around on list serves and so forth.

No the Gospel of Judas is not that ambiguous in my opinion. It is actually very straightforward once you transcribe and translate it correctly. Certainly there is always room for interpretation of details. But Judas is clearly identified not just as a demon, but as the thirteenth, and this is the numerical identification of the demiurge archon who lives in the realm just above his twelve archon assistants. Moreover, the thirteenth realm is described as having Judas' star in it, which means that it is IN this cosmos, not some realm in the divine world beyond or between this cosmos and the supreme God. Stars are only fixtures in this cosmos. And they are negative beings according to the ancients because they were associated with fate.

There is so much misinformation about the Gospel of Judas it makes me want to cry, not because I am in love with the Gospel of Judas, but because I am in love with truth. I want nothing more than to provide sound information to people who want to know about early Christianity. I do not have an agenda beyond this. Nothing I have done has anything to do with liberal or conservation religious positions. I am a historian and I say what I see from that position whether it confirm or deny contemporary religious beliefs.

The work that I have done on the Gospel of Judas, in the academic sphere, and in the general publication The Thirteenth Apostle, is making tremendous impact on our understanding of this gospel. I want to add, that my voice is not alone. There are a number of us who from the first release of the Gospel of Judas by National Geographic in 2006 saw the troubles with the transcription, translation, and interpretation that was offered to all of us. We have all been working as hard and fast as we can to correct these problems.

National Geographic has not gone on blindly. The Society in the last two months has had the team retranslate and reinterpret the Gospel of Judas in a second edition of its book. It is slated to come out in June. The team has corrected the transcription errors. These are the errors that were made when the Coptic manuscript was examined and then scribed down in Coptic letters - in other words a hand written copy was made of the manuscript. When this is done, scholars will sometimes "emend" the text - that is change what the manuscript says in their transcription of it. This is done when scholars think there was a mistake in the manuscript. It can happen with misspellings, dropped letters, and so forth. As I wrote in my book, the team had originally emended the text on p. 46.24-25. When they did this, the emendation made the text read that Judas would ascend to the holy generation. Without the emendation, the text says he won't. The team corrected this in The Critical Edition of the Gospel of Judas which was released last June, and now they have done so too in the revised second edition of the popular translation that will be released this June.

There was another transcription error on p. 35.25 which had read that Judas would learn the mysteries of the kingdom. It would be possible for him to go there, but he would grieve. Now the NGS team has corrected this reading: Judas will learn the mysteries of the kingdom, not so that he will go there, but so that he would grieve.

The new version of their book gets rid of "spirit" and allows "daimon" to stand in the text. They have also gone with "set apart from that generation" (46.17) instead of the incorrect "set apart for."

So these are all major major changes in terms of our interpretation of the text, and they are changes that were brought about because the team continued to work on the text, reassessing it, and listening to us their critics.

So all of this is well and good, but as far as I know there are no plans to change their movie, which is one of their most widely viewed movies. And I doubt that any fanfare will attend the release of their second edition and I doubt much will be done in terms of publicity to let the public know about it. If anyone knows otherwise, I will be glad to hear it and correct my impression.

Apocryphote of the Day: 4-10-08

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"When the demon had said this, the apostle said to him, 'How did you acquire knowledge concerning the hidden mysteries of the height? A soldier, when cast out of the palace, is not at all allowed to learn the mysteries of the palace. And how will he learn the hidden mysteries of the height?...Why then should you not tremble, when you speak the mysteries of the height? For I tremble completely in all my limbs and I glorify the receiver who will come for the souls of the holy people.'"

Acts of Andrew, P. Utrecht I, p. 13-14

Comment: My critics say that Judas in the Gospel of Judas cannot be a demon because he knows the mysteries, which I have argued is not the case since the demons know plenty in the Gospel of Mark. Today I pulled down The Apocryphal New Testament, and opened it randomly to p. 269. And here it be! A fragmented text, but with another demon in the know, and an apostle who is concerned about it. Oh, poor Judas, the demon who knows the mysteries. Need I say more?

Ferrini Auction Report

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Today in The Plain Dealer, the Ohio newspaper, it was reported that the Ferrini auction has taken place. As for the missing Tchacos Codex pages and the Dead Sea Scroll fragments:
Ferrini's most valuable items, including Dead Sea Scroll fragments, were not in the auction. Ownership is still in dispute and is likely to be settled in court, Haley said.

Other rarities withheld from the auction include fragments of the Book of Exodus and papyrus fragments of the Gospel of Judas, which purports to record conversations between Jesus and Judas Iscariot in the last week of their lives.

Thanks to Stephen Goranson for sending me this announcement.


Apocryphote of the Day: 3-20-08

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"Then their high priests murmured because he had gone into the guest room for his prayer. Some scribes were there watching carefully in order to arrest him during the prayer. For they were afraid of the people, since he was held by all as a prophet. And they approached Judas. They said to him, 'What are you doing here? Aren't you the disciple of Jesus?' He answered them as they wished. Then Judas received some money. He handed him over to them."

Gospel of Judas 58.9-26 (trans. by DeConick)

Two more pages of the Gospel of Judas?

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Upon closer read of the Ferrini auction article mentioned in my previous post, there appears to be two more pages of the Gospel of Judas in his possession. According to the article:

Bowers declined to put a value on the Gospel of Judas fragments, and said doing so would be irrelevant, as his client has promised to donate the artifact to Egypt, where it can be properly archived, displayed and studied.

Ferrini is expected to give a deposition Monday in a Summit County courtroom regarding the ownership. Bowers said Ferrini has produced two more pages of the Judas text and has indicated he will give up claims of ownership. Ferrini's attorney, Tim McKinzie,did not respond to a request for comment.

Now we can't be sure that these pages are from the Gospel of Judas, but are likely part of the Tchacos Codex. Which pages? This is most tense and infuriating. Who is he going to give up ownership to?