Bock's second review
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Here is a link to a second review by Darrell Bock. I want to respond to his concern over what the Coptic says in regard to "daimon." The photos are clear here. The Coptic says "daimon" and on this NG team and I agree. But our translation of this word into English is very different. NG team uses "spirit" and I use "demon" following traditional convention of translation of this word in Christian and Gnostic sources. In The Critical Edition, Kasser, Wurst and Meyer have pulled "spirit" and simply left "daimon" for all to translate at will.
As for my remarks in The Thirteenth Apostle, that Mark was written as pro-Pauline propaganda against the disciples in Jerusalem, Bock does not like or agree with this since he is of the opinion that early Christianity was much more harmonious than I see in our sources. Whatever one's opinion on the historical origin of Mark, the Gnostics who wrote the Gospel of Judas are interpreting it in just this sense: as polemic against the Twelve. Thus their characterization of the Twelve as ignorant and faithless, while Judas the confessor as a demon. All this is Markan interpretation on the part of the Gnostics.
As for my remarks in The Thirteenth Apostle, that Mark was written as pro-Pauline propaganda against the disciples in Jerusalem, Bock does not like or agree with this since he is of the opinion that early Christianity was much more harmonious than I see in our sources. Whatever one's opinion on the historical origin of Mark, the Gnostics who wrote the Gospel of Judas are interpreting it in just this sense: as polemic against the Twelve. Thus their characterization of the Twelve as ignorant and faithless, while Judas the confessor as a demon. All this is Markan interpretation on the part of the Gnostics.