Final Thoughts (for now) on the Gospel of Judas
05/01/2006 04:01 Filed in: Faith & Reason
All of this is really old news by now. However, I finally had a chance to read my May 2006 National Geographic that I received in the mail a couple of weeks ago. Of course, it contains the now much celebrated article, "The Judas Gospel." I have a few brief comments, and then I think I will let all of this go for a while.
First...regarding the cover...
I noticed this immediately. From the early publicity on the National Geographic website, the Gospel of Judas was prominently featured on the May 2006 cover. However, the actual cover I got in the mail features polar bears from an article about drilling for oil in Alaska. See for yourself:
Above: the May 2006 cover as depicted on the website (left)
vs. the cover that actually came in the mail (right).
Why the change? Well, there are two possibilities. Perhaps National Geographic has released two different covers for this issue. Magazines are often known to do this. I haven't been to a newsstand to check if there are different covers.
OR perhaps by the actual publication date, a decision was made to change the cover and thus downplay the story. The National Geographic Society has received so much negative attention recently over the way the manuscript was acquired, that this would certainly be a possibility.
Secondly, I was disappointed in the length of the article (full text here). If you don't count the full-page spreads of pictures, there's really only about eight or nine pages. And the story only briefly describes the contents before focusing on the acquirement and restoration of the text. Perhaps they want you to watch the video presentation to get more detail. I admit that I haven't seen it yet. We don't get the National Geographic Channel (although I wish we did). I'll have to wait until the public library gets a copy of the video before I see it.
Also I thought this was very interesting--there's an Egyptian ankh (instead of a more traditional cross) at the bottom of the codex. I never noticed it from the online pictures, but there's a full-page shot in the article. Here's the largest one I could find online. Look near the bottom.
Perhaps since the the text is in Coptic it's normal to have the ankh. It just took me by surprise when I saw it in the magazine.
A couple of outrageous quotes:
The article cites Bart Ehrman as saying "This is big ... a lot of people are going to be upset." Well, probably not, Bart. If you go to http://news.google.com/ and do a simple search for "gospel of Judas," you'll find that majority of the articles listed (and there are hundreds) are fairly dismissive. It certainly doesn't seem that folks are getting all that upset over it.
Frieda Nussberger-Tchacos, the final buyer of the gospel, is quoted as saying "Everything is predestined. I myself was predestined by Judas to rehabilitate him."
Yeah... good luck with that...
Previous blogs on the Gospel of Judas:
The Gospel of Judas: What They Don't Want You to Know
My Argument Against the Gospel of Judas: Let Me Clarify for My Critics in Taipei
Irenaeus and the Gospel of Judas
First...regarding the cover...
I noticed this immediately. From the early publicity on the National Geographic website, the Gospel of Judas was prominently featured on the May 2006 cover. However, the actual cover I got in the mail features polar bears from an article about drilling for oil in Alaska. See for yourself:
Above: the May 2006 cover as depicted on the website (left)
vs. the cover that actually came in the mail (right).
Why the change? Well, there are two possibilities. Perhaps National Geographic has released two different covers for this issue. Magazines are often known to do this. I haven't been to a newsstand to check if there are different covers.
OR perhaps by the actual publication date, a decision was made to change the cover and thus downplay the story. The National Geographic Society has received so much negative attention recently over the way the manuscript was acquired, that this would certainly be a possibility.
Secondly, I was disappointed in the length of the article (full text here). If you don't count the full-page spreads of pictures, there's really only about eight or nine pages. And the story only briefly describes the contents before focusing on the acquirement and restoration of the text. Perhaps they want you to watch the video presentation to get more detail. I admit that I haven't seen it yet. We don't get the National Geographic Channel (although I wish we did). I'll have to wait until the public library gets a copy of the video before I see it.
Also I thought this was very interesting--there's an Egyptian ankh (instead of a more traditional cross) at the bottom of the codex. I never noticed it from the online pictures, but there's a full-page shot in the article. Here's the largest one I could find online. Look near the bottom.
Perhaps since the the text is in Coptic it's normal to have the ankh. It just took me by surprise when I saw it in the magazine.
A couple of outrageous quotes:
The article cites Bart Ehrman as saying "This is big ... a lot of people are going to be upset." Well, probably not, Bart. If you go to http://news.google.com/ and do a simple search for "gospel of Judas," you'll find that majority of the articles listed (and there are hundreds) are fairly dismissive. It certainly doesn't seem that folks are getting all that upset over it.
Frieda Nussberger-Tchacos, the final buyer of the gospel, is quoted as saying "Everything is predestined. I myself was predestined by Judas to rehabilitate him."
Yeah... good luck with that...
Previous blogs on the Gospel of Judas:
The Gospel of Judas: What They Don't Want You to Know
My Argument Against the Gospel of Judas: Let Me Clarify for My Critics in Taipei
Irenaeus and the Gospel of Judas