28 May 2008
More Trouble for the Gospel of Judas National Geographic Hype
Posted by MSH under: Gospel of Judas .
And deservedly so. The Chronicle of Higher Education has an interesting, lengthy article on why many scholars think National Geographic had an axe to grind. Ya think?
4 Comments so far...
MSH Says:
29 May 2008 at 12:39 am.
Thanks!
Rowan77 Says:
6 June 2008 at 2:27 pm.
Not convinced by the Chronicle’s story. DeConick keeps harping on supposed “errors,” yet what she’s attacking seem to be simple scholarly differences in interpretation. And we’ll always have those. And from all evidence, there only seem to be three or four scholars taking DeConick’s point of view (at least publicly). I’d wager the preponderance of academic opinion is on the side of National Geographic. AND wouldn’ t the Gospel of Judas be an unconserved crumbling codex right now, sifting into oblivion, if National Geographic hadn’t taken it under its wing, paid to have it conserved and translated?
MSH Says:
7 June 2008 at 12:11 am.
Rowan77 - well, DeConick is (in part) arguing about opinion, but what she has written also clearly states she thinks translation errors have occurred. She does Coptic, so we need to give her some credit. You’d be wrong about your wager, too - at least given the silence of Coptologists out there who weren’t on the team - where are the other Coptologists coming to the defense of the NG team? The few that have said anything aren’t defending NG. Birger Pearson is on DeConick’s side now, too - in the recent issue of Biblical Archaeology Review, Pearson hits the NG team. The Codex was held privately before NG acquired it, and at least one scholar got to see it (I think it was Charles Hedrick, but I’d have to check). It no doubt would have been preserved as best the private owner could do so, but who knows if it would have seen the light of day - if you’ve read about the circumstances of its sale, it’s a pretty seedy story.
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