‘Gospel of Judas’ translated anew
Posted on Friday, April 7, 2006
WASHINGTON — The National Geographic Society on Thursday released the first modern translation of the ancient “Gospel of Judas,” which says the most reviled villain in Christian history was simply doing his master’s bidding when he betrayed Jesus.
The second-century text, denounced as heresy 1, 700 years ago by orthodox Christian clergy, describes conversations between Jesus and Judas Iscariot during the week before Passover in which Jesus tells Judas “secrets no other person has ever seen.” The other apostles pray to a lesser God, Jesus says in the document, and reveals to Judas the “mysteries of the kingdom” of the true God.
He asks Judas to help him return to the kingdom, but to do so, Judas must help him abandon his mortal flesh: “You will sacrifice the man that clothes me,” Jesus tells Judas, and acknowledges that Judas “will be cursed by the other generations.” Scholars said the 26-page gospel, written on 13 sheets of papyrus leaf in the ancient Egyptian language known as Coptic, is an example of early Christian texts in the Gnostic tradition, which believed that salvation came through secret knowledge conveyed by Jesus.
Elaine Pagels, a professor of religion at Princeton who specializes in studies of the Gnostics, said in a statement, “These discoveries are exploding the myth of a monolithic religion, and demonstrating how diverse — and fascinating — the early Christian movement really was.” But while the new manuscript was certain to spark a surge of interest by both theologians and faithful, it was unclear whether it also would prompt a re-evaluation of the traitor denounced by St. Matthew for turning Jesus over to authorities for “30 pieces of silver.” “At one level the [New Testament ] Gospels already see the betrayal of Jesus as a mysterious part of God’s plan,” said Rev. Donald Senior, president of the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago.
He predicted the new text would produce “a short-term sensation,” but after Christians read it, “the impact on the lives of ordinary believers will be minimal.” “Correctly understood, there’s nothing undermining about the Gospel of Judas,” James M. Robinson said in a telephone interview with The New York Times.
Robinson, a retired professor of Coptic studies at Claremont Graduate University, was the general editor of the English edition of the Nag Hammadi library, a collection of Gnostic documents discovered in Egypt in 1945.
He said that the New Testament Gospels of John and Mark both contained passages that suggest that Jesus not only picked Judas to betray him, but actually encouraged Judas to hand him over to those he knew would crucify him.
The ancient manuscript, a third- or fourth-century translation of a second-century original probably written in Greek, was unearthed in Egypt in the 1970 s and came to the attention of scholars in 1983 when an Egyptian antiquities dealer tried to sell it to a team of American researchers for $ 3 million.
After several changes of hands and venues, including 16 years languishing in a safedeposit box in Hicksville, N. Y., National Geographic in 2004 reached agreement to help finance the authentication and translation of the gospel in return for publication and dissemination rights.
Terry Garcia, National Geographic’s executive vice president for mission programs, said at a news conference that the society had contributed “more than $ 1 million” to the project so far. National Geographic released two books at the news conference: an annotated translation and a description of the text’s tortuous odyssey and restoration.
Rudolphe Kasser, a Swiss scholar of Coptic studies, directed the team that reconstructed and translated the script.
The effort, organized by the National Geographic, was supported by Maecenas Foundation for Ancient Art, in Basel, Switzerland, and the Waitt Institute for Historical Discovery, an American nonprofit organization for the application of technology in historical and scientific projects.
The entire 66-page manuscript, or codex, also contains a text titled James (also known as First Apocalypse of James ), a letter by Peter and a text of what scholars are provisionally calling Book of Allogenes.
Garcia said the codex is considered by scholars and scientists to be the most significant ancient, nonbiblical text to be found in the past 60 years.
“The codex has been authenticated as a genuine work of ancient Christian apocryphal literature,” Garcia said, citing extensive tests of radiocarbon dating, ink analysis and multispectral imaging and studies of the script and linguistic style. The ink, for example, was consistent with ink of that era, and there was no evidence of multiple rewriting.
The manuscript will ultimately be returned to Egypt, where it was discovered, and housed in the Coptic Museum in Cairo. Information for this article was contributed by Guy Gugliotta and Alan Cooperman of The Washington Post and John Noble Wilford and Laurie Goodstein of The New York Times.
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