'Gospel of Judas' Called An Authentic Fabrication

First ---- there are some priceless observations in this thread,
these being some of them:

"National Geographic places their own desires for confirmation of
THEIR presuppositions ahead of actual fact. That's why they got
caught with their pants down a couple of years ago when they
trumpeted a fossil that showed a flying dinosaur. They wanted to
believe it was true, so they did. They got burned big time and issued
a rather haughty mea culpa.

Too bad they didn't learn their
lesson." <http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1610875/posts?page=10#10>10

"Actually, they know the name of the Coptic monk who "found" the
original manuscript in the early 4th century: Ratericos Danilos. It
was revealed as a forgery because it was created using a stylus that
hadn't been invented until AD 378."
<http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1610875/posts?page=12#12>12

"...Judas never wrote that stuff. As someone else pointed out here,
he hung himself before he had time to write a "gospel".
<http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1610875/posts?page=51#51>51

And my post is here:

"Nobody believes that the disciple Matthew wrote the gospel of his
name, either." ~ Dog Gone

Being dubious about the "written directly" claims is one thing, but
when some of them question the "authorship" of the canonical gospels,
that's where they go off the deep end.

"With these general considerations
<http://www.tektonics.org/ntdocdef/gospdefhub.html>http://www.tektonics.org/ntdocdef/gospdefhub.html
, we now offer these mini-essays on each Gospel."

Matthew
<http://www.tektonics.org/ntdocdef/mattdef.html>http://www.tektonics.org/ntdocdef/mattdef.html

Mark
<http://www.tektonics.org/ntdocdef/markdef.html>http://www.tektonics.org/ntdocdef/markdef.html

Luke
<http://www.tektonics.org/ntdocdef/lukedef.html>http://www.tektonics.org/ntdocdef/lukedef.html

John
<http://www.tektonics.org/ntdocdef/johndef.html>http://www.tektonics.org/ntdocdef/johndef.html

99 posted on 04/07/2006 11:53:30 AM EDT by Matchett-PI
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1610875/posts?page=99#99

~ Janice

<http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1610875/posts>'Gospel of
Judas' Called An Authentic Fabrication
<http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1610875//^http://www.nysun.com/article/30588>The
New York Sun ^ | http://www.nysun.com/article/30588 April 7, 2006 |
BRUCE CHILTON
Posted on 04/07/2006 9:38:55 AM EDT by
<http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1610875//~presidio9/>presidio9
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1610875/posts

The National Geographic Society released the manuscript of what is
called "The Gospel of Judas" yesterday. By National Geographic's own
account, a team first assembled by the Maecenas Foundation has been
working on the text since 2001. As a result of press releases tied to
publication of the text, widespread coverage has repeated the claim
that this is an authentic and unique representation of the historical
relationship between Jesus and Judas, and that Jesus encouraged Judas
to betray him.

Despite the careful work by scholars that has gone into a document of
obvious interest, I have to express disappointment when I see
National Geographic stoop so low into hyperbole as to distort the
significance of this discovery.

In its release, National Geographic repeatedly states that it has
"authenticated" the document. Several press outlets have simply
repeated those claims.

But "authentic" turns out to be a slippery term as used by the
National Geographic Society.

No scholar associated with the find argues this is a first century
document, or that it derives from Judas.

The release says the document was "copied down in Coptic probably
around A.D. 300," although later that is changed to "let's say around
the year 400." This amounts to saying that "The Gospel of Judas" is
an authentic fabrication produced by a group of Gnostics in Egypt.
Gnostics believed that their direct knowledge of heaven permitted
them to understand what no one else knew, or could know by historical
knowledge. For ancient Gnostics to believe in their own powers of
divination is charming; for their flights of imagination to be passed
off as historical knowledge in our time is dishonest or self-deceived.

During the second century, a theologian of the Catholic Church named
Irenaeus referred to a writing named "The Gospel of Judas." Was that
a Greek version of the Coptic writing that National Geographic has
just released? That question is not answered in the materials
prepared for the press, because National Geographic never asks it. It
just assumes the Coptic text is a direct translation from the Greek,
so it can knock another century or so off its apparent age, and claim
its text as a second-century writing.

The fact is that we do not know the relationship between what
Irenaeus referred to and the Coptic "Gospel of Judas," nor how that
involves (if at all) a document of the same name that another
teacher, Epiphanius, referred to two centuries later. As a matter of
fact, Epiphanius's description of the contents of "The Gospel of
Judas" seems closer to National Geographic's manuscript than what
Irenaeus said, because Irenaeus refers to a more mythologically
elaborate teaching, involving Judas with Cain, Esau, Korah, and the Sodomites.

After being discovered in Egypt in the 1970s, National Geographic's
manuscript was badly damaged, perhaps as a result of repeated
attempts by earlier owners to sell it (sometimes at a high price,
which it never fetched). As late as last February, National
Geographic reports, "a missing half-page of the gospel resurfaced in
New York City." This does not inspire confidence in the chain of
custody or the document itself. The whole episode is an example of
the damage to knowledge caused when people take documents, try to
sell them, and then others resort to sensation to sell, if not the
physical remains, then their own findings.

Yet Terry Garcia of National Geographic actually states in the
release that the document "has been authenticated as a genuine work
of ancient Christian apocryphal literature"; in other words, that it
is an authentic forgery. Mr. Garcia is identified in the release as
"executive vice president for Mission Programs for the National
Geographic Society" - a Gnostic missionary, we are left to gather.

Not content with vapid claims of authenticity, National Geographic
goes on to claim that "The Gospel of Judas" gives "new insights into
the disciple who betrayed Jesus." It does not.

In this Gospel, Judas is supposed to act with Jesus's advice and
encouragement. That is precisely what is portrayed in the New
Testament, especially in John 13:21-30. So convinced were they that
their find is better than the Gospels in the New Testament, the
authors of the release did not bother to read the New Testament.

But let's forget the hyped assertions of the significance of this
text, and just concentrate on what National Geographic tells us about
"The Gospel of Judas" as a Gnostic document.

The release only consults one expert about the handwriting of the
document, Stephen Emmel, and his comments contradict one another by a century.

Does he believe this document was written in 300 or in 400? There is
a difference, and my own impression (from the photographs, which have
circulated on the World Wide Web for some months) is that we are
dealing with a later hand. In any case, paleographers do not normally
deal in general impressions but compare characters from documents of
unknown dates to documents of known dates.

Acknowledged experts in this field who have concentrated on "The
Gospel of Judas," including James Robinson and Charles Hedrick, were
not consulted for some reason. Did National Geographic want to keep
some scholars of Coptic away from this document?

That is a waste of a unique finding; "The Gospel of Judas" offers
rich insights into ancient Gnosticism, particularly into the way in
which Gnostics saw Jewish institutions transformed by Jesus. (The
discourse on the Temple is especially significant, and involves the
unusual view among Gnostics that Jesus's death was a necessary
sacrifice.) But that is likely to be obscured by silly claims that
the "real" Judas is at issue in this document.

Mr. Chilton's most recent book, "Mary Magdalene: A Biography," is
available from Doubleday.
Received on Fri Apr 7 12:01:27 2006