Gospel Truth

[Jonny T]

Gospel Truth

AMID much publicity last year, the National Geographic Society announced that a lost 3rd-century religious text had been found, the Gospel of Judas Iscariot. The shocker: Judas didn’t betray Jesus. Instead, Jesus asked Judas, his most trusted and beloved disciple, to hand him over to be killed. Judas’s reward? Ascent to heaven and exaltation above the other disciples.

It was a great story. Unfortunately, after re-translating the society’s transcription of the Coptic text, I have found that the actual meaning is vastly different. While National Geographic’s translation supported the provocative interpretation of Judas as a hero, a more careful reading makes clear that Judas is not only no hero, he is a demon.

[callee]

That was a great summary article.

Several of the translation choices made by the society’s scholars fall well outside the commonly accepted practices in the field. For example, in one instance the National Geographic transcription refers to Judas as a “daimon,” which the society’s experts have translated as “spirit.” Actually, the universally accepted word for “spirit” is “pneuma ” — in Gnostic literature “daimon” is always taken to mean “demon.”

This is absolutely true. I can't believe the NG would have translated it otherwise.

Likewise, Judas is not set apart “for” the holy generation, as the National Geographic translation says, he is separated “from” it.

Hard to say, this could be debatable. I haven't looked at the text, and she doesn't identify the terms in question. If it's a simple genitive construction then both senses, for or from, could easily overlap and which sense worked best here would be a matter of context. If it is a specific preposition, then that would likely clarify the matter more, though even some prepositions can be vague, with semantic domains that could include both for or from.

Perhaps the most egregious mistake I found was a single alteration made to the original Coptic. According to the National Geographic translation, Judas’s ascent to the holy generation would be cursed. But it’s clear from the transcription that the scholars altered the Coptic original, which eliminated a negative from the original sentence. In fact, the original states that Judas will “not ascend to the holy generation.” To its credit, National Geographic has acknowledged this mistake, albeit far too late to change the public misconception.

Now this is one I would have liked her to discuss more: why did they leave it out? I have trouble believing they just didn't notice it; rather, more likely was that they made a text critical decision that the negation was a latter addition to the text and so they emended it to restore the original. In that case Rice would simply here be arguing that their text critical decision to emend the text was incorrect. Without seeing the arguments, it's impossible to say. Simple negations are added or omitted both deliberately or accidentally by the ancient scribes all the time, and text criticism frequently involves either adding a mission negation or removing an extra one as part of restoring the original text. I mean, that shouldn't surprise us, posters do that all the time here on snopes, and many times have we seen the "reason for editing" described as "to add a very important 'not'!"

That said, I think the big problem is that National Geographic wanted an exclusive. So it required its scholars to sign nondisclosure statements, to not discuss the text with other experts before publication. ...


To avoid this, the Society of Biblical Literature passed a resolution in 1991 holding that, if the condition of the written manuscript requires that access be restricted, a facsimile reproduction should be the first order of business. It’s a shame that National Geographic, and its group of scholars, did not follow this sensible injunction.

And here's the heart of it right here I think. The SBL is the single largest and most authoritative association of biblical scholars. If a person is not a member of the SBL, the odds of them being a serious or legitimate scholar are exceedingly low as to be almost non-existent. Someone at NG needs a real trouting upside the head for thinking that they should proceed with the Gos. Jud. project without enlisting the support and guidance of SBL. That they made that decision in order to achieve better economic benefit, i.e. make more money, is very worrying. I mean, what good is making more money if the level of scholarship drops into the toilet? This is one of the problems with decreased government funding of research institutions. As funding dries up, scholars will increasingly look for private support, and if this case is any indication, that path won't lead anywhere good.

[snapdragonfly]

Originally Posted by callee

As funding dries up, scholars will increasingly look for private support, and if this case is any indication, that path won't lead anywhere good.

Exactly.

I am terribly dissappointed in NG for this. Terribly.