The “Gospel of Judas” revisited
In today’s NY Times, April D. Deconick has an op-ed piece in which she makes serious scholarly criticisms of the translation of the so-called “Gospel of Judas” that made such a splash last year. According to Deconick, Judas is not the hero of the story, but a demon who is told by Jesus that he cannot join the holy generation. At one point, she says, in transcribing the Coptic text, the National Geographic Society’s scholars altered the text by eliminating a negative–rather a significant change in every instance, I should think! (The NGS has acknowledged this mistake.)
Deconick is gentle even while reporting on such significant mistakes, and the closest she comes to suspecting motives is when she asks: “How could these serious mistakes have been made? Were they genuine errors or was something more deliberate going on? This is the question of the hour, and I do not have a satisfactory answer.”
I used to turn to the National Geographic Society’s TV channel for something interesting and reliable. No more. It sensationalizes so much that I don’t trust what is shows. In fact, a lot of its “showing” is mock-ups or invented pictures of past events, hardly what one expects from an historically trustworthy source.
Yes, what a striking article that is. After spending a few months as a theological consultant on a play about Judas, I had done a good deal of research on the topic, and so followed the news surrounding the release of the “Gospel of Judas” with great interest. April D. Deconick’s article shows not only why careful, measured scholarship takes time, but also how the media usually favors coverage of the more sensational interpretation of a religious event, text or personage, over the standard one–that is, the one that has been based on careful, measured scholarship. (As an aside, you’ll note that most of these stories appear either around Easter or Christmastime.)
Just the other day I finished DeConick’s book, which goes into more detail on the “mistakes.” She as always maintains an attitude of agnosticism about the motives of her colleagues, many of whom are friends of hers. She is very generous to Marv Meyer, who has also acknowledged some of the translation lapses. But she is clearly skeptical, and she notes that many books–most notably a joint effort by Elaine Pagels and the usually scrupulous Karen King–are already in print and dominating the popular discourse. I think it courageous of her to do this book.
What struck me was that this very serious critique appeared as an Op-ed piece in the NYT.
Mr, Gannobn: What did you find striking about this?
Well the media generally had cooperated all too readily in the hyping of this story earlier, taking it all as very significant or at least seeming to do so. I recognize that “Judas Misunderstood: Really Jesus’ Friend and Partner” is “news”, rather like “man bites dog”. But in reporting news it ishould be essential to consider one’s sources and the nature of the evidence. All that said, Deconick’s sober re-examination with its focus on textual detail really was really newsworthy, given what had preceded, but I was a little surprised–very pleasantly, I might add–that the NYT gave it a prominent place on the editorial pages. A less detailed summary with a reiteration of differing views might have been offered, but happily was not. It would have been rather less effective. Perhaps I have been ungenerous to the NYT. I am resolved to be more open minded. Life is full of surprises. I suspect the afterlife will also be.
To tie this thread to the thread on the new encyclical, Joseph, maybe purgatory for some people will be an endless Sunday morning reading the Times’s Week in Review.
I tend to agree with what you say, Mr. Gannon.
It might make for a very good news story in itself, and not appear just as an op-ed piece, although in this format it did give Ms. DeConick a chance to make her case in her own words. .
I wonder if any of the scholars will reply now that it has been given this prominence.
In defense of the media on this one (my avocation) the reality is that most coverage was rather skeptical. (That went much moreso for the subsequent “Jesus Family Tomb” affair). The headlines certainly grabbed the public attention. But anyone who read the coverage would have had second-thoughts about the claims.
The NYT highlighting DeConick’s piece was terrific, I thought–but also part of the same dynamic as the original “new” Judas story: That is, he’s not what you thought. Now the (DeConick) story is that the revised version is not what you thought.
The translation of The Gospel of Judas in Reading Judas by Elaine Pagels and Karen L. King is not the National Geographic translation, but rather a translation done by King (although based on National Geographic transcription of the Coptic text).
I don’t know what the National Geographic books claimed, but Pagels and King say upfront that we don’t learn anything historically reliable about Jesus and Judas from The Gospel of Judas. What we do learn is some of the disputes that were going on in the second century about the meaning of the betrayal of Jesus by Judas.
So I don’t know if the National Geographic books were promoting the idea that Judas was actually a “good guy” and was misrepresented in the canonical gospels, but Pagels and King certainly say nothing of the kind.
Elaine Pagels was on the advisory board of the National Geographic project.
April DeConick has her own blog at which she has comments on various aspects of the discussion, including a report on the panel on the Judas text held at the meeting of the Society for Biblical Literature in San Diego a week or two ago.
http://forbiddengospels.blogspot.com/index.html
That Pagels/King book sure came out fast. Shouldn’t they have looked at the original manuscript themselves before cashing in with a book?
I understand that Pagels doesn’t read Coptic anyway.
Perhaps I’m just an envious student painfully writing my dissertation one sentence at a time with no hope of making any money.
JC,
Well, the original manuscript itself was extraordinarily fragile, so if they were going to wait for something, it would have been the facsimile edition. There is a note to the translation by King saying it is provisional until the release of the facsimiles.
One of Deconick’s major points in the Times piece is the translation of “daimon” as “spirit” when, she says, it should have been “demon.” However Pagels and King translate it as “god,” and in their commentary give their reasons for doing so. (I would quote them, but I do not have the book with me at the moment.)
Deconick is convincing that the process followed by National Geographic was not in accord with scholarly standards for dealing with these kinds of texts. But I have a feeling there is still plenty of room for debate over the correct translation and interpretation of the document.
Yes, good point about the fragility.
I talked to my colleague working on this stuff. He agrees with you that DeConick’s translations are highly debatable, and added that he doesn’t find her interpretation convincing at all.
I still think King/Pagels wanted to make some cash while the hype was high, rather than wait for a fascimile and make a contribution to the text’s reception.
JC,
I have worked in the publishing industry most of my life, and I can tell you that publishers and authors are not averse to making money or “striking while the iron is hot.” (I am talking about commercial publishing, not university presses and the like.) The Pagels/King book was pretty much a popular book, directed to the general public, not scholars. Publishers want to put out good books, but they also want to sell them, otherwise they will go out of business. So I think you are right that they wanted to get the book out while there was still interest in the Gospel of Judas, but that is only a bad thing if the book itself is a bad book. I think it is a pretty good book. (The reviews were good when it came out.)
Publishing a book like that is a little bit like publishing a newspaper. Newspapers could probably report a lot more accurately if they spent more time researching and writing their stories. But if they are a week or two behind the other newspapers, nobody will be interested.
I don’t know what the sales were for the book, but I can tell you few people get rich writing books about religious topics. In fact, very few people who publish books of any kind make a living at it.
Dear David,
Thank you for your comments. I think you are quite right., and your defense of the book as a popular one makes sense.
Pagels has published a lot of popular books, and I think together they must have made her some bit of money, no? If not, I wonder why she constantly continues to devote her time to such activities when she could be doing academic research. Perhaps, she has chosen to for her own reasons, not money. However, I think the jury is still out on her motives.
I find you to be a very fine interlocutor. The only one on the threads that I comment on. Thank you.