Remember the fluff published by National Geographic about Judas being simply "misunderstood?" It turns out that NatGeo well understood what they were doing. They were publishing a scam. And took pains to hide their tracks. Here's today's item from NYT (via The Anchoress) Gospel Truth - New York Times by April D. DeConick, a professor of Biblical studies at Rice University, is the author of "The Thirteenth Apostle: What the Gospel of Judas Really Says.
"So what does the Gospel of Judas really say? It says that Judas is a specific demon called the "Thirteenth." In certain Gnostic traditions, this is the given name of the king of demons — an entity known as Ialdabaoth who lives in the 13th realm above the earth. Judas is his human alter ego, his undercover agent in the world. These Gnostics equated Ialdabaoth with the Hebrew Yahweh, whom they saw as a jealous and wrathful deity and an opponent of the supreme God whom Jesus came to earth to reveal....It is, of course, worse than that. Any time the New York Times publishes a "correction" to their "standard reality narrative" it is always worse.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. The best scholarship is done when life-sized photos of each page of a new manuscript are published before a translation, allowing experts worldwide to share information as they independently work through the text.
Another difficulty is that when National Geographic published its transcription, the facsimiles of the original manuscript it made public were reduced by 56 percent, making them fairly useless for academic work.
As I noted at the time:
WHEN IT COMES TO DISCOVERING new ways to cheapen the human soul, the "professional intellectuals" of our society have cornered the market. So it was last week when, timed carefully to cash in on the Easter holiday, the "serious" editors of National Geographic chose to release their gleanings from a sheaf of rags and call them "The Gospel of Judas."That was then and this is now. I'm waiting for National Geographic to come out with a confession -- good for the soul you know -- but I continue regular breathing. They'll be out with that shortly after the vile New Republic announces they were had by Scott Beauchamp. Sometime never.Having risen through the echo chamber of "higher" education and survived the ruthless but quiet vetting process of their "profession," these editors knew full well that what they were putting out into the world was not a "gospel." They also knew that calling it a "gospel" would ensure greater attention and greater sales. Beyond that, the editors, secular cultists all, also got a quiet little tingle by having, in their minds, "stuck it" to the Christian church once again. As usual, such secularists love to stick it to Christianity. Addicts of auto-erotic spiritual asphyxiation, their onanistic pleasure in these deeds is only enhanced if they can be performed during the most holy days of the Christian calendar. Only then can maximum profit and pleasure be assured. -- Judas: A Saint for Our Seasons @ AMERICAN DIGEST
UPDATE: New Republic seems to have just published something of a retraction just now. Ah, the power of American Digest strikes again! I'll read it and get back. Nat Geo, over to you you bunch of slimy little Judases.
Posted by Vanderleun at December 1, 2007 12:51 PM | TrackBackExcellent article on the Judas fiasco. Note what the NYTimes piece says about the Dead Sea Scrolls:
"The situation reminds me of the deadlock that held scholarship back on the Dead Sea Scrolls decades ago. When manuscripts are hoarded by a few, it results in errors and monopoly interpretations that are very hard to overturn even after they are proved wrong."
The consequences of the outrageous Scrolls monopoly are in fact still continuing today in a series of massive, biased and misleading museum exhibits traveling around the country. See this article for details:
http://www.nowpublic.com/culture/did-christian-agenda-lead-biased-dead-sea-scrolls-exhibit-san-diego
Posted by: View from Here at December 2, 2007 12:02 PM"These Gnostics equated Ialdabaoth with the Hebrew Yahweh, whom they saw as a jealous and wrathful deity and an opponent of the supreme God whom Jesus came to earth to reveal...."
I'm confused. Does this mean the Lord of the Hebrews is a different Lord than the supreme Lord? Are there two? Is the Lord of the old testament evil? This is a stunning revelation for me!
Posted by: Nick at December 2, 2007 1:36 PM"New York Time correction" is an oxymoron.
Posted by: Murphy Klasing at December 2, 2007 8:43 PMNick, for what it's worth my opinion is that the God of the Old Testament and the Christian God are very different; Yahweh apparently thought that being ripped apart by bears was a suitable punishment for small children yelling childish insults at his prophet, while the Christian God of course sent his only son to die for the sins of others.
Of course, the code in Leviticus (is it there?) provides for blood-curdlingly vicious punishments for trivial crimes. Perhaps Jesus himself (no capital H in order to distinguish the man from the aspect of the Trinity) did not make the distinction clear because he did not want to be murdered ahead of schedule.
The argument that Judas did God's work is an interesting one. After all, Jesus had to be betrayed somehow, otherwise The Crucifixion would never have happened, Jesus would never have died for our sins and the Gospels would never have been written. Perhaps the other great pacifist religion, Buddhism, would have taken over the world. Certainly the last two millennia would have been very different. I am sure that there is a book in there somewhere - I'm not competent to write it.
Posted by: Fletcher Christian at December 3, 2007 12:05 AM"It is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood." -- Karl Popper N.B.: Comments are moderated to combat spam and may not appear immediately. Comments that exceed the obscenity or stupidity limits will be either edited or expunged.