Ehrman's BAD scholarship on the Gospel of Judas debunked - thoroughly and completely:
•In 2006, National Geographic released the first English translation of the Gospel of Judas, a second-century text discovered in Egypt in the 1970s. The translation caused a sensation because it seemed to overturn the popular image of Judas the betrayer and instead presented a benevolent Judas who was a friend of Jesus.
•Writers and academics have been quick to seize the opportunity to "rehabilitate" Judas as to re-examine our assumptions about this archetypal figure.
•In The Thirteenth Apostle April DeConick offers a new translation of the Gospel of Judas which seriously challenges the National Geographic interpretation of a good Judas.
Gospel of Judas Conference, Sorbonne, Paris 2006
•DeConick contends that the Gospel of Judas is not about a “good” Judas, or even a “poor old” Judas. It is a gospel parody about a “demon” Judas written by a particular group of Gnostic Christians – the Sethians. Whilst many other leading scholars have toed the National Geographic line, Professor DeConick is the first leading scholar to challenge this ‘official’ version. In doing so, she is sure to inspire the fresh debate around this most infamous of biblical figures.
An Interview with April DeConick about the Gospel of Judas
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Once I started translating the Gospel of Judas and began to see the types of translation choices that the National Geographic team had made, I was startled and concerned. The text very clearly called Judas a “demon.” Why did the team feel it necessary to translate this “spirit”? The text very clearly says that Judas will be “separated from” the Gnostics. Why did the team feel it necessary to translate this “set apart for” the Gnostics? And so forth.
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Why do you think that the National Geographic interpretation doesn’t work?
Not only is this interpretation based on a problematic English translation, rather than on what the Coptic actually says, but the opinion that Judas is a hero and a good guy is nonsense in terms of the bigger gospel narrative.
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The Gospel of Judas was written by Gnostic Christians called Sethians in the mid-second century. They wrote it to criticize Apostolic or mainstream Christianity, which they understood to be a form of Christianity that needed to reassess its faith. Particularly troubling for these Gnostic Christians was the Apostolic belief in the atonement, because this meant that God would have had to commit infanticide by sacrificing the Son. They wrote the Gospel of Judas to prove that this could not be the case. Why? Because Judas was a demon who worked for another demon who rules this world and whose name is Ialdabaoth. How did they know this? Because Jesus had revealed this to Judas before Judas betrayed him. That is the bottom line. That is what this gospel says.
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Bart D. Ehrman, 2006. The Lost Gospel of Judas Iscariot: A New Look at Betrayer and Betrayed (Oxford: Oxford University Press).
Professor Ehrman discusses his own involvement in National Geographic’s project to analyze the Gospel of Judas along with the tale of the discovery of Judas. He describes the contents of the gospel, its relationship to the New Testament gospels, suggesting that it presents a unique view of Jesus, the twelve disciples, and Judas who is the only one who remains faithful to Jesus even to his death. 198 pages.
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aprildeconick.com
Yes, thats right. Ehrman is one of the scholars who mistranslated and misconstrued the Gospel of Judas for the National Geographic and then capitalized on it by writing a book - now debunked. There is no longer ANYONE in the scholarly world who defends Ehrman's work. See below:
Also:
Rice University professor debunks National Geographic translation of Gospel of Judas
eurekalert.org
April DeConick's NYT Oped debunking the NG's translation of the Gospel of Judas
nytimes.com
This is good - from the Chronicle of Higher Education:
Wurst was a member of what the documentary referred to as a "dream team" of biblical scholars. Another member was Bart Ehrman, a professor of religious studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and author of several best-selling books including, most recently, God's Problem (HarperOne, 2008), which questions how a loving God could permit human suffering. Ehrman is one of those rare scholars who has managed to parlay his expertise into mainstream success. He's good on TV.
Ehrman was among the first to be contacted by National Geographic. It was, as he recalls, an odd conversation. He had to explain that, in order to translate the Coptic, the organization would need to hire a Coptologist, which he is not. That Coptologist would turn out to be Marvin Meyer, who was hired after someone from National Geographic heard him speak at a conference. Also brought on board was Elaine H. Pagels, a professor of religion at Princeton University and the kind of academic celebrity who gets asked what's in her fridge by The New York Times Magazine.
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Before that big announcement, some members of the team were sent to a one-day media-training seminar in Manhattan to prepare them for the coming onslaught of attention. They would have to explain to reporters, repeatedly, that the Gospel of Judas was probably written in the second century, long after the actual Judas was dead. There is no scholarly debate over whether the conversations in the gospel actually took place. Everyone agrees that it's fiction, but it's fiction that reveals how a certain sect of Christians viewed the meaning of the crucifixion and the role of Jesus' disciples.
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By keeping the translation under wraps, National Geographic had cornered the market on Judas, and now it intended to take full advantage of its position.
In all of its materials, the view of Judas as good guy was front and center. In an online video clip, Meyer calls the text's Judas the "most insightful and the most loyal of all the disciples." In Ehrman's essay, Judas is "Jesus' closest friend, the one who understood Jesus better than anyone else, who turned Jesus over to the authorities because Jesus wanted him to do so." The teaser on the documentary's DVD case asks, "What if this account turned Jesus' betrayal on its head, and in it the villain became a hero?" The discovery of an ancient document titled "The Gospel of Judas" is exciting enough. But the twist of a good Judas — well, that's a great story.
Reporters ate it up. Word of the discovery made the front pages of newspapers around the world. "Ancient Text Says Jesus Asked Judas to Hand Him to the Romans" was The Arizona Republic's headline. USA Today said the gospel "recasts" Judas. The Austin American-Statesman put it this way: "Ancient Judas as 'good guy,' not Jesus' betrayer." More than seven million viewers tuned in to see the documentary (counting the first couple of reruns), and 300,000 copies of the book containing the translation and the critical essays are now in print. The barrage of media coverage, aided by the good-Judas spin, seemed to have the desired effect.
Book publishers were anxious to get in on the action, too. While scholars involved in the project signed contracts agreeing not to publish their own books for six months, three of them — Meyer, Pagels, and Ehrman — came out with Judas tomes once the embargo was lifted.
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One of the seven million people who watched the National Geographic documentary was April D. DeConick. Admittedly, DeConick, a professor of biblical studies at Rice University, was not your average viewer. As a Coptologist, she had long been aware of the existence of the Gospel of Judas and was friends with several of those who had worked on the so-called dream team. It's fair to say she watched the documentary with special interest.
As soon as the show ended, she went to her computer and downloaded the English translation from the National Geographic Web site. Almost immediately she began to have concerns. From her reading, even in translation, it seemed obvious that Judas was not turning in Jesus as a friendly gesture, but rather sacrificing him to a demon god named Saklas. This alone would suggest, strongly, that Judas was not acting with Jesus' best interests in mind — which would undercut the thesis of the National Geographic team. She turned to her husband, Wade, and said: "Oh no. Something is really wrong."
She started the next day on her own translation of the Coptic transcription, also posted on the National Geographic Web site. That's when she came across what she considered a major, almost unbelievable error. It had to do with the translation of the word "daimon," which Jesus uses to address Judas. The National Geographic team translates this as "spirit," an unusual choice and inconsistent with translations of other early Christian texts, where it is usually rendered as "demon." In this passage, however, Jesus' calling Judas a demon would completely alter the meaning. "O 13th spirit, why do you try so hard?" becomes "O 13th demon, why do you try so hard?" A gentle inquiry turns into a vicious rebuke.
Then there's the number 13. The Gospel of Judas is thought to have been written by a sect of Gnostics known as Sethians, for whom the number 13 would indicate a realm ruled by the demon Ialdabaoth. Calling someone a demon from the 13th realm would not be a compliment. In another passage, the National Geographic translation says that Judas "would ascend to the holy generation." But DeConick says it's clear from the transcription that a negative has been left out and that Judas will not ascend to the holy generation (this error has been corrected in the second edition). DeConick also objected to a phrase that says Judas has been "set apart for the holy generation." She argues it should be translated "set apart from the holy generation" — again, the opposite meaning. In the later critical edition, the National Geographic translators offer both as legitimate possibilities.
These discoveries filled her with dread. "I was like, this is bad, and these are my friends," she says. It's worth noting that it didn't take DeConick months of painstaking research to reach her conclusions. Within minutes, she thought something was wrong. Within a day, she was convinced that significant mistakes had been made. Why, if it was so obvious to her, had these other scholars missed it? Why had they seen a good Judas where, according to DeConick, none exists?
Maybe because they were looking for him.
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This year DeConick held a conference on the Gospel of Judas at Rice. Many of the marquee names in biblical scholarship were there, including Meyer and Pagels. It was a cordial event, no thrown books or postlecture fistfights. Still, it was hard to miss the tension. When Meyer spoke, DeConick could be seen shaking her head and whispering to a colleague. One scholar referred to Meyer's defense of the original translation as "desperate" — causing him to laugh good-naturedly, if a bit defensively, too.
At one point, Pagels grabbed the microphone to say that she did not wish to be associated with Ehrman's positive take on Judas. She also, strangely, distanced herself from the book she had written with King. The word that the National Geographic team translated as "spirit" King translated as "god" — a choice Pagels said she now regretted.
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"There's probably no one who agrees completely with Bart Ehrman's or Marvin Meyer's essays," she says, but she adds that's not unusual with early interpretations of new texts.
The fiercest criticism of the National Geographic team came in the form of a New York Times opinion essay by DeConick, published in December. It is, like the professor herself, plain-spoken and blunt. She writes that "a more careful reading" makes it clear that Judas is no hero, implying, none too subtly, that the National Geographic team was not careful. She accuses its members of making "serious mistakes" and wonders aloud whether they are guilty of intentional mistranslation. "Were they genuine errors, or was something more deliberate going on?" she writes. "This is the question of the hour, and I do not have a satisfactory answer."
It takes a lot to upset Marvin Meyer. But over lunch, months after the publication of DeConick's essay, his displeasure is palpable. While she didn't name names, those in the field knew it was a direct swipe at him; the translation was officially a consensus translation, but Meyer had taken the lead. What bothers him most is the suggestion that there was "something more deliberate going on" — in other words, that they had falsified the text, creating a positive Judas for commercial gain. "I did not feel that I and we had been treated fairly," Meyer says, measuring his words. "I would not do that to one of my colleagues, with that kind of language."
When asked if she regretted that characterization, DeConick doesn't hesitate. "No, not at all," she says. "I don't know why it's a problem to pose the question." It's a problem, Meyer holds, because she didn't make the accusation privately, or on a blog posting, or in some obscure journal, but in the pages of The New York Times. Again, DeConick makes no apology. "They sold 250 million copies of their book or whatever," she says. "I think this is what was needed to get the job done."
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Yet beneath the claims of collegiality, there is some genuine ill feeling. For instance, when asked why DeConick would publicly question his ethics, Meyer accuses her of professional envy. "She felt some real passion because she was one of those people who had been excluded," he says. DeConick says that's not true — and besides, she wouldn't have been willing to sign a nondisclosure agreement. "He's maintaining his position even though he's aware of the problems, which I find troubling," she says.
The criticism of National Geographic's handling of the project has come not only from scholars on the outside, but also from members of the dream team.
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Some of the sharpest digs have been reserved for Ehrman, who was the first member of the National Geographic team to publish a book on Judas. Publicly Ehrman has been the most vocal in embracing Judas as hero, and he has been pilloried for it. Scholar after scholar at the Rice conference took shots at him. Turner said he didn't read Ehrman's book because he "wouldn't expect to learn anything from it."
Ehrman thinks he has been unfairly caricatured as a cheerleader for the positive Judas theory. "People like April harp on whether Judas is a good guy or not," he says. "The bulk of my essay and my book deals with other aspects."
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chronicle.com |
