Musings on biblical studies, politics, religion, ethics, human nature, tidbits from science
Following is an excerpt and two YouTube video clip links from a Queensland Greens notice to party members concerning the coming election:
Continue reading ““I’d love to vote for the Greens, but I don’t want to waste my vote””
I have been rethinking Mark’s Last Passover scene in the light of:
#3 — my recent reading of DeConick’s The Thirteenth Apostle — kicked me into bringing together other perspectives on the eucharist I had been playing with for some time. It was as if the Gospel of Judas as translated by DeConick is the final licence to run with my suspicions that Mark, too, was attacking the eucharist ritual as savagely as he was the Twelve themselves.
The National Geographic had a best seller on its hands when it published the Gospel of Judas that presented Judas as the hero of the Twelve rather than the villain as he is in the canonical gospels.
But the significance is not just that in one version Judas is a hero and in the other he is as bad as ever. DeConick’s translation (see previous post regarding her book) gives us a second century gospel that was ridiculing that branch of Christianity that claimed descent from the Twelve Apostles and that has bequeathed us the “orthodox” teaching about the sacrifice of Jesus.
National Geographic has bound to secrecy those scholars it hired to do the work of translation. Those scholars are unable to answer questions from other scholars about translation issues and what eventually appeared in the National Geographic publication of the gospel.
In at least one instance, however, DeConick reports that the National Geographic translators have reconsidered their translation and independently come to her view of a corrected translation (p.54 of The Thirteenth Apostle)
April DeConick has published her translation of the Coptic gospel and compared it with some of the more sensational passages in the National Geographic version. Unlike the translators for the National Geographic, she is able to discuss the issues behind her translations, and her discussions with scholarly peers in regard to the translations, both hers and those appearing in National Geographic.
Here are some of the more notable contrasts between National Geographic’s and April DeConick’s translations:
Spirit or Demon (p. 44.21 of the gospel)
National Geographic
And when Jesus heard this, he laughed and said to him, “You thirteenth spirit, why do you try so hard?”
DeConick’s correction
When Jesus heard (this), he laughed. He said to him, “Why do you compete (with them), O Thirteenth Demon?”
DeConick further outlines the history of the word for demon (daimon), explaining that it had lost the benign meaning it held in the early classical era and had taken on the negative attributes we associate with the word in later Greek philosophical writings. More specifically, “When the word daimon is used in Gnostic sources, it is applied frequently and consistently to the rebellious Archons and their malicious assistants.”
“You will exceed all of them” or “You will do worse than all of them” (p. 56.18 of the gospel)
National Geographic
But you will exceed all of them. For you will sacrifice the man who bears me.
DeConick’s correction
Yet you will do worse than all of them. For the man that clothes me, you will sacrifice him.
The National Geographic translation implies that Judas is destined to perform the greatest and most heroic act by sacrificing Jesus for the salvation of all. But DeConick believes the context in the gospel requires another understanding: Jesus is saying that Judas will “exceed” in the sense of “do worse” than all of these by offering the body of Jesus himself for a sacrifice.
DeConick’s explanation for her disagreement with the National Geographic translation is that the critical words take their meaning from its context. The discussion preceding these lines is negative, but lines are missing from the text, so the National Geographic is able to begin the passage with a new meaning. DeConick argues that despite the missing lines the negative discussion earlier justifies her correction to the negative meaning.
How negative was the earlier passage? It speaks of offering sacrifices to Saklas (a chief Archon assisting the Demiurge or lower god of this world). The specific nature of the sacrifices described earlier were sacrifices of children and wives. These sacrifices were accompanied by homosexual acts. Jesus is saying that Judas will “exceed” in the sense of “do worse” than all of these by offering the body of Jesus himself for a sacrifice.
Other translation differences
National Geographic’s “Set me apart for” becomes “Separated me from” (p. 4617)
“Could it be that my seed is under the control of the rulers?” becomes “At no time may my seed control the archons!” (p. 46.6-7)
“They will curse your ascent to the holy [generation]” becomes “And you will not ascend to the holy [generation]” (p. 46.25)
“Your star has shone brightly” becomes “Your star has ascended” (p. 56.23) (The significance of this change is that the latter corrected translation means the fate of Judas is sealed. The meaning is negative in this context.)
Correcting the National Geographic Myths about Judas (pp. 60-61 of The Thirteenth Apostle)
April DeConick sums up the sensational but false attributes of Judas sold by the National Geographic and compares their claims with her discussions with peers about this translation, and with her own revised translation. In my paraphrase:
I have only sketched a barest outline of what DeConick writes here. But enough, I hope, to give the general idea that we need to move beyond the National Geographic publication of this gospel.
Related post: What the Gospel of Judas Really Says
Critical edition of the Gospel of Judas / Tchacos Codex — which includes link to Roger Pearse’s site, The Coptic Ps.Gospel of Judas (Iscariot)
Also Mark’s attack on the eucharist draws in part on DeConick’s Gospel of Judas.
I have just finished reading April DeConick‘s new book, The Thirteenth Apostle: What the Gospel of Judas Really Says. So many comments need to be made directed at so many interests:
- DeConick’s annotated bibliography of the Gospel of Judas, second-century Christianity, the New Testament Apocrypha and Gnosis and the Gnostics;
- her annotated synopsis of Sethian Gospel literature;
- her annotated citations of the testimony from the Church Fathers on the Gospel of Judas;
- and finally a Q&A section with April DeConick. This summed up some of the common questions asked about the Gospel of Judas (why is it appearing only now, why such opposing translations, what is the position of other scholars given such opposing translations, early Christianity and the role of Judas. . . .)
I can see myself returning regularly to this book in future references on this blog. (Especially in relation to my special interest in studies relating to the Gospel of Mark and Christian origins.)
Almost forgot — Yes, the book contains a complete and new translation — with commentary — of the Gospel of Judas.
NOTE: Wikipedia’s article on The Gospel of Judas is in urgent need of updating since April DeConick’s book!
P.S.
The only point I did not like about the book was one that is really a matter of my own idiosyncratic taste. The offending “no no” paragraphs were an attempt to justify the relevance of the gospel to today in terms of its addressing issues of authority — does it come from without, or from our consciences within? That might appeal to those who like to immerse themselves in the minds and philosophies of the ancient and who attempt to bring them into our modern questions. But for one such as myself I find no need for justifying my interest other than the fact that the gospel helps inform us better of the origins and nature of early Christianity.
Related posts found at my Judas tag
See also Opposing translation — further discussion of one section of DeConick’s book.
Critical edition of the Gospel of Judas / Tchacos Codex — which includes link to Roger Pearse’s site, The Coptic Ps.Gospel of Judas (Iscariot)
Why is my grief mingled with anger and not pride? And why am I continually haunted every Anzac day by the recollection of a very different Anzac day service tone so many years ago? Continue reading “myths of war, grapes of wrath”
Some churches read the zillions of verses in the Bible the way psychics read tea leaves. If those church goers compared how astrologers read horoscopes or the way ancient priests compared the entrails of a sheep with the political issues of the state, they would have to admit that despite the difference in their tools, the methods of divining the sacred will are identical.
Nostradamus
Peter Singer is a moral philosopher currently based at Princeton University (see his Princeton homepage). He is most famous for his pioneering work on animal liberation but has advanced his utilitarian philosophy into a range of other controversial public areas as well. He has expressed disappointment that his arguments for alleviating human misery have been less influential than those he was expressed to reduce animal suffering.
The Singer Solution to World Poverty is a timeless argument, elegant in its simplicity and lacking only in suggestions that are consistent with what people have become habituated to doing and thinking. (And as “Bad” commented, it is essentially a discussion of Peter Unger’s argument in his 1996 Living High and Letting Die.)
I won’t repeat the argument here. It is only the equivalent of a 6 page chapter in his book, Writings on an Ethical Life. It’s readily available to all online.
But let’s compare relatively modern utilitarian ethics (judging an action to be right or wrong according to its consequences) with the ancient ethics of Jesus in relation to the poor. Continue reading “The ethics of Peter Singer and Jesus compared”
It is sometimes said that the women followers of Jesus showed more resolution and loyalty than the male disciples of Jesus. One scene often pointed to as a demonstration of this claim is the women staying within range of Jesus on the cross while the other disciples had either betrayed him, fled for their lives or denied him.
There were also women looking on from afar, among whom were Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James the Younger and of Joses (widely understood to be Jesus’ mother – c.f. Mark 6:5), and Salome (Mark 15:40)
This claim that the women were in some way “more worthy” than their male counterparts, at least as it applies to the Gospel of Mark, misreads Mark’s narrative completely. The correct understanding of Mark’s sources here also has major implications for how we understand the most fundamental things about the gospel story itself. Continue reading “The women at the cross”
Loved the spin on this sad survey by the Australia Institute to see what the public thought of Australian politicians:
Mario Liverani in his Israel’s history and the history of Israel explains that the idiom of people “going out” and “going in” to a land was used to describe a change in political dependence without any literal movement of the people from one place to another. Continue reading “Exodus dreaming: turning the literary into the literal”
An Asian perspective on Bhutto’s return to Pakistan: Bhutto bombing kicks off war on US plan
Continue reading “mr military “what’s a judge?” vs ms civilian “swiss bank account””
The passage in Galatians (2:7-8) that civilly explains how Paul and Peter were each separate but equal apostles, the former preaching the gospel to the gentiles and the latter to the Jews, is evidently a second century catholicizing attempt to re-write history and bring the two apostles into the same “orthodox” fold. The idea of separate apostleships and gospels for the Jewish and Gentile worlds was unknown till the second century. It is certainly foreign to the thought of Paul found in the rest of his correspondence. Continue reading “The anti-marcionite, catholicizing Peter-Paul equivalence in Galatians”
Final in this series on dysfunctional fundamentalist families: the rest are archived here.
Some of the dynamics of fundamentalist families are similar to those of other dysfunctional families. For example, in both fundamentalist and alcoholic families
To recover from the experience of growing up in a dysfunctional family it is important to understand difficulties that may be experienced in such areas as those listed above. Understanding difficulties with denial and expressing feelings is important, but it is just as necessary to understand their positive counterparts. Continue reading “Dysfunctional fundamentalist families (11): Family Health Versus Dysfunction”
As a past student of American history and society I relished catching up with more recent publications a couple of years ago and one of the more interesting was America Right or Wrong: An Anatomy of American Nationalism (2004) by Anatol Lieven. Sharing some notes from one section of this book — a discussion of the link between millenarian religious beliefs and American nationalism — with anyone else interested. Continue reading “Millenarians and Nationalists”