Comments on: Theology is a dirty business, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

By: Daryl Scroggins

Daryl Scroggins — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 02:57:09 +0000

Thank you, April, for your thoughtful comment. Truth is, I’m an athiest, so I don’t really have a dog in this hunt.

By: April DeConick

April DeConick — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 00:23:13 +0000

Daryl,

I spotted your comments about my book and just want to clear something up. My book was written and in press before the Critical Edition was published. Even the Critical Edition still contains errors which have finally now been corrected in the newly released second edition of the Gospel of Judas by National Geographic. These corrections were made in response to scholarly criticism such as I made in my book.

As for the non-disclosure statement. The members of the team were not allowed to speak to anyone about the Gospel of Judas prior to its release in April 2006. That is when I started to work on the Gospel of Judas and quickly saw the problems with their transcription and English translation which I began speaking about at conferences, writing scholarly articles, and also my book The Thirteenth Apostle. I wrote the book because I felt that the public should have a resource to know what was happening with the Gospel of Judas, and correct the mistakes that had been initially made in translation and interpretation.

I’m sorry to disappoint, but Judas is no hero in the Gospel of Judas. Only another demon, like the authors of John and Luke say.

April DeConick

By: Andrew Simone

Andrew Simone — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 02:20:00 +0000

Too True, Daryl.

That said, I am not really frustrated with the final conclusions of how the text should be read (not that I begrudge people who are) but, rather, I am trying to illustrate how much of the academic world is often highly concerned about perception and commodification: truth is valuable, not invaluable.

By: Daryl Scroggins

Daryl Scroggins — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 00:39:00 +0000

What’s that old saying: “You can’t cast doubt on all things at the same time.” The fact that each person has self-serving propensities doesn’t mean that all efforts are therefore equally flawed. I think it is possible to correctly point out that a person engaged in a project with others is being self-serving, while also noting that the others are not failing to a similar degree. Little that is worthy of the efforts of scholarship is likely to unfold without disagreement voiced by intelligent people–and imbeciles.

By: Sheila Ryan

Sheila Ryan — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 23:04:01 +0000

That much said, when I return to Andrew’s point re: scholarship, all scholarship, being refracted through one’s own point of view, I am down with him much more than not.

By: Sheila Ryan

Sheila Ryan — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 22:59:59 +0000

Good point, Pat. Coming from another point of view (that of an archivist and a sometime collector of antiquities), I noted gaping holes in the Chronicle’s account of the chain of provenance accompanying the codex, and it did lead me to wonder what other carelessness might mar the article.

By: Pat Pierce

Pat Pierce — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 22:47:38 +0000

Andrew wrote:
>>The problem I have, however, is not concerned with the difficulties of translation but how the whole affair was handled. The secrecy and speed of the whole affair runs contrary to the nature of these sorts of studies…>>

Secrecy perhaps — but the Chronicle article really messed up on its facts when it said the whole translation was carried out somehow in “record time.” In fact it was not — anyone who read the National Geo’s article, read the Gospel of Judas translation or even saw the TV special (which was on again about two weeks ago, so I made a point of watching) knows that lead translator Rodolphe Kasser began work on the codex as far back as 2001, even as the painstaking reassembly of the papyrus from the thousands of pieces it had crumbled into was underway. The German and French translations of the 26-page document were well along by the time Marvin Meyer, the American translator, was called into the project in 2004 to do the English translation. Then all four translators worked to reach what they call a consensus translation in English, French, German and the Coptic transliteration. The Chronicle article made it sound like the entire thing was zippily translated in a flash in less than a year. That’s not the case at all. I think the lesson is to take everything you read in the newspaper — even in a paper that should do its research, like the Chronicle of Higher Education — with a big grain of salt.

By: Andrew Simone

Andrew Simone — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 19:01:36 +0000

In this case it just seems that DeConick is avid to make a larger name for herself, or is trying to shape a text–before it even appears–to suit a position she holds.

Good heavens, they all are, Daryl. They all are.

By: Daryl Scroggins

Daryl Scroggins — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 18:58:55 +0000

Andrew– Thanks; this is an interesting squabble. I can’t say, though, that it seems much different from squabbles that occur in many other sorts of scholarly activity. Consider the fights that go on among those who write histories of the Holocaust. Your point about the need for textural criticism is well taken, but such a task usually requires at least some basic translation work being done first–and often the scope of that task is just that: to produce a working translation that may then be further examined and used. In this case it just seems that DeConick is avid to make a larger name for herself, or is trying to shape a text–before it even appears–to suit a position she holds.