Superstar Judas
A little while back an ancient document containing a manuscript called The Gospel of Judas finally made it into the hands of the sort of people who study translate such things. Although apparently there's an unwritten rule about making this sort of document available to other scholars and the general public as soon as possible, something of a gag order was placed on The Gospel of Judas until two weeks ago when National Geographic put out a book and TV special about it, and just in time for Easter.
There's something rather sensational just about the name "The Gospel of Judas," and the press was all over the story. I know this because Marv Meyer, one of the super-secret elite team of international scholars to work on the project is a professor at Chapman University where, I work in the PR department. I got to see the media blitz first-hand. Not that I was all THAT impressed by it. After all, Happenings, the Chapman staff and faculty newsletter that I am managing editor of, broke the story before it hit the international press, meaning I will forever be able to say that I scooped the New York Times. How's that for hard-hitting journalism???
Of course The Gospel of Judas is not nearly as shattering or newsworthy as it has been hyped to be. It's arguments are nothing new, it's been known to exist for over 1200 years (although it was lost for most of that time), and quite obviously it was not actually written by Judas.
There's a great article about the whole ordeal in the New Yorker right here that hits pretty much everything I would want to say about it, actually.
EXCEPT
1). I scooped the New York Times!
and
2). There is serious talk of making The Gospel of Judas the cover story of the next issue of Chapman Magazine because the connections between it and The DaVinci Code (which is amazingly STILL on the Best Seller list -- it seems that there must be more copies of that book than literate adults in America by now) are too great to pass up. Which is fair, I guess, that's good PR or something. Except that we put Marv Meyer on the cover of Chapman Magazine over TWO YEARS AGO for the SAME reasons! Hasn't the zeitgeist moved on by now? Or are we doomed to keep hyping the hype because others have hyped it?!
I probably am in the wrong industry.
xxxooo
Happy Easter
posted by Aaron at 12:51 AM
7 Comments:
That show totally disappointed me. I knew they were going to go off saying, "This could change Christianity....FOREVER!" dun dun dun! But yeah, even if Judas DID write it, it doesn't even mean anything. When you study reliability of documentation (especially ancient documentation) there are certain rules you go by to test it. Without going into crazy detail, the fact that there is ONE copy, the fact that it's information goes against many other documents from the same time, and many other factors pretty much make it an interesting find and nothing else. Heck, I can write a book called "The Gospel of Grant" and say that I was actually Jesus. If they found it in 20,000 years all crumbly and old someone would probably believe it.
And rightly so ;)
::looks up for the lightning strike::
MARV!!!!
Also for a writer you don't always care so much about typos or punctuation.
...at least on your site, which probably means your ideas are just coming out faster than you can punctuspell them.
Sometimes i feel like my major involves too much study translating of things. Not that it's all bad--in fact it's often fun!
Way to use the German word zeitgeist btw, even though it's long since been somehow inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fa...i mean, the grand olde literary cannon which is the English language. By osmosis or something.
Way to scoop their scoop, scooper!
Stupid gospel of lameness.
ooo, ooo, the Gospel of Jefferson? Is THIS what you've been spoon-feeding us, you fiend!
Curses!
Decent article in the NY Times. What do you think about that ending? It kind of seems to me like Marv Meyer wrote it instead of Adam Gopnik. Although it negates the Gospel of Judas, it sort of advocates religious pluralism, which seems weird to me. Any thoughts? Grant?
Wow, i'm commenting away, aren't i?
"Also for a writer you don't always care so much about typos or punctuation."
oooh, burn! I typed this up late at night and didn't read through it before posting (although I did spell check), so I appologize for the typos.
And for someone who values friendship so deeply, you don't always care so much about being tactful. I'm just saying!
The article is obviously coming from a secular point of view, which I meant to point out (again, it was late!) but I didn't think it was more pluralistic than one would expect from The New Yorker. What part of it are you refering to?
hahaha...
burn!
i love you Aro, you know that. i suppose i'm not always so tactful (though i try to be)...but at least i'm direct! i think the cyberworld can confuse intended meaning, too, and i certainly wasn't intending to burn you. Besides, i really appreciated the accidental "study translate" verb!
burn!
?
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In relation to the article i think you're totally right as far as what one should expect from the NY Times. (Is that the same as the New Yorker?) Still the author discredits the cannonized Scriptures as being no better than any other religious text in terms of authenticity because of their (at least partial) human authorship. But i guess we can't expect him to concede to much more than that, because that would be un un-religious of him?
i think the excerpt i am most referring to is this:
"Yet the Judas Gospel is an eye-opener anyway. First, because it is useful to be reminded, in a time of renewed fundamentalism, that religions actually have no fundament: that the inerrant texts and unchallenged holies of any faith are the work of men and time. Any orthodoxy is the snapshot of a moment. That the Church has long had answers to gnosticism, in all its varieties, does not mean that gnosticism was always doomed to heresy."
Maybe i'm not clear on what Gopnik means by fundament and/or orthodoxy.
On the whole i do think that it's a good article. Actually quite good, now that i've thought about it a little.
And thanks for writing about it and sharing with us!
love, me
Don't mistake me, I appreciate your directness! I only wish there were no typos, ever! :)
The New Yorker is a weekly magazine that's all hoity-toity. I kind of like it. The New York Times is a daily newspaper that's all . . . newsy. I think it was the Times that first broke the story, but The New Yorker that published the review I linked to. Man, I need to go to New York!
I would agree with you about the part of the article you quoted, and I don't agree with him completely. However, it is good to be reminded that there were a lot of branches of Christianity back in the day, not just now. Discerning truth has never been easy. One thing I love about the Bible is how there are a lot of different view points from specific people at specific times represented, and they sometimes seem to contradict each other. I think reading the material that didn't make the cannonical cut can remind us that there was a reason certian books made it in -- they were pretty much the right ones!
more love from aro!
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