Rice University Professor Debunks National Geographic Translation Of Gospel Of Judas

Eureka Alert ^ | 11-1-2007 | David Ruth - Rice University

[blam]

Contact: David Ruth
druth@rice.edu
713-348-6327
Rice University

Rice University professor debunks National Geographic translation of Gospel of Judas

A new book by Rice University professor April DeConick debunks a stunning claim by National Geographic's translation of the Gospel of Judas. According to that translation, Judas was a hero, not a villain, who acted on Jesus' request to betray him. DeConick disagrees.

Before releasing her book "The Thirteenth Apostle: What the Gospel of Judas Really Says," DeConick was intrigued by the original release of the Coptic Gospel of Judas and as a scholar wanted to read it for herself. While researching and translating it, she discovered that National Geographic's translators had made some serious errors.

"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," DeConick said. "The text very clearly called Judas a 'demon.'"

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 who lived in the second century.

"The finding of this gospel has been called one of the most important archaeological discoveries in the past 60 years," DeConick said. "It's important that we get this right."

DeConick said many scholars and writers have been inspired by the National Geographic version.

"It appears to have something to do with our collective guilt about anti-Semitism and our need to reform the relationship between Jews and Christians following World War II," she said. "Judas is a frightening character. For Christians, he is the one who had it all, and yet betrayed God to his death for a few dollars. For Jews, he is terrifying, the man whom Christians associated the Jewish people, whose story was used against them for centuries."

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DeConick is the Isla Carroll and Percy E. Turner Professor of Biblical Studies at Rice University in Houston. To read more about her teachings, visit http://reli.rice.edu/rice_reli.cfm?a=cms,c,38,1

"The Thirteenth Apostle" (Continuum International Publishing Group) is available to purchase on www.amazon.com.

April DeConick is available nationwide for media interviews. To book an interview, contact David Ruth at 713-348-6327 or druth@rice.edu.

[ZULU]

How close is “modern” Greek to Koine?

Someone told me that modern Greek is actually a reconstructed langauge like modern Hebrew.

[rmh47]

Thanks for the info. I suspected that modern Greek would be very different from older forms, but I did not know for sure and had never seen that question addressed before this thread. Freepers, collectively, seem to know everything.

BTW, I really like your tag lines, both of them.

[ZULU]

Thanks for the compliments on the taglines - the first is from the Templars, the other I can’t remember where I saw it.

When I took Classical Greek in college, there was a Greek guy in my class. He spoke modern Greek and expected to ace the course. He didn’t. I did.

[MHGinTN]

In my haste I misspelled it. Zorohite’ should be Zarahite, as in one of the sons of Judah, Zarah. His descendants populated the regions around the Med after being driven from Egypt, and went as far as Spain.

[Nachoman]

Paul never actually met Christ face to face or studied under Him, did he?

Well, if you don't count the road to Damascus experience a face to face. I believe he did meet Christ, but that is based in faith. Of course, faith is the essence of Christianity.

[chuckles]

“Gospel” means Good news and Truth. I could write a book called the Gospel of Hitler, but that’s not a book in the Bible. Writing a “Gospel” of Judas could actually be written, but it has no weight. It’s a fictional story anybody could write. ergo, it’s not a Gospel.

[ZULU]

I think we are going to get mired into a morass of semantics here. If you are referring to the Gospels of the New Testament you are correct.

If you wrote a book called “the Gospel of Hitler”, the book’s title would be the “Gospel of Hitler”. That wouldn’t elevate it to the New Testament but it would still be a “Gospel”.

[Verginius Rufus]

Modern Greek is a natural development out of Ancient Greek, sort of like Italian from Latin, but seems to have changed less. One big difference is in pronunciation--several vowels and diphthongs which were distinct in ancient times are now pronounced like English long E, and B is pronounced like V--so "Barbara" is "Varvara" and "beta" is "veeta." A fair number of words from other languages were adopted over the years--thus the word for "house" is "spiti" from Latin "hospitium." The words for "water" (nero) and "horse" (alogo) are quite different from the ancient words, but are based on native Greek roots.

Many words are the same as the ancient word, although maybe not pronounced exactly as Plato would have, or else are fairly close to the ancient word, but of course there are a lot of new formations for products or concepts that didn't exist in ancient times.

There is a "purifying" form of the language, katharevousa, which tries to keep as close as possible to ancient Greek, vs. the popular speech or "demotic" (dhimotiki).

[Allegra]

Everyone reads Greek.

It's all Greek to me.

[ZULU]

There must be a substantial difference in grammatical structure between the modern and ancient Greek dialect. I had a Greek speaking student in my Classical Greek class who was really lost with Homer and Herodotus.

[Verginius Rufus]

The examples of Linear B which have been found are mostly palace records--a lot of inventories, but including personal names and place names. A certain amount about the functioning of the palaces has been learned from the tablets, but no historical texts have been found--nothing confirming any of the figures mentioned by Homer as a ruler.

The number of Linear A texts is much smaller. According to John Chadwick's article on "pre-alphabetic scripts (Greece)" in the Oxford Classical Dictionary, Linear A goes back to about 1800 B.C. (Chadwick helped Ventris in the decipherment of Linear B, but Ventris is given most of the credit.)

[Verginius Rufus]

Most Greek inscriptions just run the words together (e.g., the Greek text on the Rosetta Stone), but occasionally you will find word dividers (often two or three dots written vertically).

I think most of the copies of Greek texts on papyrus found in Egypt also run the words together without breaks.

[IllumiNaughtyByNature]

Are there a lot of Freepers that are fluent in Greek?

When FReepers gather, we take down Ra^ther and things like that.

Not to be confused with DUmmies who gather and rally behind guys like Kookchinich and make great fodder for DUFU.

There are some FReepers who could easily translate it for us, I would bet my bottom dollar.

[Verginius Rufus]

I have studied classical Greek but haven't seriously studied Modern Greek. Ancient Greek uses a lot of participles, which seems to be much less true of the modern language.

I have a bilingual New Testament (original text with facing Modern Greek, which is probably deliberately old-fashioned). Here is Matt. 6.11-12 from the Lord's Prayer (capital E stands for eta, small e for epsilon, capital O for omega and small O for omicron):

Koine:
ton arton hEmO ton epiousion dos hEmin sEmeron, kai aphes hEmin ta opheilEmata hEmOn, hOs kai hEmeis aphiemen tois opheiletais hEmOn.

Modern Greek:
to kathimerino mas psOmi dos mas simera ke sinkhOrEse o, ti kako ekhome kani, opOs ke emis sinkhOroumen ekinous pou mas ekhoun kani kako.

[Verginius Rufus]

Oops. The 3th word in the koine text of Matt. 6.11 should read hEmOn (not hEmO).

[Your Nightmare]

Look right?

tοn artοn hηmωn tοn εpiοusiοn dοs hηmin sηmεrοn, kai aphεs hηmin ta οphεilηmata hηmωn, hωs kai hηmεis aphiεmεn tοis οphεilεtais hηmωn.

[Verginius Rufus]

Yes, looks very nice.

I just looked at a more scholarly text (published by the United Bible Societies) and it has instead of aphiemen the form aphEkamen.

The former is the present tense and the latter the aorist tense of the same verb. The aorist indicates an action took place in unspecified past time, without implying continuance or repetition--compared to the imperfect (the common past tense in Latin), the aorist is like a snapshot compared to a movie.

[MHGinTN]

Your two verse from the Alexandrian text:

LSB Greek:

ton arton hmwn ton epiousion doV hmin shmeron

kai afeV hmin ta ofeilhmata hmwn wV kai hmeiV afhkamen toiV ofeiletaiV hmwn

Symbol:

ton arton hmwn ton epiousion doV hmin shmeron

kai afeV hmin ta ofeilhmata hmwn wV kai hmeiV afhkamen toiV ofeiletaiV hmwn

[dsc]

“I don’t think it is wrong to keep an open mind about these things.”

Actually, it is. If you look, you can even see Satan’s signature modus operandi at work.

First, you define “keeping an open mind” as a good thing in itself, rather than appropriate in some circumstances and not in others. That principle established, you can resurrect ancient errors time and time again, and cause people to waste time, become confused, and perhaps even lose their immortal souls, all in the name of “keeping an open mind.”

Chesterton remarked that the purpose of having an open mind was to close it upon the truth. Need we keep an open mind about the shape of the Earth? Must we admit that it could be flat? How about abortion? Must we say that the killing of innocent human beings could be a moral good?

Does it seem reasonable that God would want us to keep an open mind on errors long debunked?

[MHGinTN]

“If you look, you can even see Satan’s signature modus operandi at work.” I’m afraid it takes ‘spiritual eyes’ to see so clearly and spiritual ears to hear the truth. Thank you for posting that clear explanation.