Marvin W. MeyerRezensionen

Twee Egyptische fellahin, die op zoek waren naar natuurlijke mest in de vallei van de Nijl, ontdekten in december 1945 een verzegelde voorraadpot. Deze pot bleek een verzameling van zo'n tweeënvijftig oude manuscripten te bevatten, waarvan de meeste de leringen weerspiegelen van een mystieke religieuze beweging die we gnosticisme noemen (van het Griekse woord gnosis, "kennis"). De teksten zijn ook, op enkele uitzonderingen na, christelijke documenten en verschaffen ons dus waardevolle nieuwe informatie over het karakter van de vroege kerk en over de gnostische christenen binnen de kerk.

In dit deel heeft Marvin W. Meyer een nieuwe Engelse vertaling gemaakt voor algemene lezers van vier van de belangrijkste en meest onthullende van deze vroeg-christelijke teksten -- het Geheime Boek van Jacobus, het Evangelie van Thomas, het Boek van Thomas en de Geheim boek van Johannes.

1CThe Gospel of Judas 1D is the third book about this gospel that I have read this year. The common thread in all of these books 14aside from the controversial gospel itself 14is the lore of books and publishing, especially the ephemeral world of ancient publishing. It is sad, too, to read in each book how this ancient papyrus book or codex was treated by its several late-twentieth-century owners. When it was first seen by Professor Rodolphe Kasser, the man who became its chief translator, he was alarmed to notice that the papyrus upon which the text is written crumbled at the slightest touch. Kasser pays the ultimate compliment to Florence Darbre, the professional restorer who gently and patiently conserved the ruined book: 1CWith her fairy 19s fingers, she made largely possible what, at first glance, appeared doomed to failure. 1D

The recent history of this gospel is shrouded in secrecy because the discovery and subsequent sale(s) were illegal. It was found somewhere up the Nile by grave robbers and sold on the black market. After more than twenty years of miserable treatment, it was bought by the Maecenas Foundation in Basel, Switzerland, where it was rescued by Darbre, then translated by professors Kasser of Switzerland and Gregor Wurst of Germany. The Foundation also made a deal with the National Geographic Society for the publication and distribution of 1CThe Gospel of Judas. 1D

This book contains not only the nearly complete text of the short gospel, but also copious footnotes, an introduction, and four lengthy commentaries by each translator and two American scholars, Marvin Meyer and Bart Ehrman. The notes prove to be necessary because holes, tears, discolorations, and missing fragments leave sometimes enormous gaps in the text, requiring restorative guesswork to make sense of the story. Fortunately, there are a number of other gnostic texts, so that when only a few legible phrases remain of the more compromised passages of the Gospel of Judas, they sometimes turn out to be reminiscent of phrases found in the Secret Book of John, the Holy Book of the Invisible Spirit, and other gnostic works; so the translators are able to guess what some of these ravaged passages probably said.

There is further justification for so much commentary. Even if the translators had had a pristine copy to work from, the Gospel of Judas, like all gnostic texts, is full of obscure allegory as well as allusions to astrology and numerology. (If you think that the canonical New Testament is free of influences such as numerology, then explain why it is that several of Jesus 19s miracles that involve fish dwell so much on the exact numbers of fish involved; for that matter, explain the far out use of allegory in Revelations 26but then again don 19t 14I don 19t want to get anyone started.) Many students of gnosticism have speculated that these texts were only really penetrable to those who were privileged to receive an oral explanation from a gnostic teacher.

The second-century Bishop Irenaeus mentions the Gospel of Judas in his five-volume work Against Heresies (circa 180). Wurst believes that Irenaeus probably had heard of it but never actually saw it; nevertheless, Wurst concludes that the original of the Gospel of Judas would be over 1830 years old, if it were still to exist, but was composed after 100 14probably well afterward. It also would have been in Greek rather than the Coptic (late Egyptian) language in which the surviving third- or fourth-century copy of the Gospel of Judas is preserved. (By comparison, the only complete copy of the Gospel of Thomas is in Coptic and dates from the fourth century, but fragments from two different third-century copies in Greek also exist.) The title of the Coptic text is literally 1Cthe Gospel of Judas, 1D not 1Cthe gospel according to Judas, 1D as might be expected since the latter is the usual style of most other gospel titles 14including those of Matthew and Thomas, for example. The editors suggest that this is because this is not supposed to be a gospel about Jesus by Judas, but rather a gospel about Judas.

The existence of the Gospel of Judas tells us little if anything about the situation at the dawn of Christianity. Rather, it tells us mainly about the diversity of belief among subsequent generations of early Christians. While the earliest split in Christianity was between Jewish and gentile Christians, there were multiple GENTILE Christianities by the beginning of the second century (although most varieties of Christianity were either influenced by or reacting against Jewish Christianity; paradoxically, some may actually have been doing both at once). One of these varieties was gnosticism, a system of thought influenced by Greek philosophy and mysticism, but which also appealed to some Jewish as well as Christian sects. Most scholars doubt that Jesus was a gnostic but many believe that some very early Christians might have been. Gnostic Christians were certainly ubiquitous throughout second- and third-century Christendom 14even finding their way to Rome. They did not seek to convert masses of people, instead seeking out only the few in any community who would be receptive to their message. Not only did gnostics live side by side with orthodox Christians for several centuries but, also, quasi-gnostic ideas mingled with orthodox thought 14and arguably still do. The letters of Paul and the Gospel of John, tinged as they are with Greek philosophy and mysticism, were comfortably read by gnostics with their own interpretations in mind.

This gospel clearly intends to promote the beliefs of the gnostics who held that the world was created by an evil god (or the henchmen of an evil god), and that there is a higher God or 1CGodhead 1D above this lower god. This sounds polytheistic, but not more so than the belief of some 1Cmonotheists 1D in the Devil, who is, after all, an entity lower than God yet possessed of some god-like powers; indeed, the evil god or 1Cdemiurge, 1D as conceived of by the gnostics, shares some obvious characteristics with Satan who is often described as if ruling over the material world even if he did not make it.

Gnostics believed that knowledge (Greek: gnosis), that is, an enlightened understanding of the true arrangement of the universe, is the beginning of a journey at the end of which one 19s soul might be reunited with the true Supreme Being in the highest spiritual realm, where the soul truly belongs. According to this theology, Jesus came not to expiate our sins through his sacrifice but to spread knowledge of the True God and then to make his own escape from this material world. There is no resurrection in the Gospel of Judas because the True God, through Jesus, has no wish to claim this world. Jesus 19s death, accomplished indirectly through Judas, is a rejection of this corrupt material plain. According to the Gospel of Judas, the title figure is not a villain but, rather, simply Jesus 19s means of escape. 1CYou will exceed all of them, 1D says the gnostic Jesus to Judas, 1Cfor you will sacrifice the man that clothes [or 1Cbears 1D] me 1D (Judas 56 14rather than being divided into chapters and verses, the Gospel of Judas is cited by page number in the codex).

The gnostics who wrote and used the Gospel of Judas explicitly belonged to the Sethian sect within gnosticism (named for Seth, the third son of Adam and Eve, with whom these gnostics identified Jesus), and perhaps they belonged to a 1CCainite 1D sect or sub-sect that was suggested by Irenaeus and others to have been connected with the Gospel of Judas; however, the editors of this translation point out that no mention of Cain appears in the admittedly incomplete text of the Gospel of Judas, while Seth is quite prominent. It is possible that 1CCainites 1D was just an epithet applied to gnostics by their enemies.

There is an unmistakable 14if possibly misunderstood 14elitism in gnosticism: some human beings are 1Cof the spirit 1D while others are 1Cmade of wood 1D and are seemingly hopeless cases. According to gnostics, the greater portion of humanity is trapped not only in the prison of the material world but in ignorant worship of the lower god as if he were the True God. Moreover, there looms the likelihood that not everyone who possesses the spark of the divine in his soul will achieve the illumination of divine gnosis if he does not seek it diligently. (This three-tiered hierarchy of who does and does not attain gnostic illumination lends itself to one possible interpretation of the parable of the sower [NT: Matthew 13:1-23; Mark 4:1-20; Luke 8:1-15; and, extra-canonically, Gospel of Thomas 9].)

Just as Irenaeus and other orthodox churchmen accused gnostics and their other enemies of the most heinous kinds of immorality, so the 1Cheretics 1D returned the favor. In the Gospel of Judas, the gnostic Jesus accuses his disciples 14excepting Judas 14of leading Christianity into false teachings, fornication, homosexuality, and spiritual (and possibly even physical) mass murder. Indeed, while the Gospel of Judas resolves the mystery of why a farseeing Jesus would adopt a disciple whom he knows will turn him over to his enemies, it creates the greater puzzle of why Jesus would accept the other eleven disciples even as he reproaches them for their abominations in his name. Why does he not read them out of his program entirely if he is not able to rehabilitate them before they go out to do so much evil in the future? The obvious answer is that by the time this gospel was written, Christianity had already embarked on the program decried by this gospel 19s author. (This is a good example of how this text 14like others, including the NT texts 14tell us far more about the attitudes and conflicts of the times in which it was actually written than it does about the time in which its story is set.)

Much of the text is taken up with the exposition of cosmology, making the 1Cplot 1D rather thin for those who expect this gospel to be a narrative or even a novel. As far as they go, the plot points are these: Jesus finds the apostles anachronistically at Eucharist, worshipping the false lower god. After Jesus chides them, he is approached by Judas who confesses that Jesus was sent by the True God. The other apostles describe a vision they have had and Jesus interprets it to mean that they will betray his teachings. He then teaches Judas gnostic cosmology. Judas later describes a vision in which he is stoned to death by the others, and Jesus tells him that although he will be reviled by men for a long time, ultimately 1Cyour star will lead the way. 1D Toward the end of the gospel, Jesus guides Judas on a mystical ascent to the heavens. He seems to be speaking about Judas 19s relation to the 1CGreat Generation 1D that is destined for gnostic reunion in the upper reaches of heaven, but this is another compromised passage with as many as five lines completely missing. For all we know, those missing lines could involve Jesus telling Judas more explicitly than before to hand him over to the authorities. An interesting difference from the NT version of the arrest is that Jesus is evidently not grabbed in a garden but in a room in some unspecified place where he has gone to pray. Then the Gospel of Judas ends almost anticlimactically with Judas meeting with the authorities and delivering Jesus to them.

Let's get this straight. I finished the text, not the entire book. I'm sure the essays that followed The Gospel of Judasare interesting and provide historical insight to the lost text, it doesn't further my pursuit of reading as many religious texts as I promised - a stupid idea last year, but I bought all these books so I better damn read them.

It's hard to "review" a religious text - especially one that is considered a "lost book" of the Bible. Especially hard when said "lost book" also has several lines of text missing. We also know the ending - "Judas answered them as they wished. And he received some money and handed him over to them."

So what this book offers is an unique insight to the times before Judas' betrayal. It even offers a hint that Jesus already knew and warned Judas of said betrayal: "But you will exceed all of them. For you will sacrifice the man that clothes me./Already your horn has been raised,/your wrath has been kindled,/your star has shown brightly/and your heart has [...]."

It's a new look at Judas Iscariot, the betrayer, as well as, Jesus the messiah. It's also no wonder why this text will never make it into any canon. Interesting read and you should definitely pick it up.

For all those readers curious to read the actual texts of the Gnostic Gospels, here is the definitive collection of all the Gnostic Gospels and Gospel–like texts. The texts, especially taken together, present an image of Jesus as the ultimate wisdom teacher, a kind of mysterious Jewish Zen master, who scandalized listeners by his radical egalitarianism (regarding women, slaves, the poor, the marginalized as of equal status, or more, with establishment male believers) and his insistence on living the message, spiritual experience, vs. outer observance only.

Interesting, and of all the Gnostic gospels, this one feels close to Truth.

Four from Nag Hammadi
Review of the Vintage paperback edition (1986) of the Random House hardcover (1984) excerpted from Gnostic writings discovered in 1945 & dated circa 3rd to 4th century AD

The most fascinating of these is the non-canonical Gospel of Thomas which is not at all like the four conventional New Testament Gospels, but is simply a listing of 114 sayings of Jesus, 2/3rds of which are close to sayings in the official Gospels. It does give a further indication that all of the Gospels are based on the supposed Q Source.

The Secret Book of John is the wildest of the texts, with a totally bizarre world creation story including several levels of Gods and 365 angels. Not surprising that the church would have excluded this one from the official Canon.

I read The Secret Teachings of Jesus as part of my current interest in the translation of early religious texts through my recent discovery of the plain modern day language translations by Sarah Ruden in Paul Among the People (2010), The Face of Water (2017), and The Gospels (2021). I am approaching these books more out of an interest in learning about the context of translation and not as any sort of Christian scholar.

In a small parallel between Meyer (translating from Coptic) and Ruden (translating from Koine Greek) I did rather like the way they express an admonishing tone:

Whoever has ears to hear ought to listen. - excerpt Saying 8, Gospel of Thomas (trans. Meyer)

>

Whoever has ears had better hear! - Matthew 11.15, The Good News According to Maththaios (trans. Ruden)

Compare these to most standard translations.

FBB-5

A must read for those who really want to KNOW.

Disclaimer: I only listened to the CDs.

A few good bits, lots and lots of waffle. Like with canonical Christianity, I am much more interested in the ideas and realities surrounding the religion than with its poorly written rambling texts.

I think these CDs would be better for someone who already had a great familiarity with the material and some of its 'hidden' (i.e. invented) meanings.

" Tu les surpasseras tous. Car tu sacrifieras l'homme qui me sert d'enveloppe charnelle. " Ce sont là les paroles que Jésus adresse à Judas, dans un évangile inconnu, arraché aux sables égyptiens. Un évangile doublement caché, à la fois par dix-sept siècles d'oubli mais aussi par la condamnation officielle de l'Eglise. Ecrit en copte, ce codex, qui a miraculeusement traversé les âges, a dû être rédigé lors du IIe siècle de notre ère. Son message est bouleversant, qui voit en Judas l'homme choisi par le Christ pour accomplir Son destin. C'est là tout l'univers fascinant des croyances qui s'ouvre, réservées jusqu'alors aux initiés qui luttèrent contre l'Eglise lors de la création de la chrétienté. Le manuscrit original est ici intégralement livré au public, avec un double appareil critique complet qui offrira à chaque lecteur de cheminer à son gré dans les profondeurs de ce texte troublant.

Thomas tells us more about the historical Jesus than all of the Dead Sea Scrolls put together. This book combines a very readable style with an up-to-date introduction, transcription, translation, notes, and bibliography. The notes alone provide the best available commentary on the 114 sayings, explaining many otherwise obscure passages and supplying many ancient parallels that support these interpretations.

It's only fair to read his side of the story, isn't it? After all, he did exactly as he was supposed to do, but obviously he'd have a different take. Parts are missing, which isn't surprising, and it's certainly controversial. Nevertheless, one should at least read it before rending any judgement on the man.

LAS ENSEÑANZAS SECRETAS DE JESÚS CUATRO EVANGELIOS GNÓSTICOS

Este volumen contiene cuatro sorprendentes y bellos evangelios gnósticos: el Libro secreto de Jaime, el Evangelio de Tomás, el Libro de Tomás y el Libro secreto de Juan. Estos cuatro textos, traducción de los manuscritos de Naj Hammadi, nos ofrecen lo que en ellos mismos se denomina «las enseñanzas secretas del Salvador» y nos ayudan a entender la desaparición del gnosticismo. Disidentes del mundo antiguo, defensores del acercamiento íntimo a Dios y, sobre todo, rebeldes a la autoridad de sacerdotes y obispos, los gnósticos fueron perseguidos sin piedad por la iglesia oficial, que destruyó la mayoría de sus documentos y alentó los escritos hostiles de filósofos y teólogos ortodoxos. Estos hermosos textos nos devuelven, 2000 años después, el testimonio de una fe inquietante.

INTRODUCCIÓN

En diciembre de 1945 dos fellabin egipcios cabalgaban en sus camellos en busca de fertilizante natural a lo largo de la base de los magníficos riscos que adornan el gran meandro del Nilo en el Alto Egipto. Tal como cuenta uno de ellos Muhammad 'Ali al-Samman Muhammad Khalifah, los dos hombres manearon sus camellos y empezaron a cavar cerca de un peñasco grande que se halla al pie de un risco excepionalmente impresionante que lleva por nombre Jabal al-Tarif. De pronto, sus herramientas chocaron con algo duro. Los dos fellabin siguieron cavando y desenterraron una jarra de barro que había permanecido alli, enterrada en la arena de Egipto, durante centenares de años.

Al principio a Muhammad Ali le daba miedo abrir la jarra, no fuera a liberar un jinn o espíritu que estuviese encerrado dentro de ella. Luego pensó que tal vez la jarra contenía oro, como ocurriera con otros recipientes descubiertos un poco más arriba del río, en el Valle de los Reyes. Su amor por el oro se impuso sobre su temor a los jinns y Muhammad ‘Ali abrió la jarra. Y, en efecto, según él, dentro había oro: salió volando del recipiente y ascendió hacia el cielo, dejando sólo una colección de viejos papiros que el hombre colocó sobre el lomo de su camello para llevárselos a casa...

A translation of the "Gospel of Judas" manuscript, with notable contextual essays by Kasser, Ehrman, Wurst, and Meyer. Like the companion volume this one seemed a bit rushed into print, but Kasser's essay in particular provides a succinct account of the manuscript's handling and mishandling over time.

I think this is the third translation of the Gospel of Thomas I've read, and possibly the most recently published (1992). Translator Marvin Meyer's introduction conspicuously suspends judgment about the "gnostic" character of the text, and thus side-steps the terminological morass surrounding "Gnosticism." Instead, he emphasizes a shared culture with the Cynic philosophers of antiquity.

This "gospel" is one of the most significant components of the Nag Hammadi Library discovered in Egypt in the mid-20th century. It differs from the canonical gospels by entirely lacking a narrative spine, and consisting solely of purported teachings of Jesus. It thus provides another point of reference for the text-critical approach that postulates a Q (Ger. Quelle, "source") text to serve as a prior reference common to Matthew and Luke, as well as demonstrating that a document of this form did exist among Christians of the first centuries. The text in this edition is printed with a typeset Coptic original on facing pages, and there are endnotes for each logion ("saying"). The notes supply alternate readings of the Coptic, along with parallels in canonical and extra-canonical Christian scriptures, ancient theological writings, and other literature of the period.

Appended to this edition is "A Reading" of the gospel by literary critic and academic Harold Bloom. I found myself fairly sympathetic to most of this "sermon" from Bloom, although it does repeatedly advert to his idiosyncratic identification of American Protestantisms and Mormonism as "gnostic." The one point at which he lost me altogether was when he wrote, "What is surely peculiar is the modern habit of employing 'gnosis' or 'gnosticism' as a conservative or institutionalized Christian term of abuse" (120). Bloom overlooked Irenaeus and Hippolytus somehow, along with the many centuries of theologians who took them as authorities, I guess.

Both Meyer and Bloom drew my attention to logion 13, which had not arrested me in previous readings of this gospel. Jesus rewards Thomas with three secret "sayings" or "words," not themselves reproduced in the text. Meyer's notes about other references to three secret words are intriguing (75); they include "IAO IAO IAO" from Pistis Sophia 136, and other non-canonical gospels intimate identities with divine father, mother, and son. Hippolytus offered what seem to be corrupted forms of the three instructions "precept upon precept," "line upon line,"and "here a little, there a little" from Isaiah 28. Bloom's highly speculative and metaphysical explication did not persuade me, but there are Thelemic doctrines which I think can be curiously enhanced by reference to this logion.

A collection of papers, including the translated gospel known as the Gospel of Judas. Following the translation, biblical scholars discuss what we learned from the gospel, and how it fits into the group of religious practices lumped together under the term 'gnostic'. These writers posit that The Gospel of Judas is a work of the Sethian gnostics, and explain the basics of this particular believe system. Judas here is seen as a heroic figure, one who released Jesus from his earthly prison to return to his home among the divine. The book is well written, with only a minimum of jargon, so it is accessible by lay readers who don't have a graduate degree in theology. The chapter that discusses the finding of the gospel, and the subsequent abuse it went through that rendered it much less readable, is an interesting look at the practice of antiquarians, but adds little to the theological discussion; still, in this context, it is interesting to see how they are attempting to preserve what is left of this ancient document, and where they believe it came from. Other papers discuss the theology of the gospel, and contrast it to the theological views that came to be termed orthodox. This gospel was not a totally unknown entity prior to its discovery, having been mentioned in the works of Irenaeus, but now the authors compare what Irenaeus said in his work Against Heresies and the actual document. At least one of the authors concludes that this document is likely the same document Irenaeus was speaking against; this has helped them put a second century date on the writing, though the papyrus itself dates from sometime around the fourth century. Overall, an interesting work, and a relatively easy read.

This book contains an overview of the discovery of the Nag Hammadi texts, some background on their decipherment and translation and a short discussion of current views on Christian gnosticism. After that follows Meyer's thesis about the proper grouping of the documents, their dating and a summary of their contents and how that relates to gnosticism.

I lost interest when he started discussing the dating of the Gospel of Thomas and did all the same fancy footwork that the Bibilical scholars do to try to get an early date. Why can't we just admit that we don't know?

Anyway, for folks interested in gnostic Christianity this would provide one person's view of the Coptic texts.

Pros: good introductions to each section, lots of explanatory notes, variety of texts

Cons: only has a few pictures in instances when illustrations are present in the text

Ritual has long been a part of spiritual practices, Christian or otherwise. These texts, written in the Coptic language of Egypt (invented as a way of transliterating Egyptian heiroglyphs using Greek letters), shows how Christianity amalgamated older traditions of using words as protection against the evils of the world. The texts presented in this book mix Egyptian gods and Christian stories to create amulets, love spells, curses and more.

There’s a fantastic mix of texts presented here, many for the first time in English. There are extensive end notes, though a casual reader will get enough information from the introductions to the individual texts - which are, in some cases, longer than the texts themselves.

It’s interesting seeing the variety of names of power called upon for the different purposes: Mary, Christ, archangels, Biblical figures, ancient gods and more.

My only complaint with the book is that some of the manuscripts included diagrams. In a few cases the translator copied the picture, but in many more cases only a notation stating there was a diagram is included. Actual photographs of some of these manuscript pages would have been welcome to get a feel for how the text and diagrams worked together and to see the original images.

I would advise reading up on the ancient Egyptian religious practices or the Book of Coming Forth by Day (now known as the Book of the Dead) before reading this though, as you’ll get a better idea of how much of the Coptic Christian tradition was borrowed from what came before it.

If you’re interested in magic and ritual practices, and how they developed, this is an interesting book.

The Gospel of Judas, by its very name, sounds dangerous and heretical. What could the arch-traitor of history teach us?

Well, there isn't too much. To be fair, the text was in horrible condition when it was finally in the hands of researchers, and it took an astonishing effort to put the thing back together. There are still many gaps in the text, and a lot is speculation. But what remains is tantalizing, and makes you want more.

The book, some 50 incomplete verses in 40 pages provide a brief portrait of Gnosticism. Here's how the story goes: Judas, the one of the twelve disciples, was ordered by Jesus to 'betray' and kill him. Christ tells him some of the secrets of Holy and Secret Wisdom, mainly that:

1) the creator of the earth is not good, and not all-powerful.
2) That all creation is imperfect and inherently leading to suffering
3) Through death we might be separated from the imperfect physical bodies and move to a more perfect spiritual existence

Sounds a lot like some Eastern philosophies rather than the Christianity we know. No wonder books like these were suppressed! Such teaching is anti-authority, and criticizes institutions and churches for perverting Christianity.

The essays are a very useful addition and should not be passed over.

An fascinating start, but more study is needed.

This volume presents a full English translation of the surviving text of the Gospel of Judas from the Codex Tchacos, with evaluative and interpretive essays by several conspicuous modern scholars of Gnosticism, all of whom (except for Ehrman) were party to the edition presented. That word "surviving" is key, because, as Rodolphe Kasser details in his contribution, the Codex Tchacos was subjected to the most pernicious effects of antiquities speculators in the 20th century. Much of the text is now missing or illegible as a result of damage sustained in the last few decades.

Like the Nag Hammadi Codices, to which it is clearly kin, the Codex Tchacos appears to consist of Coptic translations of Greek texts. The Gospel of Judas is the third of these, and represents an expression of Sethian Gnosticism. Gregor Wurst, in his useful essay making the case for identifying this text with the "Gospel of Judas" mentioned by the ancient heresiologist Iranaeus of Lyon, suggests that it is one of the earliest such texts available to us today. In fact, I think he sets a false limit on how early it could be. He writes that it could not have been written earlier than the canonical Acts of the Apostles (ca. 93 C.E.), because it refers to the event of Judas' replacement among the twelve apostles. But surely this overlooks the possibility that Judas and Acts could share a narrative source -- or even (though I doubt it) both be grounded in prior facts! The earliness of the Gospel of Judas and its likely translation from a Greek original are reasons to hold out hope that a more complete version may someday be recovered.

Bart Ehrman's essay is a primer of wide scope regarding the contents of the Gospel of Judas, which presumes a minimum of prior knowledge on the part of the reader. (One conspicuous feature of the text that Ehrman fails to note is its strident rejection of ritual sacramentalism.) The concluding essay by Meyer is more sophisticated, and helpfully draws comparisons with other literature of ancient Gnosticism, as well as Hellenized Judaism and Middle Platonism. All of the essays are very accessible, and the whole book can be read in just a few sittings.

Even in its degraded present condition, the Gospel of Judas is treasure comparable to the most provocative of the Nag Hammadi texts, or to the Bruce Codex materials, preserving scripture that was valued by the Gnostics who were eventually suppressed by what became Christian orthodoxy. This book serves as a well-constructed introduction for popular audiences to the good news of the man who sacrificed Jesus. May they go and do likewise.

A lovely, complete edition of the Gnostic Christian scriptures. Could do with a bit more editorial comment in places, but otherwise very good.

While I'm a bit disappointed with myself for having taken so long to finally get around to reading this, I am equally disappointed with the essays offered as commentary in this book. Reading the actual text of the "Gospel of Judas" in full was a very interesting experience. It is certainly filled with insights and potential insights into the relationship between Platonism and Christianity in the first several centuries of the latter, and, of course, of the nature of the syntheses of these two philosophies in the various gnostic sects. Unfortunately, I think that these insights have far too much potential to be overlooked or forgotten about in favor of the sensationalism and nonsense that has steadily become the standard among academics who focus on early Christianity. I was particularly disappointed by Bart Ehrman's essay here, in which he does a great job of covering some of the basic facts and yet ends with nonsensical, controversial conclusions with no relation to the facts stated.

A fascinating story of how the gospel of Judas was found, including a preliminary translation of the ancient text.

This slender book does not live up to its subtitle of being "the definitive collection of Gospels and legends about the infamous apostle of Jesus." There are many such legends omitted; for example, Benedeit's "Voyage of St. Brendan." Perhaps the author meant to limit the book to only legends from ancient times. The main section consists of a translation of the recently discovered Gospel of Judas. What is really disappointing and distracting in this book is the use of endnotes. Mostly the endnotes direct the reader to "cf." some biblical passage. In order to do so, the reader must have the Bible with the passage referred to immediately available. Although it would have markedly increased the size of this book, it would have been much more convenient to the reader if the endnote supplied the passage referred to, rather than to require the reader to interrupt the flow of his reading to look up the endnote, then to look up the passage in a separate book. Moreover, the constant use of the "cf." appears to reflect a laziness on the part of the author. There is little or no discussion of the importance or significance of the comparison. If the comparison is of minor importance, then the reader would be better served if the author would omit the distraction of endnotes and simply state the general point that the stories have certain similarities. All in all, it appears this book is merely one more exploitation of the discovery of the Gospel of Judas, dressed up in pseudo-scholarship for the masses.

I read the Dutch translation and when I read it. It was a coming home. It was so normal to me. I mean the common sense of the word the book brought to my awareness.