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Title: Reading Judas: The Gospel of Judas and the Shaping of Christianity
Author: Elaine Pagels and Karen L. King
Genre: Biblical history/theology
Thingummies: 3.5
Synopsis: An analysis of the recently translated Gospel of Judas.
Thoughts: This is a fairly interesting, if rather short, analysis of a text that I ended up finding not particularly interesting.
A copy of the Gospel of Judas was found a couple decades ago, but handled very badly and nearly destroyed. It's only recently been restored and translated and made available to scholars. The text is a relatively short work in which Jesus reveals secrets of the universe to Judas so that Judas can sacrifice himself by making the necessary betrayal. It appears to be one of the many gospels that were floating around during the early days of the Church, including Nag Hammadi texts such as the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Mary Magdelene. Eventually, after a great deal of infighting, some Church leaders and their chosen texts emerged triumphant, and the others were suppressed.
The analysis is really more a reconstruction of some of that early infighting, and is fairly interesting. They don't have much material to work with, though, and so the book is relatively short. The second half is taken up by the translation itself and notes on that translation. I have mixed feelings on the order. On one hand, reading the analysis first means that for the bulk of that analysis, we have to take the authors' word for what the text says and the impression it gives. They even seem somewhat dismayed by what they have to work with--the tone is deeply bitter, and the second half is a mishmash of numerology and new angel names in a convoluted explanation of the origin of the universe. Not having read the primary source yet, it's sometimes a little hard to follow, and it's impossible to then read the text without viewing it through the authors' lens. However, they're right in their dismay--the original is kind of unpleasant and confusing. If I'd started with the text, I don't know if I would have continued.
The authors are really more historians than theologians, and their reading tilts very much in favor of picking apart the politics of why the author of Judas would write what he did rather than the theological implications of the work itself. While I regret some of the folks who won (Irenaeus sounds like a remarkably unpleasant fellow), I can't actually regret this work not making it into the canon. No one's going to draw real spiritual insight from this. But the brief insight it gives us into the history of the early Church is interesting enough.
Author: Elaine Pagels and Karen L. King
Genre: Biblical history/theology
Thingummies: 3.5
Synopsis: An analysis of the recently translated Gospel of Judas.
Thoughts: This is a fairly interesting, if rather short, analysis of a text that I ended up finding not particularly interesting.
A copy of the Gospel of Judas was found a couple decades ago, but handled very badly and nearly destroyed. It's only recently been restored and translated and made available to scholars. The text is a relatively short work in which Jesus reveals secrets of the universe to Judas so that Judas can sacrifice himself by making the necessary betrayal. It appears to be one of the many gospels that were floating around during the early days of the Church, including Nag Hammadi texts such as the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Mary Magdelene. Eventually, after a great deal of infighting, some Church leaders and their chosen texts emerged triumphant, and the others were suppressed.
The analysis is really more a reconstruction of some of that early infighting, and is fairly interesting. They don't have much material to work with, though, and so the book is relatively short. The second half is taken up by the translation itself and notes on that translation. I have mixed feelings on the order. On one hand, reading the analysis first means that for the bulk of that analysis, we have to take the authors' word for what the text says and the impression it gives. They even seem somewhat dismayed by what they have to work with--the tone is deeply bitter, and the second half is a mishmash of numerology and new angel names in a convoluted explanation of the origin of the universe. Not having read the primary source yet, it's sometimes a little hard to follow, and it's impossible to then read the text without viewing it through the authors' lens. However, they're right in their dismay--the original is kind of unpleasant and confusing. If I'd started with the text, I don't know if I would have continued.
The authors are really more historians than theologians, and their reading tilts very much in favor of picking apart the politics of why the author of Judas would write what he did rather than the theological implications of the work itself. While I regret some of the folks who won (Irenaeus sounds like a remarkably unpleasant fellow), I can't actually regret this work not making it into the canon. No one's going to draw real spiritual insight from this. But the brief insight it gives us into the history of the early Church is interesting enough.
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Date: 2012-07-28 02:24 am (UTC)From:Thanks!