Judas in the spotlight

The first translation of an ancient, self-proclaimed "Gospel of Judas" will be published next month, bringing to light what some scholars believe are writings of an early Christian sect suppressed for supporting Jesus Christ's betrayer.

If authentic, the manuscript could add to the understanding of Gnosticism, an unorthodox Christian theology denounced by the early church.

The Roman Catholic Church is aware of the manuscript, which a Vatican historian calls "religious fantasy."

Scholars who have seen photos of the brittle manuscript say it argues that Judas Iscariot was carrying out God's will when he handed Christ over to his executioners.

The manuscript's owner says he has cut a deal with the National Geographic Society to release an English translation with a multimedia splash after Easter.

Monsignor Walter Brandmuller, chief of the Vatican's Committee for Historical Science, calls it "a product of religious fantasy" and said it would have no impact on church teaching.

A tattered document

Brushed onto 31 pages of papyrus in Coptic, an Egyptian script, the manuscript is tattered after centuries beneath the sands of Egypt and decades on the gray market.

According to Mario Roberty, a Swiss lawyer who owns the manuscript, the document, known as a "codex," has undergone restoration and translation by a team of researchers headed by the Swiss Coptic scholar Rodolphe Kasser.

Roberty would not discuss the contents of the codex, but scholars have already begun to anticipate its findings.

Working from photos of the codex, Charles Hedrick, a retired professor of Coptic studies at Missouri State University, has translated six pages into English, including the codex's title "The Gospel of Judas."

Some of the passages echo New Testament descriptions of Christ's arrest, recalling how Roman authorities aimed to "seize [Christ] in the act of prayer" and how Judas "took some money and he delivered [Christ] over to them," Hedrick said.

Judas aids in the arrest of Christ, he said, but "Judas is not a bad guy in this text. ... He is the good guy and he is serving God."

Hedrick and other scholars say the codex was produced in the fourth or fifth century and reflects the traditions of a second-century sect of Gnostics, a community that believed true spirituality derived from a self-knowledge, or "gnosis."

As early as A.D. 178, St. Irenaeus of Lyons, a heresy watchdog of the early church, targeted the community.

"They produce a fictitious history ... which they style the Gospel of Judas," Irenaeus wrote in "Against Heresies."

William Klassen, author of "Judas: Betrayer or Friend of Jesus?", considers the manuscript an asset to ongoing scholarly efforts to rehabilitate Judas' historical image.

Many scholars believe Judas — whose name literally means "Jewish man" — was a victim of anti-Jewish slander that pervaded early Christianity in its struggle to break from Judaism.

Withholding judgment

But other scholars are withholding judgment until the manuscript has been publicly authenticated.

Michael White, director of the Institute for the Study of Antiquity and Christian Origins at the University of Texas, said that may prove difficult.

"They have to file artifacts of that sort with the government's archaeological oversight board," White said.

According to Roberty, documentation is unavailable because the codex was smuggled out of Egypt before he purchased it in 2001.

"The manuscript itself was illegally exported because it had been stolen in Egypt," Roberty said, adding that he planned to eventually return it to Egypt.

James Robinson, a retired professor of Coptic studies at Claremont Graduate University, vouched for the document's authenticity based on his experience in trying to purchase it as early as 1983.

"I don't know of any scholar who thinks this is fake," said Robinson, who is not involved in the National Geographic project. He has never seen the manuscript firsthand, but he arranged a meeting in 1983 between Stephen Emmel, a Coptic scholar at the University of Muenster in Germany, and John Pedrios, a Greek dealer who was negotiating its sale.

Emmel said then that he was able to authenticate the codex as a genuine fourth- or fifth-century manuscript but that the meeting ran too short for him to say whether it contained the gospel.

Reached by phone in Cairo, Emmel confirmed his report but declined to say whether the manuscript he saw decades ago is the forthcoming gospel.

"I can say that the thought never crossed my mind that it was anything but a genuine Coptic papyrus codex from the fourth or fifth century," he said.

BC-Gospel of Judas,0762

The mysterious "Gospel of Judas" won't tell us anything about Jesus' infamous disciple, an expert predicts

NEW YORK — An expert on ancient Egyptian texts is predicting that the "Gospel of Judas" — a manuscript from early Christian times that's nearing release amid widespread interest from scholars — will be a dud in terms of learning anything new about Judas.

James M. Robinson, America's leading expert on such ancient religious texts from Egypt, predicts in a new book that the text won't offer any insights into the disciple who betrayed Jesus. His reason: While it's old, it's not old enough.

"Does it go back to Judas? No," Robinson told The Associated Press on Thursday.

The text, in Egypt's Coptic language, dates from the third or fourth century and is a copy of an earlier document. The National Geographic Society, along with other groups, has been studying the "Judas" text.

The society said Thursday it will release its report on the document "within the next few weeks" but didn't specify whether that would come via a book, magazine article or telecast.

Robinson has not seen the text that National Geographic is working on, but assumes it is the same work assailed by Bishop Irenaeus of Lyons around A.D. 180.

Irenaeus said the writings came from a "Cainite" Gnostic sect that jousted against orthodox Christianity. He also accused the Cainites of lauding the biblical murderer Cain, the Sodomites and Judas, whom they regarded as the keeper of secret mysteries.

National Geographic's collaborators on the translation and interpretation of the text include its current owner — Mario Roberti's Maecenas Foundation for Ancient Art in Basel, Switzerland — and the Waitt Institute for Historical Discovery in La Jolla, Calif. Rodolphe Kasser, formerly of the University of Geneva, is the editor.

Robinson writes that the journey of the text to Switzerland was "replete with smugglers, black-market antiquities dealers, religious scholars, backstabbing partners and greedy entrepreneurs." In the process, Robinson fears, the fragile text may have been mishandled and parts of it lost forever.

Robinson is an emeritus professor at Claremont (Calif.) Graduate University, chief editor of religious documents found in 1945 at Nag Hammadi, Egypt, and an international leader among scholars of Coptic manuscripts.

He says the text is valuable to scholars of the second century but dismissed the notion that it'll reveal unknown biblical secrets. He speculated the timing of the release is aimed at capitalizing on interest in the film version of "The Da Vinci Code" — a fictional tale that centers on a Christian conspiracy to cover up a marriage between Jesus and Mary Magdalene.

"There are a lot of second-, third- and fourth-century gospels attributed to various apostles," Robinson said. "We don't really assume they give us any first century information."

A National Geographic response said "it's ironic" for Robinson to raise such questions since for years "he tried unsuccessfully to acquire this codex himself, and is publishing his own book in April, despite having no direct access to the materials."

National Geographic said it practiced "due diligence" with scholars "to save the manuscript before it turns to dust and is lost forever" and that everyone involved is committed to returning the materials to Egypt.

In "The Secrets of Judas," a HarperSanFrancisco book on sale April 1, Robinson will describe secretive maneuvers in the United States, Switzerland, Greece and elsewhere over two decades to sell the "Judas" manuscript.

He writes that he was approached about purchasing a group of manuscripts in 1983 and arranged for colleague Stephen Emmel, now at the University of Muenster, Germany, to meet in Geneva with go-betweens for the owner.

Emmel got a glimpse of the text but didn't know it was the "Gospel of Judas" till years later. He was told the original asking price was $10 million but it could be obtained for $3 million, an impossibly high figure for the interested Americans.

From there, Robinson traces a twisted sales trail through years and continents to this year's impending release.

Emmel is now a member of the National Geographic team along with other former students of Robinson, who hopes his colleagues will be providing solid information about the text's history and location.

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