Thanks to William R. for the e-mail regarding the “Gospel of Judas,” including the following observations:

I watched the National Geographic show last night and couldn´t believe they dragged it out to two hours. I mainly watched because I´m interested in reconstruction of manuscripts, and I did enjoy that part of it.

Following up on your points, what always frustrates me is that these articles almost never introduce the subject of Canon. You can write an eight hundred page book on canon, but you can also summarize it in a sentence or two, but that´s too much to expect of those who are caught up in the “alternate version’ hype. (One thing that may frustrate me the most is the simple fact that so many serious New Testament commentaries have for decades presented a nuanced picture of Judas, but again, who can be bothered to go to the library or call someone at the seminary who is a scholar instead of a publicity seeker. And I´m not particularly closed-minded on this subject; I´m very fond of the Gospel of Thomas, although it does not change my traditional concept of closed canon.)

I will, just for fun, diverge just a bit and suggest that the figure of Judas, as developed further in the community tradition, is not altogether irrelevant to the issue of anti-Semitism. On that point, the NG writers made a valid point in observing the Nazi´s fascination with the Passion Plays, and the record will show that in those plays the figure of Judas is increasingly a composite of negative stereotypes. Also, I think the progression of the interpretation of Judas from Mark to John requires some realistic evaluation. The answer, I think, is that it was an “in-house’ conflict conditioned by very specific circumstances, particularly the quest to be an “approved’ religious group to the Romans, but again, that takes a few brain cells to discern, so who could expect the news hounds to do that?

So, those intelligent remarks will probably be the last word around here on this. I didn’t see the National Geographic show myself, not having that channel on my boob tube. My point in my original post about Judas and anti-Semitism wasn’t of-course intended to deny that the figure of Judas has been used in the past to gin up anti-Jewish sentiment, but rather that this was always an illegitimate use of the Gospel stories, and fighting the mis-use of the Gospels does not necessitate replacing or over-riding them, despite what the Chicago Tribune or Hershel Shanks may think.

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