Friday, December 21, 2007

SBL Forum: More on the Gospel Truth

The Society of Biblical Literature Forum has just posted an article I wrote as a follow up to the NY Times Op. Ed. piece "Gospel Truth." It is called "More on the Gospel Truth."

I missed an article from the Canadian CBC that came out on Dec. 4th. 2006! It features Craig Evans and John Turner. It is called "Judas no hero, scholars say."

4 comments:

g. wesley said...

Thanks for these links, Professor DeConick.

Rebecca said...

Yes, thank you. What strikes me is how bizarre it is that this is the way the Gospel of Judas was published - after all that we have learned about the pitfalls of restricting access to ancient texts from the example of the Qumran texts.

Jim Deardorff said...

April, in your "Gospel Truth" piece you wrote, "For Jews, he [Judas] is the man whose story was used by Christians to persecute them for centuries."

Would you expand on this a bit? Why wouldn't one instead say that it was the Gospels' blaming of the chief priests and elders, for their rounding up the arresting party, for the Council's subsequent finding of blasphemy against Jesus, and for their role in persuading the people to crucify Jesus not Barabbas, which were more primary causes of later Christian persecution of Jews?

Boudewijn (Koole) said...

Thank you for this really clear and persuasive article, that can help enter the process of debating important issues. P.S. The article in NGS you link to (in your next addition to this blog) seems to give your arguments ample room although it also tries to enfold them within the NGS history of editing and publishing the GofJ as if this had no procedural faults whatsoever - which to me seems still very much the question. But the issues themselves hopefully now become more aware to a larger part of the general public. May they be well- informed and critical, more than now, of the underlying sup- and prepositions!