The Codex Judas Papers by April D. DeConick

For the man that clothes me, you will sacrifice him.' Thus speaks Jesus to Judas Iscariot, according to April DeConick's new translation of the Gospel of Judas. ''Yet you will do worse than all of them. Schaberg, Professor of Religious Studies, University of Detroit, Mercy, USA. I highly recommend this work for all scholars and students of the apocryphal and canonical gospels.' Jane D. Engagement with the gospel of Mark and with movie versions of Judas bring first and second century sectarian conflicts into contemporary focus.

'April DeConick makes a brilliant contribution to the conversation about this puzzling gospel, whose Sethian 'bitter voice' she hears as a sophisticated, ironic parody of apostolic Christianity's atonement-by-sacrifice theology and cultic activity. Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC ISBN: 9780826499646 Number of pages: 224 Weight: 381 g Dimensions: 216 x 138 x 22 mm MEDIA REVIEWS The first book to challenge the National Geographic version of the Gospel of Judas, 'The Thirteenth Apostle' is sure to inspire to fresh debate around this most infamous of biblical figures. Professor DeConick provides her English translation and interpretation of this newly recovered gospel within the previously overlooked context of a Christianity in the second century that was sectarian and conflicted. The purpose of the text was to criticize 'mainstream' or apostolic Christianity from the point of view of these Gnostic Christians, especially their doctrine of atonement, their Eucharistic practices, and their creedal faith which they claimed to have inherited from the twelve disciples. It is a gospel parody about a 'demon' Judas written by a particular group of Gnostic Christians known as the Sethians who lived in the second century CE. Judas was not only not sublime, he was far more demonic than any Judas I know in any other piece of early Christian literature, Gnostic or otherwise.' DeConick contends that the 'Gospel of Judas' is not about a 'good' Judas, or even a 'poor old' Judas. What I found were a series of English translation choices made by the National Geographic team, choices that permitted a different Judas to emerge in the English translation than in the Coptic original.

'I didn't find the sublime Judas, at least not in Coptic.

Inspired by the efforts of the National Geographic team to piece together this ancient manuscript, DeConick sought out the original Coptic text and began her own translation. In 'The Thirteenth Apostle', April DeConick offers a new translation of the 'Gospel of Judas' which seriously challenges the National Geographic interpretation of a good Judas. The translation caused a sensation because it seemed to overturn the popular image of Judas the betrayer and instead presented a benevolent Judas who was a friend of Jesus. In 2006, National Geographic released the first English translation of the 'Gospel of Judas', a second-century text discovered in Egypt in the 1970s.

The Codex Judas Papers by April D. DeConick