April DeConick Responds to Marvin Meyer Jan 18 08
Well, it has been one of those weeks. Semester starts, New web site launched. Jesus tomb resurrects. Judas talk rages. It is hard to keep up with it all.
April DeConick of Rice emailed me to let me know of her respoinse to Marvin Meyer’s 13th Daimon on the Gospel of Judas. She has divided it into short segments. The site is:
Well, it has been one of those weeks. Semester starts, New web site launched. Jesus tomb resurrects. Judas talk rages. It is hard to keep up with it all.
April DeConick of Rice emailed me to let me know of her respoinse to Marvin Meyer’s 13th Daimon on the Gospel of Judas. She has divided it into short segments. The site is:
http://forbiddengospels.blogspot.com/search/label/Response%20to%20
Marvin%20Meyer%3A%20The%20Thirteenth%20Daimon
(To get there you will have to paste this long line together in your browser line).
Here is a sample (The paste runs in reverse order of the posting):
Friday, January 18, 2008
Response (7) to Marvin Meyer: The Thirteenth Daimon
This is my final response, covering his material on Pistis Sophia. I found this part of his paper to be very interesting, although I think that it shows a Valentinian Gnostic pattern quite distinct from the Sethian. So it is not going to be as helpful illuminating the Gospel of Judas’ pattern than Meyer might think. This is only my initial reaction. I need to study these patterns more closely, which I’m actually doing for the Codex Judas Congress. I have been researching patterns of 12 and 13, especially as they relate to the apostles and the cosmic structures and claims to authority.
So perhaps I will leave this whole discussion to that conference, and Meyer and I can have some common ground to discuss when he comes to town. Personally I would like to move the conversation on the Judas gospel and the Tchacos Codex beyond the deadlock we have been engaged in the last few months.
By the way, don’t forget that Meyer and Wurst are going to be giving a public lecture (March 13, 7-8 p.m., Rice University) on how they restored the codex from a box of fragments, and what media involvement and corporations means for scholarship.
Posted by April DeConick at 12:55 PM 0 comments
Labels: Gospel of Judas, Response to Marvin Meyer: The Thirteenth Daimon
Response (6) to Marvin Meyer: The Thirteenth Daimon
6. The 13th. Numerology is especially important for the Gnostics. Their cosmos is built on different enumerations of the aeonic and cosmic realms. The early Sethian enumeration of the cosmic realm is based on the seven planets and the twelve signs of the Zodiac. The number five (12 minus 7) is attributed to the hells. Above these twelve realms is another realm of fixed stars where the demiurge lives, in the 13th.
In the Gospel of Judas, Judas isn’t simply the 13th Demon, his star is attached to the 13th realm which means that the 13th realm in the Gospel of Judas is a cosmic one, not one of the pleromic realms above the cosmos. Stars are fixtures of this universe and govern it. There are no stars in the pleroma. Furthermore, the Gospel of Judas says that Nebro(el)-Ialdabaoth and Saklas lived in clouds and with their six assistants generated twelve angels in the heavens and gave them to the twelve angels for dwelling places. This means that Nebro(el)-Ialdabaoth and Saklas live above the 12th heaven in the 13th realm of fixed stars that is referred as the 13th realm in which Judas’ star dwells. This isn’t the cosmology just in this text, but is also found in other Sethian texts as I explain in my book.
The reference to thirteen “seals” in Marsanes, is not the same reference. We shouldn’t be mixing them up. The seals do not represent 13 cosmic realms, but refer to the fact that the initiate must be sealed 13 times in a ritual activity. Furthermore in this late text, the first three seals are associated with the cosmos and ascending beyond it. The fourth and fifth seals concern the place of disembodied souls and repentant souls. The sixth seal is the seal that belongs to the self-generated aeons. And so forth.
Posted by April DeConick at 12:42 PM 0 comments
Labels: Gospel of Judas, Response to Marvin Meyer: The Thirteenth Daimon
Response (4) to Marvin Meyer: The Thirteenth Daimon
4. The popular book which was released to the public was based on a provisional Coptic translation that now turns out to be flawed. Some of these errors have been acknowledged and corrected in The Critical Edition put out by NGS a year later. Others have not. Now we have the problem of going about correcting the errors after the fact and in a public forum, which is uncomfortable for all involved. But this is what happens when our work is not vetted through the normal channels of blind peer review before publication. This academic procedure allows for errors to be corrected before the text is published. This helps to avoid the perpetuation of the errors by other scholars who rely on the publication for their own work. All of us make errors. Hopefully they are caught before publication.
Posted by April DeConick at 12:27 PM 0 comments
Labels: Gospel of Judas, Response to Marvin Meyer: The Thirteenth Daimon
Response (3) to Marvin Meyer: The Thirteenth Daimon
3. This text is not good news about Judas, just as the gospel of Matthew in not good news about Matthew. It is good news about Jesus from the perspective of the Sethian Gnostic Christians – that they are the holy generation taught by Jesus and possessors of his secrets. Because of this, they are saved. The rest of Christians are ignorant and worship Ialdabaoth. Because of this, they remain under the influence of Fate, and probably will be destroyed along with the cosmos. Because of the fragmentary nature of the gospel, it is uncertain whether or not this situation is predestined.
Posted by April DeConick at 12:24 PM 0 comments
Labels: Gospel of Judas, Response to Marvin Meyer: The Thirteenth Daimon
Response (2) to Marvin Meyer: The Thirteenth Daimon
2. Gnostic texts use parody and satire quite frequently. This is found, for instance, in the Testimony of Truth, the Apocalypse of Peter, the Second Treatise of the Great Seth, the Acts of John, which take aim at apostolic Christians and their practices and beliefs. The Sethians were particularly good at making fun of traditional biblical beliefs, especially when it came to the Genesis story and their use of traditional verses like “Besides me there is no god” by applying it to Ialdabaoth and implying that this is the god that other Christians ignorantly are worshiping. I do not think of the Gospel of Judas as a parody in terms of a modern comic skit or genre. I have never used it this way, nor would I.
Posted by April DeConick at 12:22 PM 0 comments
Labels: Gospel of Judas, Response to Marvin Meyer: The Thirteenth Daimon
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This blogger’s take: As I noted, this discussion is going to go on for a while. One issue seems clear. By not really having a kind of full open vetting as Prof DeConick has noted, the process was flawed. I am not sure this new kind of release can be fixed, for the pressures to do otherwise are great (Read prestige and dollars). Public vetting is messy, but then there is no guarantee had this been vetted that a debate may not have existed anyway, given the complexities and gaps in this text. At least we are trying to keep you up to date on all of this to and fro.
5 Comments
worth
Gospel of Judas debate
Fascinating that there may not be 2 more knowledgeable people in this field than April DeConick and Marvin Meyer (not saying that’s the case, just making a point), yet they couldn’t disagree more strenuously on certain aspects of this text. Same with the “Jesus family tomb” gathering in Jerusalem, with all of those scholars who have devoted lifetimes to making sense of those types of findings and still can’t come to a complete consensus on what exactly they’re looking at. Just stokes my own passions for this stuff all the more – thanks for keeping us updated on the latest developments!
bock
Gospel of Judas and Jesus Tomb dlb
Worth:
Thanks for the feedback. These two situations are different in my view. The Gospel of Judas is a complex text using a little known language (Coptic). There is room for debate here. As I have tried to show, the amount of debate and disagreement on the Jesus Tomb is really not that great. Most are not buying.
dlb
worth
Bestselling Scholars
Good point, and I agree with you. To your concern about the vetting process getting short-circuited, I see that as a very large problem with the growing mainstream popularity of very readable author/scholars like Pagels and Ehrman having instant access to mass media and audiences with no need to run things by their peers beforehand. I don’t see that they personally have abused that too badly, but I do see the potential there.
John
Judas’ Gospel
A couple of quick questions. Regardless of the translation, how could someone have dictated Judas’ works between the time he conversed with Jesus, during that last week, and the time he committed suicide? And do we know the time from Jesus’ death on the cross and Judas’ suicide? I just don’t see how Judas could have written or dictated this in the time stated above. I don’t know either way, for sure, but if he was as close to Jesus, most understanding of Jesus’ mission, and was just carrying out what Jesus’ wanted as How National Geographic translated it, why would he have committed suicide? Wouldn’t he want to assist in continuing to spread the Good News? If any responses, can you email me? I’m not a big blog reader. This is just the only place I’ve found to ask my questions. Thanks.
bock
Judas’ Gospel dlb
John:
No one working with the gospel actually thinks it goes back to Judas. So the questions you ask are not relevant. This work is simply put in the name of Judas, but it does not go back to him.