Must be the season for science stories that touch religion (archeology, including biblical archeology, is science, isn’t it?), but this one has nothing to do with evolution. It’s all about release of the translation of a “Gospel of Judas,” from an ancient so-called gnostic gospels manuscript found in Egypt in the 70s and that has been bouncing around ever since among much skulduggery. National Geographic finally has gotten a translation out, and its channel will have a TV special on it Sunday night (repeated twice). The publicity machine is in high gear. Already, among Bible scholars, it appears to be stirring a storm. Anything written on very, very old papyrus from anywhere near the Holy Land and that says Judas was a good guy could hardly do anything else. As Helen Kennedy deftly ledes in NYDaily News: “Judas Iscariot, it’s time for your makeover.”
AP: Randolph E. Schmid ;NYTimes (which has sidebars, etc.) John Noble Wilford, Laurie Goodstein ; LA Times Thomas Maugh , Houston Chronicle (all-theology story) Tara Dooley, Richard Vara ; Charlotte News&Obsever has a nice profile of a local professor caught up in all this, by Yonat Shimron ; Chicago Tribune Ron Grossman , NY Daily News Helen Kennedy
National Geographic publicity material.
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