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GOSPEL OF JUDAS |
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SOME FINDINGS |
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A couple of years ago,
at least four ancient codices in Coptic and Greek surfaced on the
international art market. Various rumours about it circulated online
(recorded below). The exact whereabouts of all these is a matter of
doubt. The back story is
quite incredible. All of them were found in Egypt and exported by Cairo
dealer Hannah, who offered them in Switzerland in 1983 for the staggering
figure of $3m, and in 1984 imported them to the USA. They then sat in a
bank vault in New York until 1989, when James M. Robinson made an attempt to
rescue them. We have counts of leaves from this stage of the deal. This
sale failed; Swiss dealer Frieda Nussberger-Tchacos then bought them in
1999. Mrs. N. entrusted them to US dealer/philanthropist Bruce
Ferrini. Ferrini broke up the manuscripts and sold bits
individually. But since his cheques to Mrs N. had bounced, Mrs. N.
repossessed what was left. One codex containing the ps.Gospel of Judas
was then placed in the hands of her lawyer, Mario Roberty, and his Maecenas
Foundation. The two did a deal with the US National Geographical
Society, which is publishing all of this codex. Here is what is known about the mss in summary at
the moment:
The contents of Codex Tchacos will all be
published in a critical edition. While two of the texts are already known
from the Nag
Hammadi find, the new manuscripts should help to fill gaps in the
text. However there The other manuscripts, unfortunately, have all
gone astray. If you know where any of them are, please tell me! Here are the reports that I have, together with
an English translation of the 'Gospel of Judas.'
This page is intended
to draw all these together and add more as and when necessary. It is
quite likely that some of the statements made reflect the imagination of
journalists, honest mistakes, or misinformation by those who wish to obscure
the origins of the artefact; the author of much of this material, Michel van
Rijn, believes he has himself been misled at various points by some of those
involved. I have simplified the
formatting of material from Michel van Rijn's site, which contains so much
information that it can be hard to find the material solely on this find. We
all owe him a substantial debt of gratitude for publicising this
material. His focus is on the art black-market, so I have omitted material
unlikely to be of interest to manuscript enthusiasts. Full versions are
available at Michel's site.
(Note that google do not display Michel's site in their results!) |
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[Ernest Muro on the Exodus
and Paul codices] (3rd June 2006)
I have had an email from
Ernest Muro about the location of various leaves of the Exodus and Paul.
He has been looking at catalogues of the "Ink and Blood" exhibition
and media photographs of the leaves held by the receiver for Bruce Ferrini.
I am happy to announce the tentative results of my efforts
to compile a list of leaves in the "Exodus" and the "Letters of
Paul" codices that were briefly examined in a Geneva hotel room on May 15,
1983. I have called these items the "Geneva Wares" as the eyewitness
report by Steve Emmel is one of the few reliable sources pertaining to these
manuscripts.
I have uploaded these two lists to my web site. They can be
accessed at http://www.breadofangels.com/geneva1983/index.html
There are 19 leaves for the Exodus codex that I have been
able to verify and 2 such leaves of the codex containing the Letters of Paul.
As for the Exodus codex, I have yet to verify the existence of: 12:19-29; 12:45-13:7;
and 35:21 as shown on your web page. I would appreciate any details or contact
information in this regard. ... [Rather than post Ernest's email address,
direct the queries via me and
I will pass them on--RP]
The present whereabouts of these manuscripts is another
matter. Two of the Exodus leaves are currently on display in the Ink and Blood
exhibit at Daytona Beach, Florida. Some of the Exodus and Pauline leaves are
currently in a safe deposit box in Akron, Ohio.
His calculations of what
exist are on his website. Note that Martin Schoyen reckons that Ms 187 in
his collection is NOT part of our Exodus Ms.
Note also the
publication Mr Muro gives: David DeSilva and Marcus Adams. "Seven Papyrus
Fragments of a Greek Manuscript of Exodus." Vetus Testamentum Vol. 56,
No.2 (April 2006), which I have not seen. Are we sure that it is part of
our Ms.
[Summary of data from
Herbert Krosney, "The lost gospel"] (28th April 2006)
Krosney has tracked the
back-story very far indeed. About 50% of the book is devoted to
explaining various matters -- there is a chapter on how the Egyptian illegal
art market works, for instance --, but the remainder is essential reading, and
cannot be adequately summarised here. But the most interesting part is
that the find was split by some Greek traders who had stolen it; and that
various photographs exist from various stages, including from before it left
Egypt! Tracking these down would be well-worth someone's while.
Selected key points
(names in quotes are pseudonyms, apparently):
·
Codex Tchacos was found,
according to peasants, in a cave located in the Jebel Qarara hills across the
river from Maghagha, not far from the village of Qarara, in Al Minya province.
Villagers stumbled across the cave hidden down in the rocks. Inside was
the skeleton of a wealthy man in a shroud; other human remains were also
present. Next to the skeleton was a white limestone box, which contained
"books." The villagers contacted a local coptic scout for the
Cairo "jewelers" (dealers in precious objects) and garlic farmer
named 'Am Samiah' (a pseudonym). He was illiterate, but was brought to
see the find. There were two caskets near the entrance. The first
was a sarcophagus containing a skeleton, along with some Roman glass flasks in
a wrapping of straw or papyrus. (p.9-10) [The narrative is a little
unclear as to whether the skeleton in the shroud was in the first casket, or
whether this was a further burial -- RP] This information comes from
an Alexandria resident 'Joanna Landis' who visited Maghagha in 1978 looking for
folk-art pieces and contacted 'Am Samiah', who told her of the find and that he
had recently sold the find. She was taken by him to the place where the
find had been made, with the help of one of 'Am Samiah's good friends,
'Mahmoud', a moslem and a "worker in a government office near
Maghagha" who had a small car. After crossing the Nile by boat they
walked up to a 'fortress-like building' and then on into a set of unknown
catacombs in style like those in Alexandria. 'Am Samiah' told her that
the books had been found in these (p.23-24). [It is left unclear whether she
saw the exact site, but presumably not, from the next piece--RP]. 'Am
Samiah' died soon after. 27 years later 'Joanna' attempted to pin down
the exact locale, and was able to contact 'Mahmoud' again by phone, who told
her about the cave, a number of baskets with Roman glass flasks inside, which
had been sold in the big city markets in Cairo and Alexandria. A further
group of villagers had entered the cave after the texts had gone and removed
further 'materials.' But on meeting 'Mahmoud' became evasive, asserted
that everything had been plundered, expressed his fear of the police, and
'Joanna' never saw the real finding place.
·
'Am Samiah' sold the papyri to
a Cairo dealer, 'Hanna Asabil' (a pseudonym again, but the first name -- which
only means 'John' -- is probably genuine), and they travelled wrapped in
newspaper. Hanna told a number of stories about where the books had been
found. One story involved claiming that they had been passed down in his
family. Another resembles that of the Nag Hammadi find. Another
comes through Italian papyrologist Manfredo Manfredi, who knew Hanna in the early
1970's, who was told that the papyri were found in a closed room, probably a
tomb, in Hermopolis (10 miles south of Al Minya). In May 2004 Hanna
reminisced that a number of mss had come into his hands, some in Greek, some in
Coptic (although it is questionable whether Hanna could tell the difference);
those in Coptic he said were found near Maghagha, probably in the Jebel Qarara
hills just across the river; those in Greek were found in or around Beni
Hassan. Whether any of these stories are true may be questioned.
·
Another 'business associate'
of Hanna named 'Boutros' claims that an unnamed associate of Hanna visited 'Am
Samiah' in October 1981; two months later he was offered 'the codex' [Krosney's
accounts veer between singular and plural erratically--RP]; the associate
then sold 'the books' to Hanna. (p.32-33) Hanna paid LE 8,000 for
what he called 'the book' [around $2,400 -- RP].
·
Hanna claims to have been
robbed of all his stock -- not just the mss -- by some Greeks whom he had dealt
with, who exported it. A Greek trader, Nicholas Koutoulakis, who had some
associations with the robbers, later arranged for the return of the mss, but
not the other items. [The details of all these murky transactions are
in Krosney, but omitted here -- RP] Hanna had approached Yannis
Perdios who approached Koutoulakis.
·
Perdios gave large colour (so
p.166) photographs of middling quality of the papyri to Frieda
Nussberger-Tchacos in summer 1982, so she could approach possible buyers. [Where
are these photos now? - RP] It is unknown how many photos
there were, or who took them, but they were probably taken in Egypt.
Nothing came of this attempt to sell. Perdios also approached
papyrologist Ludwig Koenen in late 1982 and sent him a set of photographs
similar to those shown to Frieda. Koenen then assembled a team of 3 other
scholars, who met with Hanna, who tried to sell the mss for $3m. One of these
was Stephen Emmel (as the representative of James M. Robinson), whose report is
below. David Noel Freedman and Astrid Beck (both involved with the Anchor
Bible Dictionary) were the others. [Did these all see the
photos? Where are these photos now? -- RP]
·
The photos that Frieda had
were shown to Jiri Frel at the Getty museum in California, who told her to talk
to Roy Kotansky, then a PhD student for classical Greek. Kotansky managed
to give a general description of the two documents written in Greek and made
preliminary transcriptions of all texts that could be read from the
photographs. He was confident that a few passages came from the Book of
Exodus, in the LXX. His conclusion about the mathematical treatise:
"The larger codex written with a later, Greek cursive looks to be a set of
prescriptions, but as I say, this is just an off-hand guess for now."
Kotansky then wrote to Frieda that he had sent the photos to Friel. (p.166-7) [Where
now are these transcriptions and details? And the mathematical codex in 1982
was 'the larger codex'?? -- RP]
·
After importing the mss to the
USA, Hanna contacted dealer Hans P. Kraus. Kraus' daughter Maryann
Folter, Roger Bagnall and a US Coptic priest as interpreter met with Hanna that
year to discuss a purchase. Hanna was now asking $1m. No sale
resulted.
·
In 1999 Frieda
Nussberger-Tchacos was approached by a Greek speaking with a rough village
accent who said that he had an ancient ms. He sent photographs to her, and
she sent these to Robert Babcock, a curator at the Beinecke Library at
Yale. These seem to have been in Coptic, and were a small number
(unspecified) of pages. The photos showed the pages against a Greek
newspaper dated 1982. Frieda bought the pages for $25,000. The
seller seems to have been the boyfriend of 'Mia' (or 'Effie' or 'Fifi') a
former girlfriend of Koutoulakis who may have gone into business for herself
when Hanna was robbed (pp.168-9). This was before Frieda bought the bulk
of the material from Hanna (whom she had known in the 1970's) in 2000. [This
suggests that other pages may still be in circulation, and that the process of
dismemberment precedes Bruce Ferrini -- RP]
·
Frieda then offered the mss to
Yale. There they were seen by Babcock, and by Bentley Layton, Harry
Attridge and Roger Bagnall. They were still in three containers at that
point (p.205).
·
After Yale refused to buy
them, citing questions of ownership, Frieda learned through Bill Veres, a
London antiquities dealer, of Bruce Ferrini, who was being backed by James
Ferrell.
·
Ferrini had substantial plans
to conserve and publish, and consulted Charles W. Hedrick.
·
As Ferrini's financial difficulties
increased, he sold the mathematical treatise through Sam Fogg of London to a US
citizen who wants to remain anonymous but owns the Archimedes palimpsest. Fogg
engaged Alexander Jones, a Canadian scholar specialising in ancient scientific
texts, to publish it in collaboration with Roger Bagnall in 2008. (p.226)
·
Ferrini also sold at least
three pages of the mathematical treatise separately to philanthropist Lloyd
Cotsen, who donated them to Princeton University. Cotsen bought them
directly from Ferrini, but had them shipped direct to Princeton rather than to
himself, according to Lyn Tansey of Cotsen's office. At Princeton it came
under the control of the curator of manuscripts, Don Skemer. Jones
visited Princeton in autumn 2005 to examine these pages and reported that they
belonged to the same treatise. (p.226-7)
·
As it became clear that
Ferrini had sold material separately, Ferrini blamed Bill Veres, who denied it
in a letter of 2004.
·
In January 2006 a substantial
part of two pages of the ps.gospel of Judas 'surfaced', identified as pages 5
and 6. These had been supplied by Ferrini to a private collector in New
York, after Frieda had taken possession of the codex.
·
Kasser has copies of all the
photographs that Hedrick had.
·
In November/December 2005 Bill
Veres was contacted by unnamed people who claimed once to have worked for
Ferrini, and said that they had documents and photographs of Ferrini's archives
and secret deals, suggesting that they had copied Ferrini's hard disk.
This included pictures of the ps.gospel of Judas, which had been supplied to
Hedrick. Between 60 and 90 images had been supplied. This
information came to van Rijn, who communicated it to Roberty, who contacted
Hedrick via his US lawyer (Ferrini had undertaken to ensure no copies existed
except those given to Frieda). Attempts to pressure Hedrick proved
fruitless, but Hedrick proved to be very willing to supply Kasser with copies
of all the photos he had and to cooperate. The material that Hedrick had
supplied to van Rijn was published on the latter's website, but Hedrick says
that he did not give permission for publication.
Note that this is a very
condensed summary of points mainly relating to photographs, and the book is an essential
purchase for the full story and context.
[Summary of data from
James M. Robinson, "The secrets of Judas"; Stephen Emmel's report]
(28th April 2006)
Much of the book is
directed at those new to the subject. Important information for long-term
readers:
·
Bruce Ferrini sent Charles
Hedrick 164 "very dismal photographs", 10 professionally made
photographs and 24 made with a regular camera. Hedrick transcribed and
translated what he could from 6 pages that were more legible than the
rest. (p.129) n.12 adds that the information comes from two emails from
Hedrick to Robinson in early 2006).
·
Hedrick circulated these
transcriptions and translations to Nag Hammadi colleagues -- Birger A. Pearson,
John D. Turner, Douglas M. Parrott, Wolf-Peter Funk, Hans-Gebhard Bethge and
Robinson. Hedrick "received from most a series of suggestions for
improving both the transcription and the translation. The outcome of this
collaboration has been, most recently, a much improved transcription and a
German translation by the group in Berlin led by Bethge, and a corresponding
translation by Steven Patterson. ... It is to be regretted that this familar
kind of collegial sharing and cooperation, characteristic of the study of Nag
Hammadi by those not part of the Nag Hammadi monopolies, has not been shared,
in the case of The Gospel of Judas, by those who have ---- a
monopoly on it!"
·
Hedrick has a numeration
system for discoveries; the Berlin gospel 22220 ('Gospel of the Savior') is
E34.
·
By Dec, 15 2000, Ferrini had
sold the Mathematical ms and the Letters of Paul, and at that date he agreed to
pay Frieda $300,000 for them. The Exodus ms., codex Tchacos, and
"not expressly mentioned further fragments" were to be returned to
Frieda, in exchange for the cheques that Ferrini had given her.
·
Roberty was briefing van Rijn;
there are references to something being sold by Ferrini through Sam Fogg to
Lord Thompson of Fleet for $900,000.
·
"Coptic manuscript
discoveries are taking place in Egypt on an almost regular basis" (p.102)
and n.15: "Listed in my foreword to the reprint of W. E. Crum, "A
coptic dictionary". Eugene, Ore.: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2005.
It is on seven unnumbered pages prior to Crum's preface. The foreword is
being reprinted in Coptica, journal of the Saint Mark Foundation and
Saint Shenouda the Archimandrite Coptic Society, Los Angeles, 2006,
forthcoming."
·
Robinson publishes Stephen
Emmel's report from 1983 (pp.117-120). Steven Emmel was one of those who
saw the manuscripts for half an hour in 1983. Robinson prints this, and
it gives us some solid info on the Letters of Paul codex:
REPORT ON THE PAPYRUS MANUSCRIPTS OFFERED FOR SALE IN
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND, MAY 15, 1983
The collection of papyri being offered for sale consists of
four separate manuscripts, and possibly fragments of some others. A system of
numeration and designations was agreed upon with the owner and his intermediary
for referring to the four manuscripts, as follows:
1. "Exodus" (Greek)
2. "Coptic Apocalypses Codex" (Coptic)
3. "Letters of Paul" (Coptic)
4. "Metrodological Fragment" (Greek)
The material was being stored in three cardboard boxes lined
with newspaper. Items 1, 2, and 4 were each in a separate box, with the
fragments of item 3 mixed together with items 1 and 4. This report is concerned
only with the Coptic items, mainly with item 2, briefly with item 3.
Item 3 is fragments of a papyrus codex from the 5th
(possibly 4th) century AD containing at least some of the letters of St. Paul.
The leaves are approximately 24 cm tall and 16 cm broad. The scribe outlined
his writing area with pink chalk. His handwriting is cursive in style, as
though somewhat quickly written. The pages are numbered above the center of a
single column of writing, the highest page number observed being 115. There are
some nearly complete leaves of the codex preserved, and many smaller fragments,
which might be reassembled into at least a sizeable portion of the codex. There
is also part of a leather binding (either the front or the back cover,
including the spine, lined with scrap papyrus) which probably, though not
certainly, belongs to this codex. The contents identified with certainty are
Hebrews, Colossians, and 1 Thessalonians. The texts are in a non-standard form
of the Sahidic dialect.
Certainly the gem of the entire collection of four
manuscripts is item 2, a papyrus codex from the 4th century AD, approximately
30 cm tall and 15 cm broad, containing gnostic texts. At the time that the
codex was discovered, it was probably in good condition, with a leather binding
and complete leaves with all four margins intact. But the codex has been badly
handled; only half of the leather binding (probably the front cover) is now
preserved and the leaves have suffered some breakage. The absence of half of
the binding and the fact that page numbers run only into the 50's lead me to
suppose that the back half of the codex may be missing; only closer study can
prove or disprove this supposition. The texts are in a non-standard form of
Sahidic.
The codex was inscribed in a single column in a large and
careful uncial hand. Page numbers were placed above the center of the column
and decorated with short rows of diples [hatch-marks] above and below. At least
pp. 1-50 are represented by substantial fragments which, when reassembled, will
make up complete leaves with all four margins intact. The portion of the
leather binding preserved is lined with cartonnage, layers of scrap papyrus
glued together to form a kind of cardboard. At least some of this cartonnage is
inscribed, offering hope that the date and location of the manufacture of the
codex can be determined with some precision once the cartonnage has been
removed and studied.
The codex contains at least three different texts: (1)
"The First Apocalypse of James" known already, though in a different
version, from Nag Hammadi Codex (NHC) V; (2) "The Letter of Peter to
Philip" known already from the NHC VIII (in the new manuscript this title,
[in Coptic] TEPISTOLH MPETROS SHAFILIPPOS, is given as a subscript [cf. the
superscript title, slightly different, in NHC VIII 132:10-11] accompanied by
decorations to fill out the remainder of the page on which the text ends); and
(3) a dialogue between Jesus and his disciples (at least "Judas" [i.e.,
presumably, Judas Thomas] is involved) similar in genre to "The Dialogue
of the Savior" (NHC III) and "The Wisdom of Jesus Christ" (NHC
III and the Berlin Gnostic codex [PB 8502]).
The leaves and fragments of the codex will need to be
conserved between panes of glass. I would recommend conservation measures
patterned after those used to restore and conserve the Nag Hammadi Codices (see
my article, "The Nag Hammadi Codices Editing Project: A Final
Report," American Research Center in Egypt, Inc., Newsletter 104
[1978] 10-32). Despite the breakage that has already occurred, and that which
will inevitably occur between now and the proper conservation of the
manuscript, I estimate that it would require about a month to reassemble the
fragments of the manuscript and to arrange the reassembled leaves between panes
of glass.
According to the owner, all four of the manuscripts in this
collection were found near the village of Beni Masar, about 8 km south of
Oxyrhynchus (modern Behnasa). It is difficult to know how seriously to take
such information. Study of the cartonnage in the two surviving covers will
probably provide more certain information as to the provenance at least of the
manufacture of the codices.
The owner asked $3,000,000 for the entire collection. He
refused to consider lowering his price to within a reasonable range, claiming
that he had already come down from $10,000,000 in negotiations with one
previous prospective buyer. He also refused to discuss the prices of the four
individual items separately. He would like to sell all four manuscripts
together, but probably will sell them individually if necessary.
I strongly urge you to acquire this Gnostic codex. It is of
the utmost scholarly value, comparable in every way to any one of the Nag
Hammadi Codices. Like them as well, it is one of the oldest specimens of a book
in codex form; the fact that part of the cover is also preserved is a
remarkable stroke of luck. There is great danger of further deterioration of
the manuscript as long as it is in the hands of the present owner. This unique
item must be put as quickly as possible into the hands of a library or museum
where it can be restored, published, and conserved.
Stephen Emmel
June 1, 1983
[From R.Kasser, M.Meyer,
G.Wurst, "The Gospel of Judas"] (26th April 2006)
I have now received my
copy of the three volumes above. Rudolphe Kasser's essay contains much
detail on the recovery process; would that this was more often available for
mss.
A brief summary of
important data follows.
·
The entire text of the codex
Tchacos will be published in a critical edition with facsimile full-size colour
photographs and translations into English, French and German. This will
also include photographs of the fragments which the researchers were unable to
place in sequence.
·
The codex is 66 pages (33
leaves long) and comprises:
o
pages 1-9: a version of the
Letter of Peter to Philip (known from Nag Hammadi codex VIII)
o
pages 10-32: a text entitled
"James", which is a version of the First Revelation of James from Nag
Hammadi codex V.
o
pages 33-58: the ps.Gospel of
Judas
o
pages 59-66: an untitled text
mainly about a certain Allogenes who features in Sethian texts.
·
During publication the lower
part of pages 37-38 came to light.
·
The manuscript is split across
the middle, about a third of the way down the page, seemingly from being
folded, and text lost at the join. Most of the text is on the lower
portion, but there is a page number in the upper part. More has been lost
from this area around the fold since Stephen Emmel first saw it in 1983, but
not hugely so. The pages are numbered, which means the sequence of the
upper half of each page is clear. Between 1983 and 2001 someone
rearranged the bottom halves out of order.
·
Because of the split, portions
can be missing. Page 31/32, with a colophon on it reading
"James" 'appeared mysteriously in the catalogue of a roving religious
exhibition in the USA, showing a page that should be numbered [32]".
·
Codex is 30cm tall and 15cm
broad.
·
When found ca. 1978 it was
probably in good condition with complete leather binding and all four edges of
leaves. It had deteriorated by 1983.
·
Now only a single cover is
present and the page numbers run only into the 50's, suggesting that the rear
portion of the codex has been detached.
·
Hannah stored the ms in a bank
vault in NY, in humid conditions until 2000 when he sold it to Frieda
Nussberger. When Bruce Ferrini acquired it he froze it. The effect
of this on the damp leaves was to weaken them to crumbling point. It also
made the water in the leaves gather at the surface, bringing pigment with them
and darkening them to near-illegibility.
·
Ferrini made photos of many
pages, which he supplied to Charles Hedrick. When he agreed to return the
ms to Frieda Nussberger, he undertook to return the whole ms, plus all photos
and transcriptions. But this he did not do. Hedrick was able to
supply Rudolphe Kasser with photos, a transcription and translation of pp.40,
54-62. These images appeared on the internet (see below).
·
10-15% of the text of the
ps.gospel is now lost.
[From Matthew Hamilton]
(21st April 2006)
Matthew has been
researching the fate of the Exodus fragments, and has compiled the following
info.
The Exodus codex:
Besides the parts known of from the Ink and Blood exhibit, and the Schoyen
Collection (and those in the Antonovich Collection mentioned in the Schoyen
Collection website), it appears there is a fragment in the Ashland Theological
Seminary. See David A. deSilva, "An Introduction to the New Testament:
Contexts, Methods & Ministry Formation", page 808. The same book
includes on page 43 a fragment belonging to "a private collector".
Various web reports on
the Exodus fragments at Ink and Blood [as well as at "From The Dead Sea
Scrolls to the Bible in America" and "Dead Sea Scrolls to the
Forbidden Book"] have been accompanied by photographs of some of the
leaves, here are the references of some of them - note that the web addresses
may no longer be active?
“Religious history,
Bible on display in Murfreesboro”, The Tennessean, (7.3.2003)
-Was at http://tennessean.com/local/archives/03/03/29817803.shtml?Element_ID=29817803.
"It will be on display April 6-29 in Murfreesboro along with some of the
Dead Sea Scrolls and a large collection of other artifacts from early Judaism
and Christianity. Some fragments of the scrolls were also displayed yesterday,
along with a fragment of a page from an early bible in Greek."
(From sptimes.com)
“Exhibit opens eyes to pages of Bible history”, by
M.J. Park, The St. Petersburg Times Online, (14.1.2006)
-Was at http://www.sptimes.com/2006/01/14/Tampabay/Exhibition_opens_eyes.shtml
-The caption on the photograph here suggestss Exodus 3 ("Moses and the
burning bush"), but I couldn't match the text on the photograph to Exodus
3
The Schøyen Collection: Checklist of 600 Manuscripts Spanning 5000 Years, 20th
ed., internet ed., by M. Schøyen and E.G. Sørenssen
-Available online at www.schoyen.net, and
specifically http://www.nb.no/baser/schoyen/4/4.1/412.html#187.
-Revised Feb. 2006
-See section 1.2. Schøyen collection lists EEx.4:17-6:12; 7:12-21, and
Ex.6:28-7:12 listed for Antonovich collection
[But contrary to this, Martin Schøyen tells me that it has been confirmed by
Drs Robinson, Emmel and 'a German scholar' that these fragments (Schoyen
Ms. 187) are not from our codex. In particular a photo from Hannah
exists of a leaf containing Ex. 5, which passage also exists in Ms.187, thereby
proving that the two are distinct. --RP, April 2006]
Dead Sea Scrolls to the Forbidden Book: A History of the Bible, [by Lee
Biondi?] ([Dallas?]: HisStory, 2003) (also now offline)
-This is the exhibit catalogue, see pages IVV, X, 8, 34-36. Page 8 refers to
Ex.26:22-25; 30:19-21, pages 34-36 refer to Ex.10:12-22; 12:9-17; 26:22-25;
34:12-24
Email by Gary Dykes to TC-List (no longer an active list), of 6 July 2003, and
email by Gary Dykes to myself, of 2 August 2003, with attached photographs,
refers to Ex.12:19-29,30-41,45-13:7; 35:21
I have copied various images off the web, as well as some images provided by
Gary Dykes (and I can't recall which are which, or the sources of some of these
images). If you need copies, I will try to forward these to you after I have
checked with Gary Dykes, or you may want to contact Gary Dykes yourself. His
email is (or was in 2003) garyandgale_at_ earthlink.net
Besides Gary Dykes, another person who may be able to provide some details is
David A. deSilva, who is (or was in 2004) at Ashland Theological Seminary with
email ddsilva_at_ashland.edu and was planning to publish their fragment, as
well as Lee Biondi, who advised me in 2003 that the Schøyen, Antonovich and
"Dead Sea scrolls to the Forbidden Book" fragments were from the same
MS.
In summary, the 55 or so leaves contain at least:
Ex.3:...
4:17-...
5:
6:...-12,28-...
7:...-12-...-21
10:12-22
12:9-17,19-29,30-41,45-...
13:...-7
26:22-25
30:19-21
34:12-24
35:21
My apologies for not being able to provide more details of contents, but I have
not had time over the last 3 years to compare the contents of the images (web,
email and catalogue) with a standard Septuagint edition, I am not sure that the
summary list is either as correct or as complete as it could be.
[From Michel van Rijn]
Stolen Pages of Exodus in Ferrell Collection
Van Rijn offers the following emails
between people apparently with addresses at Ferrini and Ferrell. The
majority of the material concerns various disputes, but this one is of
interest:
From: "Theresa S" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>; <[email protected]>
Sent: Sunday, February 23, 2003 3:13 PM
Subject: Descriptions and provenance
In preparation for our meeting on
Wednesday and so that our attorney can finalize descriptions of the items to be
included in the settlement, I'd like to have faxed to me on Monday descriptions
and provenance for ...[various items]
I am assuming the 10 sets of ancient
writings, the Exodus fragments, the marzeah Papyrus and Dead Sea
fragments are exactly as described in the books you gave us.
...
Theresa [Schekirke]
[From Ohio
News] Ohio Lawyer Shows Off Gospel Of Judas. Apr 19 2006 7:52PM
Michel van Rijn draws
attention to the following story:
An Akron lawyer is trying to pay bankruptcy debts
of an art and antiquities dealer. Thursday he offered a glimpse
of several small, brown bits of papyrus that may be part of the roughly
1700-year-old Gospel of Judas.
The items may have historical and religious
significance. Scott Haley's court-appointed task is to pay Ohio collector Bruce
Ferrini's creditors.
[Original
site has photo of extensive fragments, which I have not been able to link to]
Whether the fragments that ended up in a bank vault
in downtown Akron are genuine remains in question.
Haley said he has no immediate plans to go through
a time-consuming, expensive authentication process. He also said he wants to
draw attention to Ferrini's assets, but hopes the fragments will not have to be
sold and can be returned to him.
An ancient text about Judas was preserved and
translated by a team of scholars, then made public by the National Geographic
Society about two weeks ago.
The announcement drew worldwide attention, telling
a far different version than that in the four Gospels in the New Testament.
(Copyright 2006 by The Associated
Press. All Rights Reserved.)
[From CentreDaily.com
via Michel van Rijn] History, faith meet in Akron bank vault: Ancient text from
Gospel of Judas may be part of local collection. Tue, Apr. 18, 2006. By Bob
Dyer. Beacon Journal staff writer
You may have heard about the Gospel of Judas, a long-lost
manuscript that has been getting international attention.
But you haven't heard this: Part of it is in Akron.
A portion of the 1,700-year-old treasure is sitting in a
bank vault on South Main Street.
At least that's what the National Geographic Society says.
If you haven't been following the story, National Geographic
helped fund a mission by an international team of experts to authenticate,
translate and preserve the only known copy of the Gospel of Judas, an ancient
book based on the life of Jesus' least popular disciple.
A sizable chunk of that manuscript -- 10 to 20 percent, by
one estimate -- is right here.
How did it get here?
The short version is this: The manuscript was discovered in
a cave in Egypt in the 1970s and wound its way through antiquities dealers in
Europe and the United States before being purchased in 2000 by Bath Township
resident Bruce Ferrini.
Ferrini is an internationally known art dealer who filed for
bankruptcy last September. He bought the ancient book, known as a codex, for
$2.5 million. But because of his failing finances, the deal fell through.
Ferrini was at least $4.6 million in debt last year,
according to court filings, and creditors began to battle for his holdings.
Akron attorney R. Scott Haley was appointed to catalog and assess Ferrini's
possessions.
In 2001, when the sale fell apart, Ferrini supposedly
returned the whole codex to its previous owner. But according to Haley and
National Geographic, which photographed the Akron pieces in February, a
significant portion of the gospel remained in Ferrini's possession.
Ferrini referred a phone call to Akron lawyer Morris
Laatsch, who said Ferrini returned everything he was given by the previous
owner, and questions whether the National Geographic experts are correct.
"There's more than one series of writings," Laatsch
said. "The Gnostics apparently wrote lots of things. Possibly this could
be from this same document. But if the experts do say it is, I guess perhaps
you can rely on them or not rely on them."
Manuscript's location
The delicate fragments are inside a special vault at
FirstMerit. Only the bank has the combination to an outer vault, and only Haley
has the combination to an inner vault.
The Akron fragments are stored in 26 plastic folders, each
about the size of half a standard envelope.
Traditional Christian belief has it that Judas, a disciple
of Christ, betrayed him, turning him over to Roman authorities for execution.
This new account argues that Judas was actually Jesus' closest disciple, and
that the only reason Judas blew the whistle was Jesus asked him to.
Christian scholars are widely split in regard to the
potential religious impact of the discovery. Some believe the name Judas may no
longer be synonymous with "traitor." Others say the find will have
little impact. But the historical value is unquestioned.
The papyrus manuscript survived -- just barely -- because it
lay untouched for 1,600 years in a limestone box in a desert cave. It almost
didn't survive because it also spent 16 years in a safe deposit box in Long
Island, N.Y.
Ferrini didn't do it any favors, either, according to one
account. The Associated Press reported that he damaged it by storing it in his
freezer.
"You can't believe how much I regret having sold it (to
Ferrini)," European dealer Frieda Nussberger-Tchacos told the AP.
International interest
Haley first realized what he was dealing with when a lawyer
for Nussberger-Tchacos and the Maecenas Foundation in Switzerland, a partner in
the National Geographic project, contacted him to say part of the codex was
missing and probably in Ferrini's possession.
Haley invited the lawyer and National Geographic to view the
material in February. National Geographic photographer Kenneth Garrett -- the
same person who shot the King Tut exhumation for the society last year --
photographed both sides of every fragment. He was assisted by a
document-handling expert from Switzerland.
Ferrini's lawyer said Nussberger-Tchacos signed a document
in 2001 saying the material had been returned, and questions her credibility,
pointing out that she was once detained by Italian authorities in connection
with a smuggling case.
That's one reason Yale University officials passed up a
chance to buy it after authenticating it immediately before she sold it to
Ferrini.
Still, the National Geographic team has proclaimed the
documents real.
Ferrini is "not saying they are or they're not,"
Laatsch responded. "They're from that era... and very well could be part
of the Gospel of Judas -- or may not be."
Even if they are, he said, they were obtained in a different
transaction and do not belong to Nussberger-Tchacos.
Codex's origins, future
The Gospel of Judas was written about 300 A.D. It is in
Coptic, an ancient Egyptian language that uses modified Greek letters.
A codex is a book that consists of folded pages bound on one
side. They were easier to manage than scrolls, and found favor with people
writing scripture.
In 2009, the codex will be returned to Egypt, where it will
be displayed at the Coptic Museum in Cairo.
Ferrini has successfully applied to have his bankruptcy dismissed,
and now Haley will go about liquidating the collection through a receivership
-- although he won't do anything with the Juudas codex until the Swiss legal
claim is resolved.
Ferrini
made front-page news in 2002 when he pledged to donate $6.8 million to Kent
State University, the largest gift in the school's history. But, as the school
acknowledged in December, he never gave Kent any of that money.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bob Dyer can be reached at 330-996-3580 or [email protected]
Van
Rijn adds:
Scissorhands Ferrini is claiming to have bought the
remaining fragments of the Judas Gospel and Exodus from Paris based
gentleman-dealer Guy Ladriere, bottom of the deck dealer Francois Antonovitch
and Napoleon Bonaparte ;-).
We at the Institute of the Terminally Maladjusted foresaw
Ferrini's BS cover up acquisition story; so we pulled the magic carpet on his
Gospels and fables.
|
From: [email protected] 19/12/04 Good morning, I am today 70 years
old, I don't know the man called Mr Bruce Ferrini Best wishes. François Antonovich |
|
From: "Galerie Ratton-Ladriere"
<[email protected]> Dear Michel, I am now travelling in
the country and can't have directly a look on my mails so I asked my staff to
print your photos and faxed them to me at my hôtel and had a look on
yesterday late evening. I can AFFIRM and CLAIM
( if it is "claimed" with the other part) I NEVER saw these
fragments, never bought them and NEVER SOLD THEM TO Ferrini. I don't know how this
man can claim he bought them from me. I never deal with this kind of
"coptic" fragments. To complete, the two
leaves I sold to Ferrini, coming from Antonovitch, were TWO painted
miniatures on velum, representing two seated Apostles, of Byzantine type,
something very classical, XIIth century, nothing to compare with the
fragments you sent to me. I hope these
informations will help you and thank you for your mails. Best regards. Guy Galerie Ratton-Ladriere |
[Email from James E.
Ferrell] (15th April 2006)
James E. Ferrell has
been in contact with me. There have been rumours that Bruce Ferrini sold
him some of the pages of the Exodus manuscript. I asked him about these,
and he kindly gave me permission to upload his response:
Dear Mr. Pearse, I am afraid I have no knowledge of these
items. In fact I had never heard of them until reading about them in the book.
... You can only hope that all the notoriety surrounding the Judas Gospel will
bring someone forward. I wish you all the best in your search. J. Ferrell
[From Mario Roberty]
(14th April 2006)
I've heard from Mario
Roberty of the Maecenas Foundation. He confirms that the Foundation only
holds the codex Tchacos, and not the Exodus or Letters of Paul. He adds:
Our plan was to publish the critical (scientific) edition of
the whole Codex first or at least simultaneously with the two publications now
presented by the National Geographical Society. The reason why this didn't
happen was that during the last few weeks we obtained access to some important
fragments Ferrini had sold and others that are now in the hands of the Receiver
in Ferrini's bankruptcy case. It would be a pity not to include the info
contained in these fragments in the scholarly publication which will therefore
be a few months late and published this summer. Due to Robinson's ... book ...,
we were forced to start going public with what we had ready.
I don't think that
any of us will care about a six month delay; after all, what else could they
do? But it is good news that Roberty &c are hot on the trail of the
material dispersed by Bruce Ferrini.
[From National
Geographic]. More on how the Gospel of Judas got to us. (14th April
2006) By Andrew Cockburn. (Excerpts)
The documents survived
unmolested through centuries of war and upheaval. They remained unread until
early May 1983, when Stephen Emmel, a graduate student working in Rome, got a
call from a fellow scholar, who wanted him to travel to Switzerland and check
on some Coptic documents on offer from a mysterious source. In Geneva, Emmel
and two colleagues were directed to a hotel room where they were met by two
men—an Egyptian who spoke no English and a Greek who translated.
“We were given about
half an hour to look into what were effectively three shoe boxes. Inside were
papyri wrapped in newspaper,” says Emmel. “We weren’t allowed to take
photographs or make any notes.” The papyrus was already beginning to crumble,
so he did not dare touch it by hand. Kneeling beside the bed, he gingerly
lifted some of the leaves with tweezers and spotted the name Judas. He
mistakenly assumed the name referred to Judas Thomas, another disciple, but he
did understand that this was a totally unknown work of great
significance.
One of Emmel’s
colleagues disappeared into the bathroom to negotiate a deal. Emmel was
authorized to offer no more than $50,000; the sellers demanded three million
dollars and not a penny less. “No way was anyone going to pay that money,” says
Emmel, now a professor at the University of Münster in Germany, who sadly
recalls the papyrus as “beautiful” and laments its deterioration since the
meeting. While the two sides lunched, he slipped away and frantically noted
down everything he could remember. That was the last any scholar saw of the
documents for the next 17 years.
According to the present
owners of the Judas gospel, the Egyptian in that Geneva hotel room was a Cairo
antiquities dealer named Hanna. He had bought the manuscript from a village
trader who made his living scouting such material. Exactly where or how the
trader had come across the collection is unclear. He is dead now, and his
relatives in the Maghagha district, a hundred miles (160 kilometers) south of
Cairo, become strangely reticent when challenged to reveal the site of the
find.
Soon after Hanna
acquired the manuscript and before he could take it overseas, his entire stock
disappeared in a robbery. In Hanna’s telling, the stolen goods were spirited
out of the country and ended up in the hands of another dealer. Later Hanna
succeeded in retrieving part of the hoard, including the gospel.
Once upon a time, few
would question how a priceless antiquity left its host country. Any visitor
could simply pick up artifacts and send them abroad. That is how great museums
like the British Museum and the Louvre acquired many of their treasures. Today,
antiquities-rich nations take a more proprietary attitude, banning private
ownership and strictly controlling the export of their heritage. Respectable
buyers such as museums try to ensure a legitimate provenance, or origin, for an
artifact by establishing that it has not been stolen or illegally exported.
In early 1980, when the
theft took place, Egypt had already made it illegal to possess unregistered
antiquities or export them without a government license. It is not clear
precisely how this law applies to the codex. But questions about its provenance
have shadowed it ever since.
Hanna, however, was
determined to get top dollar for it. The academics in Geneva confirmed
through their excitement that it was indeed valuable, so he headed for New York
to find a buyer with real money. The foray came to nothing, whereupon
Hanna apparently lost heart and retired back to Cairo. Before he left New York,
he rented a safe deposit box in a Citibank branch in Hicksville, Long Island,
where he parked the codex and some other ancient papyri. There they remained,
untouched and moldering, while Hanna intermittently tried to interest other
buyers. His price, reportedly, was always too high.
Finally, in April 2000,
he made a sale. The buyer was Frieda Nussberger-Tchacos, an Egyptian-born Greek
who had made her way to the top of the cutthroat antiquities business after
studying Egyptology in Paris. She will not divulge what she paid, conceding
only that a rumored figure of $300,000 is “wrong, but in the
neighborhood.” It occurred to her that the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript
Library at Yale University might be a possible buyer, so she deposited her wares
with one of the library’s manuscript experts, Professor Robert Babcock.
A few days later, as she
was heading out of Manhattan to catch a flight to her home in Zürich, the
professor phoned. His news was explosive, but it was his excitement, audible
even on a cell phone in the din of Manhattan rush-hour traffic, that
Frieda Tchacos remembers best. “He was saying, ‘This is unbelievable material;
I think it is the Gospel of Judas Iscariot,’ but I really only heard the
emotion vibrating in his voice.” Only later, in the long hours over the dark
Atlantic, did Tchacos begin to appreciate that she actually owned the fabled
Gospel of Judas.
Greeks talk about moira—fate—and
in the months that followed, Tchacos began to feel that her moira had become
entangled in a terrible way with Judas, “like a curse ” The Beinecke held on to
the document for five months but then refused to bite, despite the
vibrating Babcock, largely because of doubts about its provenance. So Tchacos
turned from the Ivy League to Akron, Ohio, and an opera singer turned dealer in
old manuscripts named Bruce Ferrini.
Her rejection by Yale
had been disheartening, and the trip to Akron was a nightmare. “My flight from
Kennedy was cancelled, so I had to fly from LaGuardia on a little plane. I had
the material carefully packed in black boxes, but they wouldn’t let me carry
them into the cabin.” Judas flew to Ohio in the hold. In return for Judas and
other manuscripts, Ferrini gave Tchacos a sales contract with a Ferrini company
called Nemo and two postdated checks for 1.25 million dollars each.
Ferrini did not return
numerous phone calls seeking his version of the story. But people who saw the
Judas manuscript while it was in his possession say that he shuffled the pages.
“He wanted to make it look more complete,” suggests Coptic expert Gregor Wurst,
who is helping to restore it. More fragments were coming off.
Tchacos had begun having
qualms about the deal within days of returning home. Her doubts increased when
a friend named Mario Roberty pointed out that nemo is Latin for “no
one.”
Roberty, a quick-witted
and engaging Swiss lawyer, knows the world of antiquities dealers and runs a
foundation dedicated to ancient art. He was, he says, “fascinated” by Tchacos’s
story and happily agreed to help her reclaim Judas.
Ferrini’s huge checks
were due at the beginning of 2001. To help keep pressure on the Akron dealer,
Roberty enlisted the antiquities trade’s own weapon of mass destruction, a
former dealer named Michel van Rijn. The London-based van Rijn runs a
wide-ranging website that is totally uninhibited in flaying his many enemies in
the antiquities world.
Briefed by Roberty, van
Rijn broke the news of the gospel, adding that it was “in the claws of the
‘multi-talented’ manuscript dealer, Bruce P. Ferrini,” who was in “deep
financial troubles.” In stark terms, he warned potential buyers: “You
buy? You touch? You will be prosecuted!”
As Roberty cheerfully
recounts, deploying van Rijn “worked, quite decisively.” (More recently, van
Rijn changed tack and began fiercely attacking Roberty and Tchacos on his
site. “I think he’s used up all his ammunition,” says Roberty serenely.) In
February 2001, Tchacos reclaimed the Judas codex and brought it to Switzerland,
where, five months later, she met Kasser.
At that moment, she
says, Judas turned from curse to blessing. As Kasser began painstakingly
teasing the meaning of the codex from the fragments, Roberty embarked on an
imaginative solution to the provenance problem: selling the translation and
media rights while promising to return the original material to Egypt.
Roberty’s foundation, which now controls the manuscript, has signed an
agreement with the National Geographic Society.
Relieved of her
marketing concerns, Tchacos has herself begun to sound a little mystical.
“Everything is predestined,” she murmurs. “I was myself predestined by Judas to
rehabilitate him.”
On the edge of Lake
Geneva, upstairs in an anonymous building, a specialist carefully manipulates a
tiny scrap of papyrus into its proper place, and part of an ancient sentence is
restored.
More rumours (14th April 2006)
I have today heard that
the codex of the Greek Exodus, and the codex containing the Letters of Paul,
were recovered by Frieda Nussberger-Tchacos from Bruce Ferrini, and are still
in her possession. It seems that Ferrini may have 'misappropriated' and
sold leaves from some or all of these.
Rumours about the
missing three codices! (13th April 2006)
I have been doing
some digging, and emailing some of the people who might know something about
the 3 missing codices, or have handled them. The following comments have
emerged. As ever, while I am sure that everyone is sincere, not everyone
may be accurately informed. I have suppressed names in the interest of
keeping the information flowing! Here are a few quotes from various
sources.
My first quotation is
from someone who warned me that it was hearsay. But it's better informed
hearsay than I have found elsewhere.
Everything except the so-called mathematical codex is in the
hands of the Swiss foundation. Ferrini sold off the math codex in fragments,
but I think most of it (I dare not say all) wound up in two collections, one a
private collector in (I believe) Baltimore, the other the Lloyd Cotsen
collection of children's literature in the Princeton University Library. It was
a truly despicable act to break it up in this fashion.
Now some questions
and answers from another, rather well-informed source:
All the codices came
together in the same hands in 1983, didn't they?
Yes. When Koenen, Freedman, and Emmel saw them, all four
were in the possession of the same man.
If the other three
have a separate origin, is anything known about it?
"It has been said" (by whom?) that all four were
found together. But I am inclined to be skeptical about such a claim, unless
there is irrefutable evidence for it. This question was not raised in 1983, and
I have not read Herb Krosney's book to see what he has to report from his
investigations into the provenance.
Do you have any
codicological details that you would be willing to share?
None at this juncture. For the Judas-Codex, wait for the
critical edition that will appear within the next 6 months or so. For the
others...?
I had not known that
National Geographic were taking an interest in these other mss. Is that
correct?
I believe so, but I do not know what the nature of the
interest is. Sorry.
[From James M. Robinson]
Some details on Codex Tchacos (13th April 2006)
Dr Robinson kindly
sent me a mass of material which I will upload. Here's the first bit!
The Codex Tchacos contains:
[From the New
York Times (Free registration required)] How the Gospel of Judas Emerged.
(April 13, 2006) By Barry Meier and John Noble Wilford. Elisabetta Povoledo
contributed reporting from Rome for this article.
This interesting
article raises questions of ownership and commercial issues about the codex
which have been omitted. But it adds the following details which clarify
some of the relationships and name some of those involved. RP.
When the National Geographic Society announced to great
fanfare last week that it had gained access to a 1,700-year-old document known
as the Gospel of Judas, it described how a deteriorating manuscript, unearthed
in Egypt three decades ago, had made its way through the shady alleys of the
antiquities market to a safe-deposit box on Long Island and eventually to a
Swiss art dealer (Frieda Tchacos Nussberger) who "rescued" it from
obscurity. ...
After she failed to profit from the sale of the gospel in
the private market, she struck a deal with a foundation run by her lawyer that
would let her make about as much as she would have made on that sale, or more.
Later, the National Geographic Society paid the foundation to restore the
manuscript and bought the rights to the text and the story about the discovery.
As part of her arrangement with the foundation, the dealer, Frieda Tchacos
Nussberger, stands to gain $1 million to $2 million from those National
Geographic projects, her lawyer said. There may even be more.
According to National Geographic, (the manuscript) was found
by farmers in an Egyptian cave in the 1970's, sold to a dealer and passed
through various hands in Europe and the United States. ...
Terry Garcia, the vice president for mission programs at
National Geographic, which is based in Washington, said that the organization
had "heard some rumors" about possible legal problems involving Ms.
Tchacos Nussberger but could not confirm them. For her part, Ms. Tchacos
Nussberger rejected any suggestion that she was trying to profit from the
Gospel of Judas.
"I went through hell and back, and I saved something
for humanity," Ms. Tchacos Nussberger said in a telephone interview.
"I would have given it for nothing to someone who would have saved
it."
(National Geographic) did not buy the document. Instead, it
paid $1 million to the Maecenas Foundation, effectively for the manuscript's
contents. Part of the revenues generated by the National Geographic projects go
to the foundation.
The foundation was set up some years ago by Ms. Tchacos
Nussberger's lawyer, Mario Roberty, well before it became involved with the Gospel
of Judas. Mr. Roberty is the only official of the foundation, which he said was
involved in projects like returning antiquities to their countries of origin.
He said that when Ms. Tchacos Nussberger turned over the document to the
foundation in 2001, he quickly contacted officials in Egypt and assured them
that the manuscript would be returned there. He said the foundation had clear
legal title to the document.
In National Geographic's narratives, the manuscript takes a
long journey through the antiquities trade. Those stories describe Ms. Tchacos
Nussberger efforts to sell the Gospel of Judas privately soon after buying it
and her subsequent role in its restoration. She is portrayed as driven by
religious conviction to save the document.
"I think I was chosen by Judas to rehabilitate
him," Ms. Tchacos Nussberger, 65, is quoted as saying in one of the
society's books, "The Lost Gospel," by Herbert Krosney. Mr. Krosney
is also an independent television producer who brought the gospel project to
National Geographic. ...
According to National Geographic, she bought the Judas
document for about $300,000 in 2000 from another dealer who had placed it in a
safe-deposit box in Hicksville, N.Y., on Long Island. She tried to sell it to
the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University.
Yale officials have not specified why they did not buy the
document. But Robert Babcock, curator of early books at the library, said
through a spokeswoman that "there were unresolved questions about the
provenance."
Then in 2001, Ms. Tchacos Nussberger sold it to an
antiquities dealer in Ohio (i.e. Bruce Ferrini -- RP) for $2.5 million,
but the deal fell apart when the dealer did not make good on the payments.
Aided by her lawyer, Mr. Roberty, she regained ownership of
the document and at his suggestion turned it over to the Maecenas Foundation.
Under the deal, she is entitled to receive a sum from revenues generated by the
Gospel of Judas essentially equivalent to what she would have received from the
Ohio dealer, minus the value of several pages of the manuscript that dealer
bought. In addition, she is entitled to get back about $800,000 she lent to the
foundation for expenses like legal costs and early restoration efforts, Mr.
Roberty said. Mr. Roberty said the foundation had already started paying money
to the dealer, but he declined to say how much she had received to date.
Other texts 'in
separate codices'. (13th April 2006)
I have been
corresponding with various people who tell me that the following texts were each
in separate manuscripts:
- the 'Book of Exodus' in Greek
- 'Letters of Paul' in Sahidic dialect and aa
- 'Mathematical Treatise' in Greek.
Also that they do not
come from the same find site as the codex containing the ps.Gospel of Judas.
[From Michel van Rijn's
site] Gospel Ms. repatriated? (12th April 2006)
Ever on top of the news,
Michel has today added to his site the following press release, with the
qualification that M. Roberty has denied it:
MvR doesn't vouch for the accuracy of this French press
release, mais on sais jamais! ... Mario Roberty denies the news and claims to
have still physical possession of the Gospel… Who is right? ...
Agence France Presse
L'Egypte récupère
"l'Evangile selon Judas" (English
translation below)
LE CAIRE, 12 avr 2006
(AFP) - L'Egypte a récupéré un manuscrit en papyrus datant du IIIe ou IVe
siècle et contenant la seule copie connue de l'Evangile selon Judas, l'apôtre
qui a trahi Jésus, a annoncé jeudi le Conseil supérieur des antiquités
égyptiennes (CSAE).
"L'Egypte a réussi à récupérer le manuscrit de 13 feuilles de papyrus en
langue copte ancienne", a déclaré le secrétaire général du CSAE, Zahi
Hawwas, dans un communiqué.
Jeudi, le National
Geographic a annoncé que le document avait été authentifié comme étant
l'Evangile selon Judas.
"Le manuscrit,
perdu pendant près de 1.700 ans, a été authentifié comme étant le travail de la
littérature apocryphe des premiers chrétiens", a déclaré Terry Garcia, un
des responsables de la revue américaine.
L'existence de cet
Evangile avait été attestée par le premier évêque de Lyon, la capitale des
Gaules (France), Saint Irénée, qui l'avait dénoncé dans un texte contre les
hérésies vers le milieu du IIe siècle. Dans cet Evangile, Judas n'apparaît pas
comme un traître mais comme un initié qui aurait dénoncé Jésus aux Romains, à
la demande de ce dernier et pour la rédemption du monde.
Le document bordé de
cuir a été découvert dans les années 1970 par un paysan égyptien dans le désert
près d'Al-Minya (sud).
Il a ensuite circulé
parmi les courtiers en antiquités pour se retrouver aux Etats-Unis, où il a été
racheté en 2000 par l'antiquaire suisse Frieda Nussberger-Tchacos, qui l'a
confié à la fondation suisse Maecenas en 2001 afin de le préserver et de le
traduire.
Le document, appelé
"Codex de Tchacos", sera conservé au musée copte du Caire.
Egypt recovers
"the Gospel according to Judas"
CAIRO, 12 avr 2006 (AFP)
- Egypt recovered a papyrus manuscript datinng from the III or IV century
containing the only known copy of the Gospel according to Judas, the apostle
who betrayed Jesus, was announced on Thursday by the higher Council of Egyptian
antiquities (CSAE). "Egypt succeeded in recovering the manuscript of 13
sheets of papyrus in Coptic", declared the secretary-general of the CSAE,
Zahi Hawass, in an official statement.
Thursday, the National
Geographic announced that the document had been authenticated as being the
Gospel according to Judas. "The manuscript, lost during nearly 1.700
years, was authenticated as being the work of the literature apocryphal book of
the first Christians", declared Terry Garcia, one of the persons in charge
for the American review. The existence of this Gospel had been attested by the
first bishop of Lyon, the capital of Gaules (France), Saint Ireneus, who had
denounced it in a text against the heresies in the middle of the II century. In
this Gospel, Judas does not appear as a traitor but as an initiate who would
have denounced Jesus to the Romans, on the request of Jesus himself and for the
redemption of the world. The document bound in leather was discovered in the
years 1970 by an Egyptian peasant in the desert close to Al-Minya (southern).
It then circulated among brokers in antiquities to surface in the United
States, where the Swiss antique dealer Frieda Nussberger-Tchacos, who entrusted
it to the Swiss foundation Maecenas in 2001 in order to preserve it and to
translate it, repurchased it in 2000. The document, called "Codex
Tchacos", will be preserved at the Coptic museum of Cairo.
[From National
Geographic] Gospel of Judas Pages Endured Long, Strange Journey (12th April
2006) (Excerpts)
Modern Journeys of an
Ancient Book
Exactly how the
manuscripts were found in the late 1970s remains somewhat unclear. It is
believed that a now dead Egyptian antiquities prospector discovered the codex,
or ancient book, containing the Gospel of Judas near El Minya, Egypt. In 1978
he sold his find to a Cairo antiquities dealer named Hanna. Around 1980 the
manuscripts and most of Hanna's other artifacts were stolen in a robbery and
taken out of Egypt. Hanna later recovered the codex by coordinating with an
antiquities trader in Geneva, Switzerland. Hanna was the first to show the
codex to experts who recognized its possible significance. Yet he would search
for over two decades for a buyer willing to meet his steep price.
In 1983 Stephen Emmel,
then a graduate student living in Rome, Italy, received a phone call. Unknown
antiquities dealers selling ancient manuscripts had approached one of Emmel's
colleagues. Emmel and two other scholars agreed to meet the sellers in a Geneva
hotel room. For half an hour the trio examined a collection of papyruses that
were wrapped in newspaper and stored in shoe boxes. The scholars were forbidden
to take photos or notes. Though Emmel and his colleagues quickly realized that
the documents were both ancient and important, they did not know at that time
that the codex contained the Gospel of Judas.
Emmel immediately
noticed the damage that the fragile papyruses and leather binding had
sustained—likely during the few years since their discovery.
"When I saw the
codex in 1983 it was fragile, but the 30 or so surviving leaves were still in
pretty good condition," said Emmel, now a professor of Coptic studies at
the University of Münster in Germany.
"If a papyrus
conservator could have gone to work on it immediately, we would have had about
30 complete, or nearly complete, leaves, which would make some 60 pages of
text," he said.
"As it is, every
one of those leaves broke into pieces, and many fragments are now missing—most
probably lost forever."
Hanna demanded three
million U.S. dollars—far more than what Emmel and the other scholars could
pay—and the meeting ended. The manuscripts once again vanished from scholarly
view.
In 1984 the manuscripts'
Egyptian owner again offered them for sale, this time in New York City. Finding
no takers, Hanna deposited them in a bank safe-deposit box in Hicksville, New
York.
The codex languished
there for some 16 years.
Gospel Emerges From
Modern Seclusion
Finally, Zürich,
Switzerland-based antiquities dealer Frieda Nussberger-Tchacos bought the codex
in April 2000—though its full contents remained a mystery.
Tchacos turned the
documents over to experts at Yale University's Beinecke Rare Book and
Manuscript Library for examination and possible sale.
Yale papyrus expert
Robert Babcock discovered the startling truth—Tchacos held the Gospel of Judas,
previously known only from mentions in texts like those by St. Irenaeus. But
Yale passed on purchasing the gospel because of concerns about its provenance.
Tchacos endured another
failed sale attempt later that year, this time to U.S. dealer Bruce Ferrini.
Ferrini took possession of the gospel in return for two postdated checks. In
the following months Tchacos became increasingly convinced that Ferrini did not
have sufficient funds and engaged several prominent antiquities dealers to
pressure Ferrini to return the codex to her.
Finally, Tchacos
transferred the codex to the Maecenas Foundation for Ancient Art, based in
Basel, Switzerland. The foundation later teamed with the Washington, D.C.-based
National Geographic Society and the La Jolla, California-based Waitt Institute
for Historical Discovery to restore, translate and publish the gospel.
(National Geographic News is part of the National Geographic Society.) Pages of
the gospel were unveiled at National Geographic headquarters today and will go
on public view tomorrow at the National Geographic Museum. All pages will
eventually be returned to Egypt and housed permanently in Cairo's Coptic
Museum. ...
Leap of Faith
Though authentic, the
codex's condition is alarmingly poor, having deteriorated badly since Emmel's
1983 inspection. By the time the Maecenas Foundation for Ancient Art called in
Kasser and other experts to examine the codex, its leather binding had come
undone. The ancient papyrus pages had been scattered into nearly a thousand
fragments that crumbled at even the slightest touch. In places the pages were
so blackened that the handwritten Coptic script was illegible. The sheets had
also been reorganized in a random pattern—possibly to boost buyer appeal by putting
better pages on top. The original page order was lost.
"Our codex—clearly
in such a fragile state that no researcher in his right mind would dare touch
it in order to consult it—looked as if it were to ready to crumble, squeezed at
the bottom of a box whose dimensions were barely larger that those of the
manuscript itself," Kasser recalled.
Yet a team of expert
preservationists became detectives to reconstruct the Gospel of Judas and the
codex's other writings: a text titled James (also known as First Apocalypse of
James), a Letter of Peter to Philip, and a fragment of a fourth text scholars
are provisionally calling the Book of Allogenes.
"It took a leap of
faith, sustained by hope, with no guarantee of success, yet there was a
probability of success. … It was worth trying," Kasser said.
Aided by a computer
program, restoration expert Florence Darbre and Coptic scholar Gregor Wurst,
were able to painstakingly reconstruct most of the manuscript, fragment by
fragment, over a period of five years.
"We soon realized
that the decision had been a good one," Kasser said.
"Restored and put
under glass, the folios could be gingerly handled, and it was possible to
photograph all the pages," he said. "Those pages could be
photographed, studied, read, transcribed, and translated."
Incredibly, the team was
able to recreate some 90 to 95 percent of the manuscript and produce a nearly
complete translation. Some sections may be forever lost, due to holes in the
original papyruses, but scholars hope to fill them in as they finish their
herculean task—an additional half page recently surfaced in New York City.
Other parts of the
find sold and broken up (11th April 2006)
For some time I have
been trying to track down the other texts in the find.
- the 'Book of Exodus' in Greek
- 'Letters of Paul' in Sahidic dialect and aa
- 'Mathematical Treatise' in Greek.
Yesterday I wrote to Michel van Rijn, asking if he knew how
to contact Bruce Ferrini, the last known owner. Michel kindly replied,
and allowed me to reproduce this comment:
Thanks your email. Ferrini is keeping himself unreachable...
Yes Ferrini sold pages of the Judas, Exodus and mathematical treatise.
Pages of the Exodus were sold to James E. Ferrell and are
now part of the Ink and Blood traveling exhibition... The mathematical treatise
was sold by Ferrini together with Sam Fogg, London, to Lord Thomson of Fleet,
Canada.
And Getty sponsor, Lloyd Cotsen, bought several pages.
Judas?
Little of this is good
news, although if Lord Thomson has one of the texts, at least that is a safe
and secure home for it. But for the others, I can imagine a codex which
has been reduced to a pile of fragments, of which saleable leaves are being
sold, and the remainder, no doubt, thrown away. Can nothing be done to
stop this destruction? -- RP. Postscript, 13th April: Sam Fogg
tells me that he knows of no such transaction, and doesn't believe Lord Thomson
has such a item.
Robert Kraft has noted
down information about
Ferrini selling papyri on Ebay.
An image from CBS
news of a page with a crux ansata at the bottom:
[From NewsWithViews.com] Gospel of Judas:
Authentic Fraud (9th April 2006)
An article by Jon
Christian Ryter contains various interesting details, and sensible comments
on attempts to misrepresent the text. Excerpts:
The publishing rights of the recently found "lost"
gospel of Judas Iscariot----which was converted into a made-for-TV spectacular
on Sunday, April 9 on the National Geographic Channel----was secured by
the National Geographic Society for a contribution to the manuscript's
owner----the Maecenas Foundation for Ancient Art----purported to be more
than $1 million to date. (The money was contributed by Gateway Computer founder
Ted Waitt.) The Society has now embarked on a concerted effort to mainstream
the apocryphal 3rd, 4th or 5th century AD papyrus manuscript as the legitimate
diary of Judas Iscariot. The Gospel of Judas suggests that Judas was instructed
by Christ to betray Him to the Sanhedrin so that His death would fulfill
the Old Testament Messianic prophecies.
The Society plans several magazine articles, television
specials and, they said, book deals as the controversy over the ethics of
accepting ancient acquisitions on their own merit heats up in the media. ...
James M. Robinson, professor emeritus at Claremont Graduate
University, America's leading expert on ancient religious texts from Egypt,
said that while the codex is old, it simply isn't old enough. "Does it go
back to Judas? No." Robinson told the Associated Press. "There are
a lot of second-, third- and fourth- century gospels attributed to various
apostles. We don't really assume they give us any first century
information."
In his new book, The Secrets of Judas
(Harper-SanFrancisco), Robinson describes the secret maneuvering between Mario
Jean Roberty, the Swiss lawyer who founded the Maecenas Foundation for Ancient
Art, his client, Frieda Nussberger-Tchakos who bought the codex in 1999 for
$300 thousand, Michael van Rijn----an art dealer, confidence man, smuggler,
forger and author of an expose on art antiquities, Hot Art, Cold Cash;
and two other key players----Ali and Hicham Aboutaam who are the two most
notorious cultural heritage thieves in the world. Robinson's book deals with a
two decade sales pitch by Roberty----first to buy, and then to sell the content
of the Judas manuscript. The asking price was $10 million, but Roberty let it
be known that the right buyer could steal it for $3 million.
However, the Maecenas Foundation was not allowed to sell the
document under a Swiss law that forbids the sale of illegal antiquities. In
other words, the "ownership pedigree"----the legal chain of
ownership----of the codex has not been clearly established. Since Roberty
cannot legally sell the codex he did the next best thing, he's selling the
content. According to Roberty, he bought the codex from Tchakos in 2001 for
$1.5 million and 50% the proceeds from the sale of its content. Roberty claims
to have already spent more than $1 million on its restoration. Roberty may have
found the fund-raisers best scheme and the National Geographic Society
has the credibility to give the pseudepigraphic document the aura of
authenticity it has thus far lacked....
The Coptic Orthodox Church has dismissed the codex as
non-Christian babbling resulting from a group of people trying to create a
false 'amalgam' between Greek mythology, the Far East religions and
Christianity. The codex was written by a group of people who were alien to the
main Christian stream of early Christianity. "The texts,"
Metropolitan Bishoy, the theological leader of the Coptic Orthodox Church.
said. "are neither reliable nor accurate Christian texts, as they are
historically and logically alien to the main Christian thinking, and philosophy
of the early and present Christians."
[From the website of Michel van Rijn] Most
of the Judas Gospel has 'disappeared' (5th April 2006)
The National Geographic
much hyped documentary shows only a meagre thirteen pages, with text on both
sides! When the Judas Gospel was first on the market in 1983 in Geneva, and
seen by eminent American Coptologist, Stephen Emmel, he declared that he had
inspected sixty pages of text of the Judas Gospel.
According to Akron based
manuscript magician, 'now you see it, now you don't', Bruce Ferrini, there were
only twenty-five pages with text on both sides left, when he 'bought' it from
Frieda Tchacos.
Frieda, who in the
documentary claims to be the saviour of mankind, modestly stating to be the
chosen one to 'save' the gospel for prosperity, forgets to mention that instead
of going for a Sainthood, she was marketing the manuscript for $1.5 million to
Ferrini, immediately after she bought it in April 2000.
Your inkslingers
exposure on my website of the coven 'owning' the Judas Gospel and
simultaneously shedding light on the true provenance, proving that it was
stolen and smuggled from Egypt, made the Gospel a hot potato and forced the
fence-conspirators to make a deal with the Egyptian authorities for its return
in exchange of having the right to publish and restore the Gospel.
The conspirators are
still hoping to make a fortune out of the intellectual rights, while most of
the Judas Gospel has been already revealed, free of charge, on MvR.nl
Bruce 'Scissorhands'
Ferrini, who is widely suspected of having seriously shortened the Gospel,
exhibited one page without identifying it as coming from the Judas Gospel in
his exhibition "From the Dead Sea Scrolls to the Forbidden Book" in
2005.
In the anaesthetic one
and an half hour documentary it is claimed that 85% of the entire Judas Gospel
is complete…
Pages of manuscripts
online, plus a couple of other images
National Geographic have
placed an online viewer application which allows you to look at and zoom in on
selected pages of the manuscript at http://www9.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/gospel/magnifier.html.
They have also uploaded
the following other images:
In Tatters. Photograph by Kenneth Garrett. Camera: Nikon D2X. Format:
Digital. Lens: 60mm. Speed and F-Stop: 1/8 @ f/9. Weather Conditions: Indoors. Time of Day: Midmorning. Lighting Techniques:
Full-spectrum daylight light banks. Lost for nearly 1,700 years, the Gospel of Judas came to
light within an ancient, crumbling, leather-bound papyrus manuscript that was
discovered in Middle Egypt during the 1970s and bought in 2000 by a Zürich
antiquities dealer....
Moment of Truth. Photograph by Kenneth Garrett. Camera: Nikon F6.
Format: Fujichrome Provia. Lens: 17-35mm, f/2.8 Nikkor zoom. Speed and F-Stop:
1/8 @ f/4. Weather
Conditions: Indoors. Time of Day: Late afternoon. Lighting Techniques: Small
handheld video lights. Sacrificing a bit of the manuscript for science, conservator
Florence Darbre cuts away a tiny sample of papyrus for Tim Jull of the
University of Arizona, at right, who tested its age using carbon-14 dating.
Results indicate the papyrus dates to A.D.
280, plus or minus 60 years.
Last Supper. Photograph by Kenneth Garrett. Camera: Nikon D2X.
Format: Digital. Lens: 105mm. Speed and F-Stop: 1/13 @ f/11. Weather Conditions: Interior.
Time of Day: Morning. Lighting Techniques: Full-spectrum light banks. The second page of the Gospel of
Judas presents a dramatically different retelling of a final meal Jesus shared
with his disciples. "When he [approached] his disciples, [who had]
gathered together and [were] seated and offering a prayer of thanksgiving over
the bread, [he] laughed," reads the manuscript.
English Translation
This is the text
placed online at the New York Times site. It was originally referred
to as an extract. The Coptic text and English translation in PDF form are
here.
THE GOSPEL OF JUDAS
Translated by
Rodolphe Kasser, Marvin Meyer, and Gregor Wurst, in collaboration with François
Gaudard
INTRODUCTION: INCIPIT
The secret account of
the revelation that Jesus spoke in conversation with Judas Iscariot during a
week three days before he celebrated Passover.
THE EARTHLY MINISTRY OF
JESUS
When Jesus appeared on
earth, he performed miracles and great wonders for the salvation of humanity.
And since some [walked] in the way of righteousness while others walked in
their transgressions, the twelve disciples were called.
He began to speak with
them about the mysteries beyond the world and what would take place at the end.
Often he did not appear to his disciples as himself, but he was found among
them as a child.
SCENE 1:
Jesus dialogues with
his disciples: The prayer of thanksgiving or the eucharist
One day he was with his
disciples in Judea, and he found them gathered together and seated in pious
observance. When he [approached] his disciples, [34] gathered together and
seated and offering a prayer of thanksgiving over the bread, [he]
laughed.
The disciples said to
[him], “Master, why are you laughing at [our] prayer of thanksgiving? We have
done what is right.”
He answered and said to
them, “I am not laughing at you. <You> are not doing this because of your
own will but because it is through this that your god [will be] praised.”
They said, “Master, you
are […] the son of our god.”
Jesus said to them, “How
do you know me? Truly [I] say to you, no generation of the people that are
among you will know me.”
THE DISCIPLES BECOME
ANGRY
When his disciples heard
this, they started getting angry and infuriated and began blaspheming against
him in their hearts.
When Jesus observed
their lack of [understanding, he said] to them, “Why has this agitation led you
to anger? Your god who is within you and […] [35] have provoked you to anger
[within] your souls. [Let] any one of you who is [strong enough] among human
beings bring out the perfect human and stand before my face.”
They all said, “We have
the strength.”
But their spirits did
not dare to stand before [him], except for Judas Iscariot. He was able to stand
before him, but he could not look him in the eyes, and he turned his face away.
Judas [said] to him, “I
know who you are and where you have come from. You are from the immortal realm
of Barbelo. And I am not worthy to utter the name of the one who has sent you.”
JESUS SPEAKS TO JUDAS
PRIVATELY
Knowing that Judas was
reflecting upon something that was exalted, Jesus said to him, “Step away from
the others and I shall tell you the mysteries of the kingdom. It is possible
for you to reach it, but you will grieve a great deal. [36] For someone else
will replace you, in order that the twelve [disciples] may again come to
completion with their god.”
Judas said to him, “When
will you tell me these things, and [when] will the great day of light dawn for
the generation?”
But when he said this,
Jesus left him.
SCENE 2:
Jesus appears to the
disciples again
The next morning, after
this happened, Jesus [appeared] to his disciples again.
They said to him,
“Master, where did you go and what did you do when you left us?”
Jesus said to them, “I
went to another great and holy generation.”
His disciples said to
him, “Lord, what is the great generation that is superior to us and holier than
us, that is not now in these realms?”
When Jesus heard this,
he laughed and said to them, “Why are you thinking in your hearts about the
strong and holy generation? [37] Truly [I] say to you, no one born [of] this
aeon will see that [generation], and no host of angels of the stars will rule
over that generation, and no person of mortal birth can associate with it,
because that generation does not come from […] which has become […]. The
generation of people among [you] is from the generation of humanity […] power,
which [… the] other powers […] by [which] you rule.”
When [his] disciples
heard this, they each were troubled in spirit. They could not say a word.
Another day Jesus came
up to [them]. They said to [him], “Master, we have seen you in a [vision], for
we have had great [dreams …] night […].”
[He said], “Why have
[you … when] <you> have gone into hiding?” [38]
THE DISCIPLES SEE THE
TEMPLE AND DISCUSS IT
They [said, “We have
seen] a great [house with a large] altar [in it, and] twelve men----they are
the priests, we would say----and a name; and a crowd of people is waiting at
that altar, [until] the priests [… and receive] the offerings. [But] we kept
waiting.”
[Jesus said], “What are
[the priests] like?”
They [said, “Some …] two
weeks; [some] sacrifice their own children, others their wives, in praise [and]
humility with each other; some sleep with men; some are involved in
[slaughter]; some commit a multitude of sins and deeds of lawlessness. And the
men who stand [before] the altar invoke your [name], [39] and in all the deeds
of their deficiency, the sacrifices are brought to completion […].”
After they said this,
they were quiet, for they were troubled.
JESUS OFFERS AN
ALLEGORICAL INTERPRETATION OF THE VISION OF THE TEMPLE
Jesus said to them, “Why
are you troubled? Truly I say to you, all the priests who stand before that
altar invoke my name. Again I say to you, my name has been written on this […]
of the generations of the stars through the human generations. [And they] have
planted trees without fruit, in my name, in a shameful manner.”
Jesus said to them,
“Those you have seen receiving the offerings at the altar----that is who you
are. That is the god you serve, and you are those twelve men you have seen. The
cattle you have seen brought for sacrifice are the many people you lead astray
[40] before that altar. […] will stand and make use of my name in this way, and
generations of the pious will remain loyal to him. After hi another man will
stand there from [the fornicators], and another [will] stand there from the
slayers of children, and another from those who sleep with men, and those who
abstain, and the rest of the people of pollution and lawlessness and error, and
those who say, ‘We are like angels’; they are the stars that bring everything
to its conclusion. For to the human generations it has been said, ‘Look, God
has received your sacrifice from the hands of a priest’----that is, a minister
of error.
But it is the Lord, the
Lord of the universe, who commands, ‘On the last day they will be put to
shame.’” [41]
Jesus said [to them],
“Stop sac[rificing …] which you have […] over the altar, since they are over
your stars and your angels and have already come to their conclusion there. So
let them be [ensnared] before you, and let them go [----about 15 lines
missing----] generations […]. A baker cannot feed all creation [42] under
[heaven]. And […] to them […] and […] to us and […].
Jesus said to them,
“Stop struggling with me. Each of you has his own star, and every[body----about
17 lines missing----] [43] in […] who has come [… spring] for the tree […] of
this aeon […] for a time […] but he has come to water God’s paradise, and the
[generation] that will last, because [he] will not defile the [walk of life of]
that generation, but […] for all eternity.”
JUDAS ASKS JESUS ABOUT
THAT GENERATION AND HUMAN GENERATIONS
Judas said to [him,
“Rabb]i, what kind of fruit does this generation produce?”
Jesus said, “The souls
of every human generation will die. When these people, however, have completed
the time of the kingdom and the spirit leaves them, their bodies will die but
their souls will be alive, and they will be taken up.”
Judas said, “And what
will the rest of the human generations do?”
Jesus said, “It is
impossible [44] to sow seed on [rock] and harvest its fruit. [This] is also the
way […] the [defiled] generation […] and corruptible Sophia […] the hand that
has created mortal people, so that their souls go up to the eternal realms
above. [Truly] I say to you, […] angel […] power will be able to see that […]
these to whom […] holy generations […].”
After Jesus said this,
he departed.
SCENE 3:
Judas recounts a
vision and Jesus responds
Judas said, “Master, as
you have listened to all of them, now also listen to me. For I have seen a great
vision.”
When Jesus heard this,
he laughed and said to him, “You thirteenth spirit, why do you try so hard? But
speak up, and I shall bear with you.”
Judas said to him, “In
the vision I saw myself as the twelve disciples were stoning me and [45] persecuting
[me severely]. And I also came to the place where […] after you. I saw [a house
…], and my eyes could not [comprehend] its size. Great people were surrounding
it, and that house <had> a roof of greenery, and in the middle of the
house was [a crowd----two lines missing----], saying, ‘Master, take me in along
with these people.’”
[Jesus] answered and
said, “Judas, your star has led you astray.” He continued, “No person of mortal
birth is worthy to enter the house you have seen, for that place is reserved
for the holy. Neither the sun nor the moon will rule there, nor the day, but
the holy will abide there always, in the eternal realm with the holy angels.
Look, I have explained to you the mysteries of the kingdom [46] and I have
taught you about the error of the stars; and […] send it […] on the twelve
aeons.”
JUDAS ASKS ABOUT HIS OWN
FATE
Judas said, “Master,
could it be that my seed is under the control of the rulers?”
Jesus answered and said
to him, “Come, that I [----two lines missing----], but that you will grieve
much when you see the kingdom and all its generation.”
When he heard this,
Judas said to him, “What good is it that I have received it? For you have set
me apart for that generation.”
Jesus answered and said,
“You will become the thirteenth, and you will be cursed by the other
generations----and you will come to rule over them. In the last days they will
curse your ascent [47] to the holy [generation].”
JESUS TEACHES JUDAS
ABOUT COSMOLOGY: THE SPIRIT AND THE SELF-GENERATED
Jesus said, “[Come],
that I may teach you about [secrets] no person [has] ever seen. For there
exists a great and boundless realm, whose extent no generation of angels has
seen, [in which] there is [a] great invisible [Spirit], which no eye of an
angel has ever seen, no thought of the heart has ever comprehended, and it was
never called by any name.
“And a luminous cloud
appeared there. He said, ‘Let an angel come into being as my attendant.’
“A great angel, the
enlightened divine Self-Generated, emerged from the cloud. Because of him, four
other angels came into being from another cloud, and they became attendants for
the angelic Self-Generated. The Self-Generated said, [48] ‘Let […] come into
being […],’ and it came into being […]. And he [created] the first luminary to
reign over him. He said, ‘Let angels come into being to serve [him],’ and
myriads without number came into being. He said, ‘[Let] an enlightened aeon
come into being,’ and he came into being. He created the second luminary [to]
reign over him, together with myriads of angels without number, to offer
service. That is how he created the rest of the enlightened aeons. He made them
reign over them, and he created for them myriads of angels without number, to
assist them.
ADAMAS AND THE
LUMINARIES
“Adamas was in the first
luminous cloud that no angel has ever seen among all those called ‘God.’ He
[49] […] that […] the image […] and after the likeness of [this] angel. He made
the incorruptible [generation] of Seth appear […] the twelve […] the twentyfour
[…]. He made seventy-two luminaries appear in the incorruptible generation, in
accordance with the will of the Spirit. The seventy-two luminaries themselves
made three hundred sixty luminaries appear in the incorruptible generation, in
accordance with the will of the Spirit, that their number should be five for
each.
“The twelve aeons of the
twelve luminaries constitute their father, with six heavens for each aeon, so
that there are seventy-two heavens for the seventy-two luminaries, and for each
[50] [of them five] firmaments, [for a total of] three hundred sixty
[firmaments …]. They were given authority and a [great] host of angels [without
number], for glory and adoration, [and after that also] virgin spirits, for
glory and [adoration] of all the aeons and the heavens and their firmaments.
THE COSMOS, CHAOS, AND
THE UNDERWORLD
“The multitude of those
immortals is called the cosmos---- that is, perdition----by the Father and the
seventy-two luminaries who are with the Self-Generated and his seventytwo
aeons. In him the first human appeared with his incorruptible powers. And the
aeon that appeared with his generation, the aeon in whom are the cloud of
knowledge and the angel, is called [51] El. […] aeon […] after that […] said,
‘Let twelve angels come into being [to] rule over chaos and the [underworld].’
And look, from the cloud there appeared an [angel] whose face flashed with fire
and whose appearance was defiled with blood. His name was Nebro, which means
‘rebel’; others call him Yaldabaoth. Another angel, Saklas, also came from the
cloud. So Nebro created six angels----as well as Saklas----to be assistants,
and these produced twelve angels in the heavens, with each one receiving a
portion in the heavens.
THE RULERS AND ANGELS
“The twelve rulers spoke
with the twelve angels: ‘Let each of you [52] […] and let them […] generation
[----one line lost----] angels’: The first is [S]eth, who is called Christ.
The [second] is
Harmathoth, who is […].
The [third] is Galila.
The fourth is Yobel.
The fifth [is] Adonaios.
These are the five who
ruled over the underworld, and first of all over chaos.
THE CREATION OF HUMANITY
“Then Saklas said to his
angels, ‘Let us create a human being after the likeness and after the image.’
They fashioned Adam and his wife Eve, who is called, in the cloud, Zoe. For by
this name all the generations seek the man, and each of them calls the woman by
these names. Now, Sakla did not [53] com[mand …] except […] the gene[rations …]
this […]. And the [ruler] said to Adam, ‘You shall live long, with your children.’”
JUDAS ASKS ABOUT THE
DESTINY OF ADAM AND HUMANITY
Judas said to Jesus,
“[What] is the long duration of time that the human being will live?”
Jesus said, “Why are you
wondering about this, that Adam, with his generation, has lived his span of
life in the place where he has received his kingdom, with longevity with his
ruler?”
Judas said to Jesus,
“Does the human spirit die?”
Jesus said, “This is why
God ordered Michael to give the spirits of people to them as a loan, so that
they might offer service, but the Great One ordered Gabriel to grant spirits to
the great generation with no ruler over it----that is, the spirit and the soul.
Therefore, the [rest] of the souls [54] [----one line missing----].
JESUS DISCUSSES THE
DESTRUCTION OF THE WICKED WITH JUDAS AND OTHERS
“[…] light [----nearly
two lines missing----] around […] let […] spirit [that is] within you dwell in
this [flesh] among the generations of angels. But God caused knowledge to be
[given] to Adam and those with him, so that the kings of chaos and the
underworld might not lord it over them.”
Judas said to Jesus, “So
what will those generations do?”
Jesus said, “Truly I say
to you, for all of them the stars bring matters to completion. When Saklas
completes the span of time assigned for him, their first star will appear with
the generations, and they will finish what they said they would do. Then they
will fornicate in my name and slay their children [55] and they will […] and
[----about six and a half lines missing----] my name, and he will […] your star
over the [thir]teenth aeon.”
After that Jesus
[laughed].
[Judas said], “Master,
[why are you laughing at us]?”
[Jesus] answered [and
said], “I am not laughing [at you] but at the error of the stars, because these
six stars wander about with these five combatants, and they all will be
destroyed along with their creatures.”
JESUS SPEAKS OF THOSE
WHO ARE BAPTIZED, AND JUDAS’S BETRAYAL
Judas said to Jesus,
“Look, what will those who have been baptized in your name do?”
Jesus said, “Truly I say
[to you], this baptism [56] […] my name [----about nine lines missing----] to
me. Truly [I] say to you, Judas, [those who] offer sacrifices to Saklas […] God
[----three lines missing----] everything that is evil.
“But you will exceed all
of them. For you will sacrifice the man that clothes me. Already your horn
has been raised, your wrath has been kindled, your star has shown brightly, and
your heart has […]. [57]
“Truly […] your last […]
become [----about two and a half lines missing----], grieve [----about two lines
missing----] the ruler, since he will be destroyed. And then the image of the
great generation of Adam will be exalted, for prior to heaven, earth, and the
angels, that generation, which is from the eternal realms, exists. Look, you
have been told everything. Lift up your eyes and look at the cloud and the
light within it and the stars surrounding it. The star that leads the way is
your star.”
Judas lifted up his eyes
and saw the luminous cloud, and he entered it. Those standing on the ground
heard a voice coming from the cloud, saying, [58] […] great generation […] …
image […] [----about five lines missing----].
CONCLUSION: JUDAS
BETRAYS JESUS
[…] Their high priests
murmured because [he] had gone into the guest room for his prayer. But some
scribes were there watching carefully in order to arrest him during the prayer,
for they were afraid of the people, since he was regarded by all as a prophet.
They approached Judas and said to him, “What are you doing here? You are Jesus’
disciple.”
Judas answered them as
they wished. And he received some money and handed him over to them.
THE GOSPEL OF JUDAS
[From the Washington
Post], 7th April 2006
(This article clarifies much about the transfers of money
that surrounded the manuscript most recently, and who will profit from it. RP.)
Newly Translated
Gospel Offers More Positive Portrayal of Judas
By Guy Gugliotta and
Alan Cooperman, Washington Post Staff Writers. Friday, April 7, 2006; Page
A01
[Image]
Researchers
stand at caves in the area north and east of El Minya,
Egypt, near where the manuscript containing the "Gospel of Judas" was
found.
The National Geographic
Society released yesterday the first modern translation of the ancient Gospel
of Judas, which depicts the most reviled villain in Christian history as a
devoted follower who was simply doing Jesus's bidding when he betrayed him.
The text's existence has
been known since it was denounced as heresy by the bishop of Lyon in A.D. 180,
but its contents had remained an almost total mystery. Unlike the four gospels
of the New Testament, it describes conversations between Jesus and Judas
Iscariot during the week before Passover in which Jesus tells Judas
"secrets no other person has ever seen."
The other apostles pray
to a lesser God, Jesus says, and he reveals to Judas the "mysteries of the
kingdom" of the true God. He asks Judas to help him return to the kingdom,
but to do so, Judas must help him abandon his mortal flesh: "You will
sacrifice the man that clothes me," Jesus tells Judas, and acknowledges
that Judas "will be cursed by the other generations."
Scholars said the
26-page document was written on 13 sheets of papyrus leaf in ancient Egyptian,
or Coptic, and was bound as a book known as a codex. It is one of dozens of
sacred texts from the Christian Gnostics, who believed that salvation came
through secret knowledge conveyed by Jesus.
Its anonymous author was
"obviously a Christian person very sympathetic to a Gnostic point of
view," said Coptic scholar Marvin Meyer, of Orange, Calif.'s Chapman
University. The codex was written in the 2nd century, when various groups of
Christians circulated what they called gospels -- "good news" --
purportedly written by most of the disciples and several other followers of
Jesus, among them Mary Magdalene.
Most were outlawed
during a centuries-long battle to determine which sacred texts would make up
the canon of Christian orthodoxy known today as the New Testament.
National Geographic,
which funded much of the research, said it authenticated the codex through
radiocarbon dating, ink analysis and study of the script. And despite the
document's murky history, no scholar has suggested it is a forgery, a problem
that has dogged several recent finds, most notably the bone box, or ossuary,
purported to have contained the remains of Jesus's brother James.
As an authentic ancient
Gnostic text, the Gospel of Judas is certain to spark a surge of interest by
both theologians and the faithful, but scholars said it is unclear whether it
will prompt a reevaluation of the traitor denounced by Matthew for betraying
Jesus for "30 pieces of silver."
"At one level, the
Gospels already see the betrayal as a mysterious part of God's plan," said
the Rev. Donald Senior, president of the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago.
He predicted the new text would produce "a short-term sensation" but
that after Christians read it, "the impact on the lives of ordinary
believers will be minimal."
The ancient manuscript,
a 3rd- or 4th-century translation of a 2nd-century original, probably written
in Greek, was unearthed by looters near El Minya, Egypt, in the 1970s. It came
to the attention of scholars in 1983 when an Egyptian antiquities dealer tried
to sell it to American researchers for $3 million.
After the document
passed through several hands and venues, including 16 years deteriorating in a
safe deposit box in Hicksville, N.Y., National Geographic reached an agreement
in 2004 to help finance its authentication and translation in return for
publication rights.
Terry Garcia, National Geographic's
executive vice president for mission programs, said at a news conference that
the society had contributed "more than $1 million" to the project so
far. The organization released two books yesterday: an annotated translation
and the story of how the text came to light. The gospel will also generate a
magazine cover article, a television documentary, an exhibit and its own Web
site.
The arrangement between
National Geographic and the Switzerland-based Maecenas Foundation for Ancient
Art, the manuscript's current owner, raised long-standing questions about how
such transactions may effectively legitimize illegal traffic in antiquities.
"The Swiss who
bought it couldn't sell it for a profit because of laws that say you can't sell
illegal antiquities," said Claremont Graduate University theologian James
M. Robinson, the Coptic scholar first approached to purchase the gospel 26
years ago. "Instead of selling the papyrus, they decided to market the
contents." The foundation said it intends to donate the codex to the
Coptic Museum in Cairo once it is fully restored.
Ted Waitt, founder of
computer-maker Gateway Inc., donated approximately $1 million to underwrite
National Geographic's efforts. National Geographic, in turn, passed this money
on to Mario Jean Roberty, a Swiss lawyer who heads the Maecenas Foundation.
Roberty said in an
interview that he purchased the codex in February 2001 from a Swiss antiquities
dealer, Frieda Nussberger-Tchacos, for $1.5 million plus half of all future
proceeds from the document.
He said he also put more
than $1 million into the initial restoration of the manuscript, underwriting
the efforts of Coptic scholar Rodolphe Kasser and others for five years to
piece together more than 1,000 papyrus fragments before National Geographic got
involved. "I'm still on the nervous side economically," Roberty said.
"I have to take in another $2.3 million before I break even."
So far, the biggest
financial beneficiary appears to be Nussberger-Tchacos, who paid about $300,000
for the codex, according to National Geographic, which is poised to generate
substantial revenue from its publications. Garcia said Maecenas would receive
"some compensation" from book sales.
"They have to earn
back their money, and they're trying to sell their books on all sides,"
Robinson said of National Geographic. "That's why they're publishing it
around Easter and before the release of 'The Da Vinci Code,' " he added,
referring to the film version of the popular book.
But Hershel Shanks,
editor of Biblical Archaeology Review, said that because of National
Geographic, "at least the text seems to be becoming available, and that's
good. The price is that they've had to be part of a scheme to increase its
value."
Besides the Gospel of
Judas, the codex includes three other texts. Two were known to scholars from
the Nag Hammadi Library, a trove of Gnostic manuscripts found in Egypt in 1945.
The third, provisionally titled the Book of Allogenes, or the
"stranger," is badly fragmented, members of the translation team
said.
Biblical scholars said
the Gospel of Judas differs from the four New Testament Gospels in at least two
important ways. First, it portrays Judas not as the betrayer of Jesus but as
the most favored of his disciples, the only one who truly understood Jesus.
Some scholars suggested
that view -- if it had been accepted -- might have lessened anti-Semitism over
the centuries. "The story of the betrayal of Jesus by Judas gave a moral
and religious rationale to anti-Jewish sentiment, and that's what made it persistent
and vicious," said Princeton University professor Elaine Pagels.
Second, the Gospel of
Judas offers a new creation story, depicting the evil world as the product of a
bloodthirsty, foolish lower deity, rather than the higher, true God. This
duality "is why this gospel could never be accepted by orthodox
Christianity," said Bart D. Ehrman, chairman of religious studies at the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Scholars disagreed on
whether the gospel sheds any new light on the historical Jesus and Judas
Iscariot. Senior, the Catholic priest, said he saw "no evidence that it
has a legitimate historical basis" and thought it probably was written by
Gnostics who retrospectively attributed their own beliefs to Judas.
But Craig Evans, a
professor at Acadia Divinity College in Nova Scotia, said the New Testament
also may hint at the new text's central theme -- that Jesus instructed Judas in
private to betray him.
In the Book of John,
Evans noted, Jesus tells Judas at the Last Supper, "Do quickly what you
are going to do," and none of the other disciples know what he means.
Maybe the Gospel of Judas "points us in a direction where we can
understand Judas's relationship to Jesus a little better," he said.
The Gospel of Judas,
however, ends abruptly, drawing no conclusions about the consequences of
betrayal: The arresting party "approached Judas and said to him, 'What are
you doing here? You are Jesus' disciple.' Judas answered them as they wished.
And he received some money and handed him over to them."
Publication, 6th April
2006
I have today heard from
Dr Mario Roberty of the Maecenas Foundation who own the manuscript:
Today, April 6, 2006 starting 10:30 EST or 16:30 Swiss time,
the press conference at National Geographic's headquarters in Washington will
be
transmitted live at:
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/lostgospel/av/gospel.asx
On the pages next to it, you will also find the publication
of related material, including a transcription and translation of the Gospel of
Judas.
On looking at National Geographic's
"lost gospel" page, I find that the Coptic text and the full
English translation is available for download from here.
The full English text is also online at the NY Times here
(although called 'extracts').
The English text is to
be published in
The
Gospel of Judas. Edited by Rodolphe Kasser, Marvin Meyer, and Gregor
Wurst with Additional Commentary by Bart D. Ehrman. Washington, D.C.: National
Geographic Society, 2006. (ISBN 1-4262-0042-0, U.S.$22)
Further
details from the site:
Codex Tchacos is named after Dimaratos Tchacos, father of
Zürich-based antiquities dealer Frieda Nussberger-Tchacos, who bought the
document in September 2000.
The codex contains not only the Gospel of Judas, but also a
text titled James (otherwise known as the First Apocalypse of James), the
Letter of Peter to Philip, and a fragment of a text that scholars are
provisionally calling Book of Allogenes.
The codex, containing the Gospel of Judas, was discovered in
the 1970s near El Minya, Egypt, and moved from Egypt to Europe to the United
States. Once in the United States, it was kept in a safe-deposit box for 16
years on Long Island, New York, until antiquities dealer Frieda
Nussberger-Tchacos bought it in April 2000. After two unsuccessful resale
attempts, Nussberger-Tchacos----alarmed by the codex's rapidly deteriorating
state----transferred it to the Maecenas Foundation for Ancient Art in Basel,
Switzerland, in February 2001, for restoration and translation. The manuscript
will be delivered to Egypt and housed in Cairo's Coptic Museum.
Several pages of the Gospel of Judas as well as pages from
the other three texts in the codex will be on exhibit at National Geographic
Society headquarters in Washington, D.C., beginning Friday, April 7, 2006, for
a limited engagement. After Kasser and his team complete conserving and
translating the manuscript, the codex will be given to Egypt, where it will be
housed in Cairo's Coptic Museum.
Details of scientific
examination -- radio carbon dating the papyri, multi-spectral imaging,
paleography and ink analysis are here,
with images. Key-points:
[From The Christian
Century, 27 December 2005]
News: December 27, 2005: Long-lost Gospel of Judas to be published.
The
heresy-fighting bishop Irenaeus of Lyon, France, mentioned the Gospel of Judas
about 180 AD, linking the writing to a Gnostic sect. Some two centuries later,
Epiphanius, bishop of Cyprus, criticized the Gospel of Judas for treating the
betrayer of Jesus as commendable, one who "performed a good work for our
salvation."
Until recent years, no copy of the text was generally
known to exist. It was not among, for instance, the 46 different apocryphal
texts of the Nag Hammadi Library discovered 60 years ago this month in Egypt.
Other fragmentary texts, such as the Gospel of Mary, were discovered well
before that.
But in 2004, Rodolphe Kasser of the University of
Geneva announced in Paris that by the end of 2005 he would be publishing
translations of the Coptic-language version of the Gospel of Judas. As it
turned out, the owner was a Swiss foundation, and the torn and tattered papyrus
text had been hawked to potential buyers in North America and Europe for
decades after it was found at Muhazafat Al Minya in Middle Egypt.
The "Judas" saga was confirmed in detail last
month at the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature in
Philadelphia. Retired Claremont Graduate University professor James Robinson,
general editor of the English edition of the Nag Hammadi Library, said he was
first contacted in 1983 about negotiations to buy certain texts, including the
Gospel of Judas. Many years later, he saw blurry photographs of part of the
text.
Robinson said that early in November he learned that
Kasser and several European, Canadian and U.S. scholars had signed agreements
with the National Geographic Society to assist with a documentary film and a National
Geographic article for an Easter 2006 release and a succession of three
books. Robinson was critical of the secrecy and inaccessibility surrounding the
document----a recurring academic problem that delayed for decades the
publishing of translations of some Dead Sea Scrolls and many Nag Hammadi
codices. In his talk, Robinson called the practice
"skullduggery"----with a glance at fellow panelist Marvin Meyer of
Chapman University, a longtime colleague in the field and one of the contracted
authors.
Meyer refused to describe the text's content, but he
essentially confirmed the basic publishing arrangements to Robinson and to the
Century at the Philadelphia meeting.
In amended remarks to his speech, Robinson said Meyer
told him that he was sworn to secrecy----not by the document's owner but by the
National Geographic Society, a procedure Meyer said was justified by the
organization's large financial investment.
A spokeswoman for the National Geographic headquarters
in Washington declined to comment. But Meyer said in a brief interview,
"It will all be out for everyone to see by the spring." He added
without elaboration, "It will be good. It will be good."
Hardly anything is known about the document's contents
"other than a few personages" it names, said Robinson, identifying
them as the mythological figure Allogenes (literally, "the stranger")
known from some Nag Hammadi texts, and Satan, Jesus and Judas. Another scholar,
Charles Hedrick, who recently retired from Missouri State University, saw photographs
of six damaged pages from the gospel in 2001. Hedrick agreed with Robinson that
the original Gospel of Judas was probably written in Greek in the second
century AD. Scholars also agree that the scribal hand used in the Coptic
translation would date that text to the fourth or fifth century.
"I don't think it will unsettle the church,"
Hedrick said in an interview. "I mean we are not talking history here. We
know very little about Judas from the New Testament, and some people have even
challenged whether Judas was a historical person."
The Coptic texts, owned by the Maecenas Foundation,
consist of 62 pages and also contain "The First Apocalypse of James"
and "The Letter of Peter to Philip"----two texts also found at Nag
Hammadi. How many of the 62 pages contain the Gospel of Judas has not been
disclosed. Hedrick said the last six pages of the Judas document describe a
heavenly scene in which Allogenes is being tested and tried by Satan, followed
by an earthly scene in which Jesus is being watched closely by scribes. At one
point Judas is told, "Although you are evil at this place, you are a
disciple of Jesus." The last line of the text says, according to Hedrick:
"And he [Judas] took money and delivered him [Jesus] over."
So,
Hedrick said, "it appears that Judas is working at the behest of God when
he betrays Jesus as part of the divine plan." When translations of the
Gospel of Judas are released with accompanying analyses, Hedrick expects that
"there will be a lot of sensationalism, but it will dribble out, leaving
only the scholars interested."
Yet, in academic and religious circles, the text may
stir excitement for years, according to a scholar from the University of
Ottawa. "It is a major discovery not only for Coptic, Gnostic or
apocryphal studies, but also for ancient Judaism and early Christianity,"
said Pierluigi Piovanelli in an e-mail to colleagues in 2004 when the first
plans to publish were announced.
Some
scholarly discussions will focus on whether the document was produced by a
branch of the Sethian Gnostics called Cainites by church leaders. The Cainites
were said to have glorified Cain and other disgraced figures in the Bible
because, according to Gnostic viewpoints, they were doing God's work.
Church
discussions conceivably could revolve around the extent to which New Testament
Gospels present events in Jesus' life and passion as ordained from the start.
Judas Iscariot, depicted minimally by the Gospel of Mark, receives elaboration
in Matthew, Luke and John. The latter Gospel says Satan entered Judas at the
Last Supper just before Jesus told the disciple, "Do quickly what you are
going to do."
For Robinson, the significance of the Gospel of Judas
has to do not with first-century history but with second-century mythology.
Still, he offered these half-serious reflections in his closing remarks last
month: "Where would Christianity be, if there had been no Judas, and
Jesus----instead of dying for our sins on the cross----had died of old
age?" he asked. "So: Thank God for Judas? Even the most broadminded
among us would call that heresy!"
[From the website of Michel van Rijn, 27th
April 2005] (A letter from the codex owner, clarifying the processes by which
the codices have been dispersed: RP):
Mario Jean Roberty
ADVOKAT
Orientierungskopie
December 15, 2000
by fax to 1-212-332-3374 and by courier service
Mr. Eric R.Kaufman. Esq.
Kaufman & Kaufman
Rockefeller Center
620 Fifth Avenue
New York,
NY 10020-2457
Dear Eric:
re: Bruce P. Ferrini - Frieda Nussberger Tchacos
First of all, I would
like to thank you in Frieda's name and in my own name for your generous
hospitality as well as for the time and brain force you have been spending on
behalf of the Logos Project. We are very grateful for your assistance.
The subject on hand
being extremely complex with its numerous ramifications and far reaching
implications, I feel the need to pin down in writing the basic understandings
we have reached during the last few days.
Tuesday morning, Frieda
and Bruce met again and - under somewhat tensed circumstances - agreed upon
some further aspects of their relationship. These agreements are also reflected
in the following summary.
1.
The Logos Project intends to save and publish the Gospel of Judas
and other related manuscripts for the benefit of historical truth and to
generate the funds necessary for this task as well as for the compensation of
the expenses and efforts incurred by the promoters, leaving them with a decent
profit.
2.
The principles to uphold in realizing the Project shall be:
- security and integrity
(physical, legal and economical) for everybody involved
- security and integrity (physical and legall) for the manuscripts
involved
- respect of ascertained better rights of thhird parties
- respect of the justified interests of the public (transparency).
3.
In order to be able to pursue the Project responsibly, we first must
ascertain that Mr. Hana A. Airian had obtained good legal and beneficial title
to the manuscripts and that he had the right to sell these documents to Frieda.
Upon my return to Basel, I shall analyze this question and transmit my
findings for your examination.
4.
Depending on the conclusions we will reach regarding Frieda's title to
the manuscripts, we will decide on the further steps to be taken with regard to
the legal protection of the Project, including - it necessary - notification to
trie Egyptian authorities. In the meantime, you will be examining the
question of possible restrictions in the field of copyrights resulting from
using basic material for which no or uncertain title is held.
5.
In order to legally protect the Project, geographical considerations are
to be made. From a first analysis we have concluded that the U.S. are to be
considered a potentially risky territory for the manuscripts due to political
considerations possibly taking precedence over pure legal aspects, especially
when involving application of principles of foreign law. European countries
such as the UK, Germany, Austria, the Netherlands and Switzerland seem to offer
a better legal protection of the Project.
6.
The present state of the manuscripts is reason for great concern. It is
imperative to start a professional conservation process as soon as possible.
7.
A characteristic of the present state of the manuscripts consists in having
pages and larger as well as smaller and minuscule fragments intermingled among
the various manuscripts. In order to compose each page to its meaningful
original context, all manuscripts snould be brought together in the same place.
Here, Coptologists only can try to re-compose each page of the manuscripts
which then can be professionally conserved between glass plates.
8.
The whole conservation process preferably is to be conducted in a highly
reputable private institution disposing of the necessary secure facilities
(e.g. the Bodmer Foundation in Cologny) by outside professionals. This should
guarantee the best possible control. The exploration and evaluation of such
institution will be the first task to be carried out by the Foundation.
9.
The promoters of the Project have incurred and will incur substantial
expenses of money and time in order to realize the Project. It is a clear
understanding that they shall be fully compensated and shall make a decent
profit. On the other hand, it is understood that this Project leads into a
dimension far beyond a commercial transaction. The manuscripts involved being
of potential importance to a major part of mankind imposes an approach
substantially different to an ordinary business transaction.
10.
Therefore, the entity which shall realize the Project shouldn't be a
commercial entity but the Logos Foundation as officially recognized
charitable trust of public utility to be established under Swiss Law soon. I
shall be submitting to you the draft for the establishment of this
foundation within the next few weeks.
11.
The Logos Foundation will receive by its founders an initial capital of
USD 100'000.--Moreover, the actual owner of the manuscripts intends to make a
partial donation of the manuscripts to the Foundation whereby all rights to the
manuscripts as well as deriving from the manuscripts shall be transferred to
the Logos Foundation against assignment of totally 80 % of the
Foundation's future revenues from the commercialization of the manuscripts
(i.e. from the exploitation of the deriving publishing rights etc. and
ultimately - if legally admissible - from their sale).
12.
Based on the above understandings, the agreements reached between Bruce
and Frieda on September 9, 2000 have become obsolete and therefore
12.1 the Sales Agreement entered and signed In
New York on September 9,2000 between Bruce and Frieda regarding the composite
volume of at least three Coptic texts (First Apocalypse of James, Epistle of
Peter to Philip and Gospel of Judas) has been cancelled;
12.2 the unformulated Sales Agreement of the
same date and parties regarding three fragmentary manuscripts (Book of Exodus,
Mathematical Treatise and Letters of Paul) has also been cancelled and
12.3 substituted by a new unformulated Sales
Agreement by which Frieda sells to Bruce two fragmentary manuscripts
(Mathematical Treatise and Letters of Paul) for a purchase price of totally USD
300'000.-- (three hundred thousand dollars US) payable on February 1, 2001.
(This new agreement reflects a fact consumed by Bruce who has already disposed
of these two manuscripts);
12.4 consequently, Bruce and Frieda are going to
exchange the composite volume of at least three Coptic texts (First Apocalypse
of James, Epistle of Peter to Philip and Gospel of Judas) as well as the Book
of Exodus and the not expressly mentioned further fragments with two checks
emitted by Bruce of USD 1'250'000.-- each, the first due on January 15,2001 and
the second due on February 15. 2001. This exchange should take place at the
earliest convenience;
12.5 moreover, in occasion of the above
mentioned exchange, Bruce will guarantee his payment of USD 300'000.- under the
new unformulated Sales Agreement by giving Frieda a new check over such amount,
payable on February 1, 2001.
13.
Immediately after the above described exchange has taken place, Frieda
will set up the Logos Foundation in agreement with you and In accordance
with the above described principles. She will then transfer the manuscripts to
the Foundation entering into an agreement as described sub par. 11. above. The
draft of such agreement shall be submitted to you.
14.
Frieda will grant Bruce the option of acquiring half the rights assigned
to her by the Foundation to the future revenues from the commercialization of
the manuscripts against payment to her of USD 1'100'000.-- (one million one
hundred thousand dollars US) (i.e. USD 750'000.-- corresponding to half the
value of the composite volume plus USD 350'000.-- corresponding to hall the
value of the Book of Exodus) and against donation to the Foundation of the same
amounts she will have donated herself by then. This option shall be valid and
exercisable until June 30, 2001.
15.
The exercise of the above option will include Bruce's incorporation into
the organs of the Foundation at exactly the same title as Frieda.
16.
Frieda, and through her the Foundation, engage to consult and keep Bruce
informed in advance about all intended decisions regarding the realization of
the Logos Project until expiry of his option by June 30, 2001.
17.
Whether Bruce will be joining the Foundation or not, he shall have the
option to buy the Book of Exodus when the Foundation decides to sell this
manuscript after having it conserved and after having ascertained its clear and
transferrable title. The price for the exercise of this option shall be of USD
875'000.- (eight hundred and seventy-five dollars US) (i.e. 100 % of 700'000 =
80 %) plus cost of conservation plus interest at a rate of 6 % (six percent)
since February 1, 2001. Bruce shall have ninety days since formal notification
to exercise his option.
18.
It is clearly understood by all persons involved that nobody, not even
Bruce and Frieda but only the Foundation, will have the right to promulgate and
commercialize any knowledge regarding, concerning or deriving from the
manuscripts. Moreover, for the time being and until all legal aspects are
clarified, it is in the best interest of the Project to maintain utmost secrecy
about its existence.
19.
In order to further clarify the relationship between Bruce and Frieda,
they have decided to have Bruce returning to Frieda all objects he had received
on consignment during this year. Some objects have already been returned and
others are being shipped. Should Bruce wish to extend the consignment regarding
specific objects, he would compile and send to Frieda a corresponding list.
20.
The question of Bruce wanting to acquire the shares of Galerie Nefer
AG, Zurich, has been suspended for the time being.
May I kindly askyou to
verify together with Bruce the correctness of the above summary of
understandings and to let me have your response and comments.
With my best regards.
Sincerely Yours,
Mario J. Roberty
c/c: Bruce P. Ferrini,
Akron Ohio
[From Michel van Rijn, 1st
April 2005, from http://www.katholieknieuwsblad.nl/]
Judasevangelie niet
van Judas
De publiciteit rond het
zogenaamde evangelie van Judas is zorgvuldig getimed door de eigenaar van de
tekst, die er alleen maar geld uit wil slaan. Dat meent prof.dr. Hans van Oort,
gespecialiseerd in gnostiek, manicheïsme, Nag Hammadi en Augustinus. Op eigen
houtje belegde hij een persconferentie als tegenwicht tegen "alle
nonsens" die dezer dagen over het Judasevangelie wordt geschreven.
Bijvoorbeeld dat 'het Vaticaan' er belang bij zou hebben dat het document niet
gepubliceerd wordt.
Van Oort is verbonden
aan de faculteit godgeleerdheid van de Universiteit van Utrecht en is
hoogleraar christendom en gnostiek aan de Radbouduniversiteit.
"Uit de oudheid was
al bekend dat er een Judasevangelie moest zijn. Ireneüs van Lyon, plusminus
180, spreekt erover in zijn Adversus haereses. Maar zijn eigenlijke bron is
Justinus de Martelaar en dan zitten we al rond 140. Ik schat dat het
Judasevangelie zo rond 120 gedateerd moet worden."
Het origineel dan wel te
verstaan. De papyri die via louche handelaren eind vorige eeuw tevoorschijn
zijn gekomen (zie foto) zijn waarschijnlijk een kopie uit het einde van de
vierde eeuw. Het spectaculaire voor de wetenschap is dat het Judasevangelie nu
eindelijk gevonden is, althans een deel ervan. Van Oort sluit niet uit dat het
om de ontbrekende codex uit de Nag Hammadi-geschriften gaat. Wat hij wel
uitsluit is dat het door Judas zelf geschreven zou zijn. "Er is geen
enkele reden aan te nemen dat hij dat gedaan zou hebben. Niets wijst daarop."
Het Judasevangelie is
een gnostisch geschrift, een beweging die al vroeg door de Kerk werd
veroordeeld. "Zij keerden zich tegen de bestaande orde, dus ook tegen de
Schepper-God. Daarom was Judas hun held."
Van Oort is een van de
weinige mensen die kennis heeft van de inhoud van het Judasevangelie, maar wil
geen gedonder met de eigenaar, de Zwitserse Maecenas Foundation. "Als ik
dat doe word ik vermoord." (KN) [Translation of the above article]
Gospel of Judas not by Judas
The owner of the text,
who only wants to make money from it, has carefully timed the publicity
surrounding what is called the Gospel of Judas. That is the opinion of Prof.
Hans van Oort, who specialises in Gnosticism, Manichaeism, Nag Hammadi and
Augustine. He called a press conference on his own initiative, to counter
"all the nonsense" being written at the moment about the Gospel of
Judas; for example that the Vatican has an interest in the document's not being
published.
Van Oort is attached to
the Faculty of Theology of the University of Utrecht and is Professor of
Christianity and Gnosticism at the Radboud University.
"It was known from
ancient times that there had to be a Gospel of Judas. Irenaeus of Lyons spoke
about it in his Adversus haereses (Against Heresies) in around 180 A.D., but
his real source is Justin Martyr, and that takes us to around 140 A.D. I would
guess that the Gospel of Judas would have to be dated at about 120 A.D."
The original, at least. The papyri that appeared in the hands of shady dealers
at the end of the last century (see photo) were probably a copy from the end of
the fourth century. What is spectacular for science is that the Gospel of Judas
has at last been found, or at least a part of it. Van Oort does not rule out
that it involves the missing codex from the Nag Hammadi codices. What he does
rule out is that Judas himself wrote it. "There is no reason whatsoever to
assume that he did this. Nothing points to that."
The Gospel of Judas is a
codex from the Gnostics, a movement that was denounced by the Church in the
early days. "They set themselves against the established order, and thus
also against the Creator. That's why Judas was their hero."
Van Oort is one of the
few people who knows the contents of the Gospel of Judas, but does not want any
trouble with its owner, the Swiss Maecenas Foundation." If I did, I would
be killed." (KN)
[From Michel van Rijn, 8th
April 2005:] Translation of portions of the book of Allogenes
In 2001 this portal
first revealed the existence and the contents of the looted Judas Gospel as well as enough of the skulduggery in its
recent history to make it unmarketable. The action on this portal forced the
culprits who owned the long lost smuggled Gospel to restore it to its true
country of origin, Egypt, and to look for other venues to capitalise on their
illegally acquired treasure. This portal is used to not being credited in the
media for the good work we do (a happy exception was the article on the Judas
Gospel by Henk Schutten in 'Het Parool') and we take consolation and soulage in
the fact that as a result of our actions this historically important document
will be returned to Egypt, safe for posterity.
{Note by Roger
Pearse: the translation following is of uncertain authorship: it is not by
Charles Hedrick, it turns out}
Nine Fragments of
the Gospel of Judas [Actually from 'Allogenes' - RP, April 2006]
It is only a first
attempt to organise them, the order can easily change as more fragments become
known. This translation is based on photos. These are fragments of nine pages
of the Coptic codex of the fourth century AD, the Gospel of Judas. The final
fragment is the clearest to identify, because it ends with the title - as is
common in this kind of Coptic documents - The Gospel of Judas.
Terminology: 'Allogenes'
is most probably Jesus. 'Sakla' is Satan, the evil creator of the world.
Temptation in the desert
1...Be like those in this world and eat of my possessions!
Take silver, gold and other things for yourself. "But Allogenes answered
him: "Away from me, Satan! It is not you I search, but my Father who is
raised high above all great Aeons = arches of heavens each with their own god.
For I am him you call Allogenes, I am from a different family line, I am not
from your family line." And then he who rules the world spoke to him …
2 (It is not clear by whom Sakla/Satan is defeated, but
definitely not just by Allogenes/Jesus)… And then Sakla attacks him who
liberates alone, many times. And he was not able to enslave them. After having
defeated him he retrieved ashamed to his own place. Then Allogenes called out
with a loud voice: Oh God, who is above the great Aeons, hear my voice, have
pity on me and save me from all evil. Look down upon me and hear me, because I
am in the empty lonely land. May the unspeakable enlighten me now…Soon Saklas
(Satan) will take control of (some of) Jesus' disciples.
7... When he has filled his times. For him, Saklas, times are
limited. He comes, the first star of their family line. And those who are sent
will be fulfilled. Then they will perform lewdness in my name and kill their
children…
8… And he said: "why are you surprised about your star
and his next lines of the aeons. There is a cry…, who is called Jesus, that are
… received … he spoke to the mind. And the people … The sixth star is mistaken
about our five soldiers. And they will all perish with their creations."
But Judas spoke to Jesus: they will not be sedated, those who are cleansed in
your name. Jesus spoke: There will be hatred … and then this cleansing…Jesus'
arrest …
9… received … go … they have his … bring … The Pharisees were
careful and wanted to arrest him during the prayers, because they were afraid
of the people. We said: he will fall into their hands as was prophesied. And
they went to Judas and told him … although you are bad at this place, you are
Jesus' true disciple. And he answered them as they wanted him to. And Judas
received the money. And he surrendered him. This is the end of the Gospel of
Judas. Some one Judas? Needs to sacrifice Jesus' human earthly frame
6… You shall cleanse … in sin … And they are the stars that
are perfect in all respects. For so has been spoken to human kind: see, God has
received your existence as servants… But the Lord has given orders over the
all… they will be despised… all evil things. But you stand supreme over every
one…In fact the man who carries me, is he you Judas? will scarify. Now all is
your … increased and your earthly frame has died and your star has burned out
and your heart is…
Transfiguration on Mount Tabor
5… We know from where we have come and so we know where we
will go and we know what we have to do with our lives." And they came and
they went up a mount called Thambor = Tabor. And they threw themselves down,
prayed and said: 'Oh Lord God who resides high in the great Aeons, who has no
beginning and no end! Give us spiritual knowledge. Reveal us Your secret so we
could receive our knowledge: where we come from, where we are going to, and
what we have to do with our lives.' After these words spoken by Allogenes, he
revealed himself…
Baptism scene at the Jordan (?) or a sequence of the desert-scene
3… And when I said this, see, a cloud of light surrounded me.
I could do nothing, I was enclosed in the light surrounding and shining on the
cloud. And I heard a word out of the cloud and the light. And the light shone
upon me and said: Oh Allogenes! Your pleas are heard and I am being sent to you
in this location to go and spread the Glad Tidings. But you have not found an
escape from this prison yet…
4… is destroyed, because of the big family line = Allogenes =
Jesus has risen above. He said: 'in the beginning of … and from the angels
existed this line in the aeons. They said: raise you eyes to the clouds and to
the light that surrounds the cloud and to the beauty that surrounds it and to
the stars that exist as pre-mirror image. He is our star.
But Judas saw the cloud
of light and went to those who were standing underneath. They heard a voice
coming out of the cloud.
Details from Focus:
The manuscript is
16x29cms.
|
HENK SCHUTTEN AMSTERDAM - About 1800 years after its ban by the Church
because of its 'blasphemous' content, the Gospel of Judas has been made
public again. A Swiss foundation discovered a copy of the forbidden gospel
and is currently working on a translation. This Saturday the Parool is the first to publish a couple
of fragments from the Gospel, consisting of a dialogue between Judas Iscariot
and Jesus. The documents have probably already been discovered in Egypt |
in the fifties or sixties of last century and
smuggled out of the country. "But the price was too high and moreover no
one knew that it was about the Gospel of Judas."For twenty years the
manuscript had been in an American safe. Roberty: "It was in a terrible
state when we laid hands on it. Pages were stuck together or had fallen
apart. A team of scientists is busy piecing all the bits back together." Scientists are really excited about this find. The American
coptologist Stephen Emmel calls it 'a very exceptional find', which will
cause a lot of commotion. "From an historical point of view this find is
as important as the Nag Hammadi-writings half a century ago. Everything
points to the Gospel referred by Prelate Irenaeus in the second century
AD." |
|
It was soon clear that the manuscripts that Stephen Emmel laid
eyes on in 1983 in a dark and grotty hotelroom in Geneva were of exceptional
historical value. "The documents wrapped in old newspaper were packed in
three shoe boxes," Emmel remembers very well, "the authenticity was
beyond doubt, but they were in a bad state. I did not dare to turn the pages
out of fear for damaging them. |
|
The shady side of the art trade At the end of last year Michel van Rijn announced through
his website spectacular revelations about the Gospel of Judas. He was
arrested a month later. His three main competitors on the market for stolen
cultural inheritance seemed to have joined together. |
|
|
HENK SCHUTTEN Upon arrival at the Basel airport on Wednesday afternoon of
January 19th, Michel van Rijn was to his utmost astonishment handcuffed by
the Swiss police. "The aircraft barely landed and there was the whole
circus waiting for me, not at customs, but outside the aircraft. I was pushed
into a room and stripped. I did not have a clue as to why I was arrested
until some one started shouting at me 'Where is the ring?'. Then I understood
who was behind this." Van Rijn travelled to Switzerland upon invitation of Mario
Roberty, the Swiss president of the Maecenas foundation and owner of the
Gospel of Judas in 2000. But as solicitor Roberty also acts in the interests
of several key-players on the black market of stolen art, such as Ali and
Hicham Aboutaam, two brothers who have been convicted both in Egypt and in
the United States of trade in stolen art. Van Rijn warned on his website
against the practises of the brothers Aboutaam who became the biggest robbers of protected cultural
heritage in the world. The website started out years ago as a joke. Once
involved 'in ninety percent of all art smuggling operations in the world'
according to Scotland Yard, van Rijn wanted to combat the hypocrisy in the
art world using the Internet. Successfully, because his disclosures led to
arrests, convictions and - most of all - a lot of damaged reputations.
Roberto had also been a scapegoat for years on Van Rijn's website. But lately they settled their disagreements. Van Rijn even
conducted some research for the Maecenas foundation regarding the missing
fragments of the Gospel of Judas, and successfully so he said. "Roberto
offered me to act as project consultant," says Van Rijn: "I was
offered 50,000 pound and a share in the foundation. My name would also be
mentioned as one of the discoverers of the manuscript." It was Roberto who invited Van Rijn for a reconciliation meeting
in Geneva with Ali Aboutaam. Van Rijn was not unwilling to accept. "I
thought: listening would do no harm. Due to all the threats I live in a
heavily protected house in Chelsea and was just granted custody for my two
little sons." Roberty also mentioned that Van Rijn could potentially
still do business in Switzerland with his customer Frieda Tchacos who bought
the Gospel of Judas five years ago on the black market. According to him,
Tchakos was interested in Van Rijn's collection of Byzantine jewellery.
"Roberto specifically asked me to bring a Byzantine ring as Frieda had
showed interest in it. When I asked him how to take it with me, he replied: 'Just wear
it!' But I know what Swiss customs are like and decided just to take
pictures. |
So when the Swiss customs seemed to be looking for a ring after
arresting me, I knew instantly that Roberto was behind this." Van Rijn
was deported to Geneva in an arrest van. His cell was not much bigger than
the mattress he slept on. He did not get to speak to a lawyer. "This is
not funny when you are 54 and responsible for two children. But I also feared
for my life in prison. It is not difficult for people such as the Aboutaams,
who already explicitly threatened to kill me once, to have me killed in the
nick." It was only when Van Rijn was heard by the Swiss judge, that is
became clear what the charges were. A London dealer, Freddie Ibrahim, seemed
to have made a statement that Van Rijn was willing to delete all unwelcome
articles about Ali Aboutaam on his website in exchange for 150,000 dollar. A
clear case of blackmail according to Aboutaam who was attending the hearing
accompanied by three lawyers. The Swiss judge was not impressed by this
charge. She asked if this was the only charge. Van Rijn: "To my
astonishment one of Aboutaam's lawyers replied: did you not receive the
documents from the US?" These incriminating documents from America had
been faxed exactly one day after the arrest of Van Rijn by the lawyer of the
American billionaire James Ferrell, the by one biggest gas magnate in the US
with whom Van Rijn has not been on good terms for a while. Van Rijn:
"Ferrell is known worldwide as biggest buyer of stolen antiquities. He
is Aboutaam's biggest customer and is involved with Hezbollah. The money he
earned with art smuggling finances weapons for terrorist attacks." Van
Rijn feared the worst when he heard that the American billionaire was
involved in his trial. "Ferrell was conspiring with the Aboutaams, two
convicted criminals, and Roberty to charge me. Then I was convinced I had to
start worrying." Mario Roberty was called as a witness a day later.
Roberty gave evidence and confirmed that Van Rijn's website is 'in principal'
used for blackmail. "My e-mail to Roberty asking him for my 50,000
pound, was added to the incriminating evidence. But that was the amount
Roberty promised me for my research for the Gospel of Judas!" Eventually
Van Rijn was released just with the fear for his life. The Swiss judge ruled
the evidence to be too weak. The charges were dropped and he could return to
his London home. In the meantime Van Rijn has a statement signed by Freddie
Ibrahim in which the latter denies to have said that Van Rijn would have
demanded $150,000 in blackmail from Ali Aboutaam. Ibrahim's signature had
been forged by Aboutaam's solicitors. Van Rijn started a damage claim against
Aboutaam. He does realise that he made a close escape: "Napoleonic law
is applied in Switzerland. You need to prove that you are innocent. But once
in the paper mill, that can take weeks, if not months." It was obvious last year how powerful his opponents were when his
website survived a digital bombardment. A so-called Denial or Service-Attack
is when a website gets overloaded by too many unknown requests of the web
pages. Tiscali, Van Rijn's provider, successfully beat off the attack. The
hackers remained untraceable although they threatened in an anonymous e-mail
to use heavier tools. Six months later there was a new attack, and successfully this
time. The site www.michelvanrijn.com was from one moment to the next nowhere
to be found. First it was thought to be a technical problem, but soon it was
clear that all information was very curiously wiped from the net. The hackers
did not leave anything to chance as they also snatched away the alternate
domains such as www.michelvanrijn.org and www.michelvanrijn.net right in
front of him. Everything points to a digital attack from the United States.
Shortly before that a court in Ohio ruled for Van Rijn to delete all
accusations from his website that are addressed at gas magnate James Ferrell.
It is not clear why his opponents choose this very moment to combine forces
against him. Was it the recent conviction of the brothers Aboutaam or the
accusation that Ferrell was working together with terrorists? Or was the
announcement of new revelations about the Gospel of Judas that Van Rijn was
planning the final straw? Van Rijn could only guess his opponents' motives,
but he is convinced that Mario Roberty is the evil genius in this conspiracy.
"Roberty scored a hat trick. With me in prison the hunt was open and his
customers got a short break." The arrest in Switzerland has significantly increased his lawyer
bills after he had already lost half a million in the United States. But Van
Rijn refuses to be muzzled, despite the devastating American conviction in
the case against Ferrell, two unparalleled digital bombardments and a stay in
a Swiss cell for almost a week. "I love art, I learned it at my mother's knee. But the art
world is full of criminal dealers, corrupt experts and lemming like
certificate sellers. There is hardly any inspection because the authorities
have a lack of knowledge. Some one needs to bring these false pretences to
light. Of course I will continue with my website." Stake, reaction of Mario Roberty: Mario Roberty confirms that Michel van Rijn did some work for the
Maecenas Foundation. "Van Rijn would provide us with further information
about the lost fragments of the Gospel of Judas. He received a payment of
50,000 pounds." He venomously denies that he set Van Rijn up. "That
is absolute bullshit. I have indeed invited Van Rijn for a meeting with my
client Ali Aboutaam. It was a big shock to me that Van Rijn was arrested upon
arrival in Switzerland. I feel betrayed by Aboutaam and have broken all ties
with him ever since." |
|
'Your life is at stake with this manuscript' "Here it is indeed; Gospel of Judas, at
the very end, as was customary in those days," Gilles Quispel nods
approvingly, while carefully studying the pictures of the manuscripts one by
one. |
||
|
HENK SCHUTTEN "And judging by its content, it is clearly a Gnostic
document. There is a reference to Allogenes, also called Seth, the third son
of Adam and Eve. In Jewish gnosis Seth is viewed as the Saviour." In
many old documents from the first years of Christianity references to the
Gospel of Judas can be found, says Quispel. But after being banned by the
Church, the manuscript seemed to have disappeared from the face of the earth.
Not surprising, according to Quispel: "Gnosis is the most persecuted
religion in the world. Followers were put to death by the Catholic Church. He
who possessed the manuscript risked his life. Religious historians assume
that the Gospel of Judas has been written in the same period as the canonical
gospels of Mark, Matthew, Luke and John. Because the Judas-manuscript is
written in Coptic - the last stage of Old-Egyptian - it is assumed that this
is a copy translated from Greek from the original text presumably from the
first or second century. Is the Gospel written by Judas, that is a difficult
question to answer for Quispel. "I doubt it very much. But you can never
entirely exclude this option." An obvious conclusion is that this text
is from an Early-Christian Sect, called the Kainite. The Prelate Irenaeus
appointed to Bishop of Lyon in 178 warned against this movement in his
writings Adversus Haereses or 'Against Heresy'. It is typical that the sect
was called after Cain, the son of Adam who killed his brother, says Quispel,
"Gnostics are adverse, and they choose the rejected." The term
'Gnostic' stems from the Greek word knowledge and its doctrine views the own
religious experience as higher than accumulating intellectual knowledge.
Gnostics believed that men were one with the divine in his most inner self,
an intolerable thought for the Catholic Church. |
Till middle of last century what was known about old Gnostics was
mainly based on documents of the Catholic Church that fought the doctrine
with fire and brimstone. This changed when in 1945 farmers found an urn in
Nag Hammadi in Upper-Egypt containing 12 books - or codices, written on
papyrus and held together with a leather strap. The Nag Hammadi Codices
consist of 52 documents, most of them with Gnostic intent. The most famous
document out this collection, the Gospel of Thomas was purchased by Professor
Quist in 1952. Just like the Gospel of Judas, the Nag Hammadi-documents ended up
in the hands of money hungry art dealers, amongst which a Belgian dealer.
Promoted because of the documents of the ecclesiastic inquisitor
Tertullianus, Quistel wrote to several sponsors when he heard of the
discovery. With a cheque for 35,000 Swiss Francs in his pocket he finally got
on the train to Brussels on May 10th, 1952. "A mere trifle, even in
those days, but I did return to the Netherlands with the manuscript.
Nowadays, these documents would be worth four to five million dollars."
Quispel does not exclude that the Gospel of Judas has the same origin as the
Nag Hammadi-documents. He remembers how in 1955 he visited Tano, a Cypriot
dealer in Cairo with a large number of documents, upon request of Queen
Juliana who showed a lot of interest in the Gnostics. "The Egyptian
authorities seized Tano's collection, but he wrote to me later on that he
left for Geneva to offer some documents for sale that he was able to smuggle
out of Egypt to Martin Bodmer, a rich Swiss. |
"Bodmer placed the documents in a Swiss foundation named
after him. He hired a Swiss minister who taught himself Coptic to translate
it. This minister, Rodolphe Kasser, is the man who is finalising the
translation of the Gospel of Judas." The Nag Hammadi-documents have been returned to their country of
origin and are now placed in the Coptic Museum in Cairo. "Bodmer had to
return his documents. They were smuggled. That is theft. Even the
hypocritical Swiss have to stay within the law." If the Gospel of Judas will shed new light on the live of Jesus,
as was the case with the Gospel of Thomas, needs to be seen. Quist doubts it.
"The big question is if the Judas story of the bible is correct. It is
purely hypothetical, but I believe it is. Jesus rode into Jerusalem on Palm
Sunday, while people chanted Hosanna, meaning 'save us from the Romans'. But
instead of going to the palace of the Roman Governor, Pontius Pilot, as Judas
expected, he went to the temple to clear it from the money changers. Judas
understood that Jesus was a religious reformer and did not intend to replace
the reign of the Romans by a theocracy. Because of that disappointment it is
very possible that Judas went to the Pharisees to betray Jesus for 30 pieces
of silver." Scientifically on the other hand, the discovery of the
Gospel of Judas is of big historic importance, stated Quispel. "For
scientists all gospels are equal. We do not differentiate between true and
false. |
[From Michel van Rijn,
December 2004:]
THE LONG LOST GOSPEL OF JUDAS ISCARIOT
The Forbidden Gospel
PART I
Forget about the Da Vinci
Code, this is the real deal!
ISCARIOTS OF FIRE
After 2,000 years of
being both hidden and forbidden, the blasphemous Gospel of Judas makes its
long-awaited comeback on THIS PORTAL.
Although present
'owner'-Zurich-based Frieda Nussberger Tchakos - struck a deal with the
Egyptian government, under which she was absolved of looting that nation clean.
But, unlike Judas, she held out for a bit more than 30 pieces of silver. After
all, Frieda was one of Tarek El-Sweissi's principal dealers, the latter, of course,
sweating in a hot Egyptian cell for the next 30 years.
Your gospelslinger
tracked the smuggling trail all the way up to Antwerpen, where a new
museum is destined to house tonnes of smuggled Coptic textiles, courtesy of
none other than the sultry Frieda herself.
Don't blame your
inkslinger if I don't reveal all at once. More revelations always follow
Gospels, don't they?
In those days, reading
it was a mortal sin. Is now publishing it a portal sin?
Michel van Rijn, 26:14
"Then one of the twelve, called Judas Iscariot, went unto the chief
priests, and said unto them, 'What will ye give me, and I will deliver Him unto
you?' And they covenanted with him for thirty pieces of silver."
THE BIBLE REWRITTEN
St. Irenaeus, Bishop of
Lugdunum (Lyon) and leading Christian theologian of the 2nd century (c. 135-200
AD), was the only recorded person to lay eyes on the Gospel of Judas. In his
book Adversus haereses (Against Heresies), written in about 180, he
discussed the Gospel of Judas in section I.31.1:
[Some] declare that Cain derived his being from
the Power above, and acknowledge that Esau, Korah, the Sodomites, and all such
persons, are related to themselves. On this account, they add, the Creator has
assailed them, yet no one of them has suffered injury. For Sophia was in the
habit of carrying off that which belonged to her from them to herself. They
declare that Judas the traitor was thoroughly acquainted with these things, and
that he alone, knowing the truth as no others did, accomplished the mystery of
the betrayal; by him all things, both earthly and heavenly, were thus thrown
into confusion. They produce a fictitious history of this kind, which they
style the Gospel of Judas.
--
Refutation of All Heresies I.31.1
Bought on Ebay ;-)
The Gospel was banned
and then disappeared.
Thanks to shady
antiquities smugglers, a Coptic manuscript, written in Sahidic and dating back
to the fourth or fifth century, has mysteriously reappeared, rather damaged and
in poor and fragmentary conditions. Found in Megaga, Upper Egypt (present-day
Behnasa), and brought to a Coptic jeweller in the late 1970s, it is now in the
possession of a 'Swiss Foundation', aka Frieda Nussberger Tchakos. Presided
over by Basel-based ambulance-chaser Mario Jean Roberty, those currently with
their grubby little hands on it claim that the Gospel hails from Muhazafat Al
Minya, in Middle Egypt. They await its publication (with, of course, full
transcription) from Frieda's payrolled Rodolphe
'Cash' Kasse (oops, I mean Kasser).
NB: Rodolphe is not to
be confused with the red-nosed reindeer. This one's as brown-nosed as they
come.
Cash-&-Kasser is
hoping to publish the manuscript, which contains three "treatises":
(1) the Epistle of Peter to Philip, (2) the First Apocalypse of James and (3)
the 31 folios of the previously unknown Gospel of Judas!
Don't worry, dahlink
Lacuna Megaga-ists, we've got revelations of our own about the Judas Gospel and
excerpts to publish first. Jesus would be turning in his grave, if he were
still in it.
The story is a bit
complicated, my dahlink papyrilogists, but I'll do my best.
HISTORY OF THE
MANUSCRIPT
Egyptian jeweller Hanna
received a stone box from a man who thought he'd come across something big.
What he found was unbelievably huge: inside that box was the Gospel of Judas.
Hanna hunted around for possible buyers, quite aware of its value, demanding
US$3 million for it. Finally, Geneva-based Greek dealer Nikolas Koutoulakis
sent his girlfriend Mia (or was it Effy?) to scope out the situation. Working
behind her lover's back, she struck a private deal with Hanna, but too late.
The Sneaky Greeky was leagues ahead of his two-timing wench of a girl, and
robbed Hanna's home of all manuscripts including the pages of Judas's glory.
He then smuggled them to
Geneva, where they were offered for $3,000,000. In the madness of smuggling,
theft and deception of sex and religion, Mia had ended up stealing a few of the
pages. In the interim, Koutoulakis showed his papyri to fellow Greek
antiquities dealer Frieda Tchakos, who was based in Zurich. This was in 1982.
Years passed.
Hanna ended up once
again with the manuscript, after having threatened the Sneaky Greeky's life. In
1990 Hanna tried to sell it to Norwegian art collector Martin Schoyen...
[Note April 2006: James M. Robinson has since revealed
that this was a rescue attempt by himself, with the help of Martin Schoyen]
[Extract of image of fax of 11.9.2000 from Martin Schøyen
to Bruce Ferrini concerning events at that time. Appears by permission --
RP.]
William
Brashear, Egyptian Museum, Berlin, answered in a letter of 15. Oct. 1990
concerning the Mathematical text (abt. 12 leaves): Mathematics of a type well
known, practical geometry, similar to the Chester Beatty ones, nothing
spectacular new....:
1. Exodus, 4th c. More than 50ff. Greek ....
2. 3 Gnostic texts, coptic 25ff+10? in fragments, 4th .... (incl. 1 cover)
3. Letters of Paul (3 epistles), Coptic, ca. 400, 30ff. ..... (incl. 1 cover +
spine)
4. Mathematical, 5th c. 12ff? .....
.... You should check whether everything is still present; (2 binding
covers/spine, abt 12 ff Mathematical (distinctive cursive script) and letters
of Paul (part of Colossians, 1st Thessalonians and Hebrews). ...... then once
again to New York book-dealer Krauss. But the real buyer turned out to be
Frieda, who 're-discovered' the document and worked out a deal.
In the summer of 1999,
Frieda had come across some stolen papyrus that she thought to be Mia's. She
then travelled to Cairo in November, where she discussed the purchase of the
full manuscript with Hanna. Hanna had put the Gospel in a rusty safe-deposit
box in a Citibank in Hicksville, New York. She flew out to see it and purchased
it soon after for an unknown sum.
She then met up with
religious scholars from Yale University, who were keen on buying the
manuscript. But because academic lawyers advised against purchasing a smuggled
document, Professor Babcock, the man in charge, was left without the precious
folios and promotion.
Frieda tried on and off
to sell the Gospel to several people.
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC THOUGHT THEIR BIGGEST
COMPETITORS WERE THE DISCOVERY CHANNEL…
BUT IT'S US!
Dahlink Gladiators, this
weekend National Geographic will film and photograph the Gospel's fragmentary
pages in a vault in Switzerland. But of what value is their 'world exclusive'
if they are unaware of the diggers, smugglers, art-dealers, governments and
bankers alike are backstabbing one other for ownership of the Gospel.
Here at this very
portal, we bring you the whole background story. Two world-famous professors
are presently working on the miraculously surfaced Gospel of Judas in a
nail-biting neck-to-neck race to be the first to publish it. Rodolphe the
Brown-Nosed Kasser, Coptic Scholar in Geneva, Switzerland, is in the midst of a
fistfight with Charles
Hedrick, Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at Southwest Missouri
State University.
Luckily enough,
Professor Hedrick gave us permission to go public with his notes and
translations! [click on small images for full size]
[From Michel van Rijn, 9th
December 2001:]
Zurich based dealer Frieda (Nussberger) Chakos, owner of the prestigious
Gallery Nefer is up to her old tricks again. Although she solemnly promised,
after being exposed on my website, to return the illegally acquired,
historically invaluable Gospel of Judas to Egypt, she is presently negotiating
a possible sale to a US manuscript dealer. We are on the job as usual and will
keep you posted. If Frieda will go forward, we will also dive into her past
sales and rip the last bits of her already miserable reputation to pieces. The
manuscript was dug up at near Nag Hamadi, then illegally exported from Egypt
and illegally imported in the US, where Frieda acquired it. Joint owner Mario
Roberty, a Basel-based lawyer, will automatically get his day in Van
Rijn's court as this ambulance-chaser deserves special treatment.
[From Michel van Rijn,
September 2001:]
We normally check all
the details past to us by informants, but in this case the reality only came
out recently after further investigation. As the dealings with [Basel-based
lawyer Mario] Roberty unfolded I was confronted by an even increasingly less
attractive picture of his activities. Due to his part ownership of the Gospel,
his position as a source of reliable information became untenable, due to the
conflict of interests.
The Gospel of Judas was
'stolen' in Egypt in the late seventies by infamous art dealer Nico
Koutolakis from Egyptian based owner, Mr. Hanna. Koutolakis smuggled it to
Geneva. After Hanna and Koutolakis worked out their differences, the gospel was
send to a cousin of Hanna in NY, without declaring it at customs. It was
deposited in a NY bank vault, where Frieda Chakos bought it. As a bonus for the
Egyptian authorities: In our next update we deal with the complete Egyptian
background of the Gospel. If the present owners will not donate it back to your
country, I will make sure you can go and get it!
[From Michel van Rijn,
April 2001:]
BTW, The Gospel of Judas
is safely returned to Switzerland and not longer in the claws of our multi
talented 'Bruce on the Loose'!
[From Michel van Rijn,
January 2001:]
For some years a small clique of
scholars and dealers have known the existence of a group of papyri of
remarkable content. The rumours were finally proved! The Gospel of Judas
unfortunately fell victim in the claws of the 'multi-talented' manuscript
dealer, Bruce P. Ferrini.
Last fall, Zurich based
antiques dealer F.T.-N. entrusts priceless papyrus manuscripts which had been
in a Bank vault in New York for almost 20 years to the "safe"
facilities of Akron/Ohio based manuscript dealer Bruce P. Ferrini. The
dealer is approached by Ferrini through a middleman and doesn't have a clue
that by this time Ferrini is already in deep financial troubles. The news had
not hit the papers yet. Ferrini takes advantage of the secrecy of the
art-market and offers to help F.T.-N. 'in preserving these manuscripts for the
benefit of mankind'...The papyrus manuscripts consist of
- a Gnostic codex in Sahidic dialect containning the lost 'Gospel of Judas'
known from history only through Saint Irenaeus (c. 140-202 AD), Bishop of Lyon,
the "First Apocalypse of James" and the "Epistle of Peter to
Philip"
- the 'Book of Exodus' in Greek
- 'Letters of Paul' in Sahidic dialect and aa
- 'Mathematical Treatise' in Greek.
All these manuscripts
are priceless historical documents, only comparable to major finds like the Nag
Hammadi Library or the Dead-See Scrolls from Qumran. They belong to mankind and
shall be publicly preserved and studied. For this purpose, F.T.-N. has set up a
public foundation to which these manuscripts have been donated. But Ferrini
wants to turn them into money for the satisfaction of his greedy ambitions and
has therefore spirited the manuscripts away, to Japan. Legal proceedings and
criminal persecution are under way. [...]
References
All
of this comes from a number of articles on the web site of Michel van Rijn, who
monitors the art market. His site is http://www.michelvanrijn.nl/artnews/artnws.htm.
A search for 'Gospel of Judas' reveals other details of the negotations:
·
27-01-2001
emails from Dr. Mario Roberty, of the Maecenas Foundation who currently own
the manuscript.
