Odds and Ends

I apologize for not posting regularly the past week or so. We are bogged down in exams here at Rice, and my in-laws are here for the holidays. And we celebrate more than Christmas in December in my family since my son's birthday is mid-month. So we just finished a pizza party here at the house for Alexander. He's four this year. So I'm bushed. I promise that I will post occasionally over the rest of the month, and get back to every day posts once the new year starts and I'm back to my office regularly.

For now I want to say, Yeah! You all came up with exactly the parody texts I think about when I'm explaining the Gospel of Judas. There is quite a fair amount of Gnostic parody, with Jesus laughing at the ignorance of the non-Gnostic Christians. So I have no idea how Marvin Meyer can say that the Gospel of Judas cannot contain parody or satire and that there are no examples of this in ancient literature. I can point to a number of substantive examples as you have all outlined in your comments.

The more I study the Gospel of Judas, I also have come to realize that the subversive message of the text (non-Gnostic Christians have been tricked into worshiping the wrong god, the Demiurge) is satire at this fullest. The author I think was sincerely worried about the salvation of the non-Gnostic Christians, whose leaders were leading them astray. He was using satire to criticize and correct them.

If you get a chance, check out the National Review this week. There is a full story about the Gospel of Judas, my involvement, and other scholars who are also questioning NGS's work and interpretation. When I get a copy of the magazine, I will post the text here.

As for the Mandaean petition, we are almost half way there: 449. So keep passing it around and encouraging those you know to sign it. Let's help get the Mandaeans a safe haven in the US.