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Gospel of Judas
The Gospel of Judas is a non-canonical religious text. Its content consists of conversations between Jesus and his disciples, especially Judas Iscariot. The only copy of it known to exist is a Coptic language text that is part of the Codex Tchacos, which has been radiocarbon dated to 280 AD, plus or minus 60 years. Like the Gnostic texts of the Nag Hammadi library, this version is believed by most biblical scholars to be a translation of an original which was composed in the Greek language by Gnostic Christians in the 2nd century. Rejected as heresy by the early Christian church and lost for 1700 years, the document was rediscovered in Egypt in the 1970s. After undergoing extensive restoration and preservation, an English translation was first published in early 2006 by the National Geographic Society.
Like the four canonical gospels, the Gospel of Judas is anonymous.
In early January 2005, researchers at the Arizona Accelerator Mass Spectrometry Laboratory of the University of Arizona completed their radiocarbon dating testing of four samples of papyrus from the codex and one sample of leather from the binding. The mean calendar age for these samples was between 220–340 AD.
In January 2006, ink samples from the codex were examined in another laboratory using polarized light microscopy, infrared spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, and x-ray diffraction. The chemical composition of the ink was determined not to match that of any modern ink, and its chemical composition was consistent with what would be expected for a document produced in Egypt during the third century AD.
It is likely, based on textual analysis of the dialect used and the presence of certain Greek loanwords, that the Coptic text contained in the codex may be a translation from an older Greek manuscript dating to sometime before 180 AD. Cited in support of this dating is the reference to a "Gospel of Judas" in the work Adversus Haereses. This work was written around 180 AD by the early Christian writer Irenaeus, who described the Gospel of Judas as "fictitious history". However, it is uncertain whether the text mentioned by Irenaeus is the same work as that found in the Codex Tchacos.
Sometime in the 1970s, an Egyptian farmer discovered a limestone box in an ancient tomb. The tomb was located on the east bank of the Nile River, in a village near Maghagha, Egypt. Inside the box was a leather-bound papyrus codex, written in the Sahidic dialect of the Coptic language. The farmer sold the document in 1978 to an antiquities dealer in Cairo who went by the pseudonym "Hanna Asabil". The document was stolen from Hanna’s apartment and smuggled into Geneva in 1980; Hanna subsequently recovered it in 1982.
Stephen Emmel was perhaps the first scholar to inspect the codex when it appeared among a group of ancient manuscripts on the antiquities "grey market" in Geneva in May 1983. At that time, the document consisted of some 30 leaves (60 pages), which were damaged but "still in pretty good condition". From 1984 until 2000, Hanna transported the codex in a cardboard box back and forth between Europe and the United States, but was unable to find a buyer prepared to purchase a manuscript with such questionable provenance. During this period, the fragile codex was folded in half and often handled roughly. It was stored mainly in a narrow safe deposit box in Hicksville, New York, where it was subjected to a humid and unstable climate.
By 1999, the manuscript was in very bad condition: its bindings had disintegrated, its pages had been reshuffled and had disintegrated into over a thousand pieces, and numerous sections were missing. Some passages were only scattered words, while others contained many lines. According to archaeologist and Coptic scholar Rodolphe Kasser, the codex originally contained 31 leaves, each written on both sides. By the time the codex came to the market in 1999, only 13 leaves survived. Individual leaves may have been removed and sold.
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Gospel of Judas
The Gospel of Judas is a non-canonical religious text. Its content consists of conversations between Jesus and his disciples, especially Judas Iscariot. The only copy of it known to exist is a Coptic language text that is part of the Codex Tchacos, which has been radiocarbon dated to 280 AD, plus or minus 60 years. Like the Gnostic texts of the Nag Hammadi library, this version is believed by most biblical scholars to be a translation of an original which was composed in the Greek language by Gnostic Christians in the 2nd century. Rejected as heresy by the early Christian church and lost for 1700 years, the document was rediscovered in Egypt in the 1970s. After undergoing extensive restoration and preservation, an English translation was first published in early 2006 by the National Geographic Society.
Like the four canonical gospels, the Gospel of Judas is anonymous.
In early January 2005, researchers at the Arizona Accelerator Mass Spectrometry Laboratory of the University of Arizona completed their radiocarbon dating testing of four samples of papyrus from the codex and one sample of leather from the binding. The mean calendar age for these samples was between 220–340 AD.
In January 2006, ink samples from the codex were examined in another laboratory using polarized light microscopy, infrared spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, and x-ray diffraction. The chemical composition of the ink was determined not to match that of any modern ink, and its chemical composition was consistent with what would be expected for a document produced in Egypt during the third century AD.
It is likely, based on textual analysis of the dialect used and the presence of certain Greek loanwords, that the Coptic text contained in the codex may be a translation from an older Greek manuscript dating to sometime before 180 AD. Cited in support of this dating is the reference to a "Gospel of Judas" in the work Adversus Haereses. This work was written around 180 AD by the early Christian writer Irenaeus, who described the Gospel of Judas as "fictitious history". However, it is uncertain whether the text mentioned by Irenaeus is the same work as that found in the Codex Tchacos.
Sometime in the 1970s, an Egyptian farmer discovered a limestone box in an ancient tomb. The tomb was located on the east bank of the Nile River, in a village near Maghagha, Egypt. Inside the box was a leather-bound papyrus codex, written in the Sahidic dialect of the Coptic language. The farmer sold the document in 1978 to an antiquities dealer in Cairo who went by the pseudonym "Hanna Asabil". The document was stolen from Hanna’s apartment and smuggled into Geneva in 1980; Hanna subsequently recovered it in 1982.
Stephen Emmel was perhaps the first scholar to inspect the codex when it appeared among a group of ancient manuscripts on the antiquities "grey market" in Geneva in May 1983. At that time, the document consisted of some 30 leaves (60 pages), which were damaged but "still in pretty good condition". From 1984 until 2000, Hanna transported the codex in a cardboard box back and forth between Europe and the United States, but was unable to find a buyer prepared to purchase a manuscript with such questionable provenance. During this period, the fragile codex was folded in half and often handled roughly. It was stored mainly in a narrow safe deposit box in Hicksville, New York, where it was subjected to a humid and unstable climate.
By 1999, the manuscript was in very bad condition: its bindings had disintegrated, its pages had been reshuffled and had disintegrated into over a thousand pieces, and numerous sections were missing. Some passages were only scattered words, while others contained many lines. According to archaeologist and Coptic scholar Rodolphe Kasser, the codex originally contained 31 leaves, each written on both sides. By the time the codex came to the market in 1999, only 13 leaves survived. Individual leaves may have been removed and sold.