Gospel of Judas Update

Back in 2006, I wrote three posts about the newly "discovered" Gospel of Judas:

Part I - General Information
Part II - Thoughts on the Translation
Part III - National Geographic Channel TV Special

We all remember a ton of fanfare about this finding. I even had someone tell me that it would undermine Christianity as we know it! Well, I doubt you'll see any fanfare about the latest information on this translation. To say that the translators made sophomoric mistakes would be an insult to sophomores.

All of the information you need to know is covered in this post by Dr. Albert Mohler: Revising the Revisionists -- New Controversy over "The Gospel of Judas". The real kicker is that the translator(s) chose to translate "daimon" as "spirit" - thus Judas is actually referred to as a demon in the document and not as just a spirit!

I believe that Dr. Mohler sums it up very well:

This controversy should serve as a sober reminder that media reports about supposed discoveries may not be at all what is claimed. Indeed, the bigger the claim of a blockbuster discovery, the more care and oversight is required. The impression of this story left in the public mind is based in a series of mistranslations. Most people will never know the real story.

I stated the following in my Part III post about a mention of this Gospel by Irenaeus in the 2nd Century:

"It should make one wonder what the producers of the NGC special had in mind when they couldn't quote the only verifiable mention of this gospel that has ever been recorded before the Gospel was abandoned not to be read again until the past few years."

Now we're left to wonder just what the NGC's thought process was after seeing all of the simple mistranlations described in Professor April D. DeConick's piece in the NY Times that Dr. Mohler references coupled with their deliberate exclusion of what Irenaeus wrote about the gospel shortly after it was penned.