Judas text requires greater scrutiny
Re “Was it virtue or betrayal?” Column One, Jan. 6
What the article did not make clear, and National Geographic and Marvin Meyer seem to have missed, is that only when interested scholars from around the world have had the opportunity to see the original manuscript of the Gospel of Judas, analyze its content and style of writing, compare it to other Gnostic texts and place it in its historical context can academia assess the historical value of this finding.
There is more to learn from an open study of this text than the secretive and reportedly poor translation provided by the National Geographic team.
Based on other Gnostic texts in which caricaturing biblical characters is common, it is clear that whether Judas is a nice guy is not the research’s focus. The manuscript needs to be made available in a research library where scholars from around the world can study it.
MERIT SHOUCRI
Manhattan Beach
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