One may recall how Emmel recommended in his memorandum of June 1, 1983, the conservation of the newly discovered Coptic Gnostic codex:
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.
As I read this, I could almost see Steve drooling at the mouth, he was so eager to get his hands on the material and conserve it properly before more damage was done to it. That did not happen in 1983. But now, twenty-three years later, Herr Prof. Dr. Emmel may have the chance he has been waiting for so very long. I see a light at the end of the tunnel!
It should be pointed out that this final verification of the accurate placements of fragments on the leaves, indeed the completion of the reassembling of a very fragmentary papyrus codex, is precisely one of Emmel’s specialties. As he mentioned in the paragraph just quoted from his memorandum, he did write the “Final Report” on “The Nag Hammadi Codices Editing Project.” The much more detailed itemization of all he did to wrap up that project to its successful conclusion is in the final volume of The Facsimile Edition of the Nag Hammadi Codices, somewhat innocently entitled Introduction. There, after introductory chapters I wrote, there is an extensive section of corrigenda composed for all intents and purposes by Steve. All thirteen Nag Hammadi Codices have been published in facsimile volumes as rapidly as we could, so as to break the monopoly on this discovery and make it available to everyone. But that meant that there were inevitably slight improvements and additions that could be added to those volumes, especially in the placement of fragments.
Let’s take, for example, an instance of what we called an “island” placement, where a fragment does not actually touch the fragmentary leaf to which it belongs, but can be identified by the postulated flow of the lettering of the text. All too often what was involved was a small fragment with only a single letter legible on it. Who cares if it was placed a centimeter out of its correct position? Well, anyone trying to edit that text cares! Where it is shown in the volume of The Facsimile Edition that has already appeared has been a pain for everyone working on the text. What is missing in the line on which it occurs seems to be easily and convincingly reconstructed, except for one detail: that letter on the little fragment does not fit in the otherwise convincing reconstruction of that line! If only we didn’t have that letter to cope with—but now we don’t, thanks to the little note in the corrigenda that it is to be raised (or lowered) a centimeter. That means it is no longer in that line, but in the line just above (or below). That may sound to you like a circular argument: if you don’t like it where it is, just get rid of it! But Steve would rather die than commit such a sin! Rather, he had traced the horizontal fiber pattern on the body of that leaf across the gap and onto the small fragment, and had seen that the fiber pattern did not fit. But by raising (or lowering) the fragment precisely one centimeter, the horizontal fiber pattern does work! So that is why he changed the position in the corrigenda. And then, after the prose description of hundreds of such minor improvements, there are photographs of just the relevant lines with the fragment in its correct position. Steve had opened the sealed Plexiglas container where that leaf had been conserved, loosened with a drop of water the sliver of transparent tape holding down that fragment (not Scotch tape, but special tape manufactured just for this purpose), and moved the fragment precisely one centimeter up (or down). Then, with a sliver of transparent tape, he reattached it to the lower pane of Plexiglas and resealed the two panes together. And that is how you will find it if you visit the Coptic Museum today!
This is what still needs doing at the Bibliothèque Bodmer near Geneva, before Roberty considers the conservation task finally achieved, which means before Kasser publishes the final transcription and translation in the editio princeps. So let me draw this to the attention of Roberty, who has, I naively hope, read the book thus far: now is the moment to prick up your ears and see what still needs to be done to implement your generalizing comment that, since “it was painstaking puzzle work,” “it will probably be going on for some time,” quite apart from “a few more fragments popping up very recently” that you give as the reason that “there will be a delay.”
HOW A PAPYRUS CONSERVATION LAB FUNCTIONS
Of course I have not been given access to the conservation laboratory, presumably in the Bibliothèque Bodmer near Geneva, where the actual work of reassembling the fragmentary leaves of the codex containing The Gospel of Judas has actually been taking place. But I once organized such a lab, in which both Kasser and Emmel worked! As permanent secretary of the International Committee for the Nag Hammadi Codices, I enlisted the Technical Sub-Committee to work for several years, a week or so at a time, in the Coptic Museum in Cairo, doing precisely this same kind of work of placing fragments on tattered papyrus leaves and thus preparing the codices for photography and publication. As a result, I know firsthand what has to be done. I even know how Kasser works in such a situation, since he and I worked side-by-side in the Coptic Museum, after I enlisted him as a member of the Technical Sub-Committee. So I can with some justification imagine what is going on, I think with more reliability than any outsider could.
Kasser proved to be a very conscientious, laborious, punctilious, scrupulous, meticulous, exacting technical worker with papyrus, from the time the museum opened in the morning until it closed in the afternoon. There is no doubt that he knows from personal experience how to do the work that needs to be done in conserving the codex that contains The Gospel of Judas. But he also has the responsibility for transcribing, translating, and publishing the text in the editio princeps, with its introduction, notes, and indices of Coptic words, Greek loan words, and proper names. He really does not have time to do the actual physical placement of fragments as well!
The Bibliothèque Bodmer did not have on its staff, the last time I visited it, a papyrus conservator. Presumably Kasser has enlisted people to do this work for him. How many, how regularly, with how much experience behind them? They must have had employment prior to this—did they get a leave of absence, or are they moonlighting? Do they have to come and go, or are they working full-time on this project? How long have they been at it? How many hours a day? At the Coptic Museum, we wanted to work more hours per day than the museum was open, so they finally broke down and gave me a key to the room where we worked, so that we could work after hours as long as we wanted. Do the conservators have unlimited access to their laboratory, or are their hours restricted? How are they reassembling the leaves from fragments, and establishing the sequence of the leaves?
Since I worked with Kasser in Cairo doing this same kind of task, I know the procedure that he must be implementing there.
First of all, there are (at least) three different tractates in the codex. The first task may be to sort the fragments, to determine to which tractate each fragment belongs. This could be relatively easy, since there are duplicates of two of the tractates in the Nag Hammadi Codices. Fortunately, the critical editions of the Nag Hammadi Codices include indices. One could readily look up in these indices any words that are legible on the fragments of the new codex, and determine if the fragment in question belongs to one or the other of these two previously known tractates. But in actual practice it is not all that simple. For the Coptic translations in the new codex are apparently different translations from those used in the Nag Hammadi Codices, or the Greek from which they were translated differs, or both. As a result, a fragment may belong to one of those tractates but not be identifiable as such, because it invo
lves a slight variation in wording. It is hence not certain that every fragment that cannot be placed in this way in one of the two previously known tractates belongs, by the process of elimination, to The Gospel of Judas.
The easiest fragment placements are of course those that occur when one fragment has the letters of part of a word and another fragment (or fragmentary leaf) has the other letters of that same word, and the two fit together nicely, as in a jigsaw puzzle. But one is not usually so lucky! There are many island placements, where a fragment does not actually touch the fragmentary leaf to which it belongs, but can be identified by the postulated flow of the lettering of the text. But this involves a higher degree of uncertainty.
Of course even the most “certain” placement must be verified by the continuity of fibers from one to the other. The fiber patterns serve as the “fingerprints” of papyrus, since no two sheets of papyrus have exactly the same pattern of papyrus strips. This flow of fibers, which are horizontal on one side and vertical on the other, confirms that the placement of a fragment is correct. Sometimes an identification can be made on the basis of the fibers, even though there is no recognizable continuity of lettering, and even if the two fragments do not actually touch and fit into each other’s edge.
When a fragment is thus “placed,” it is taken out of the mass of unidentified fragments and put together with the leaf or other fragment with which it belongs, together between panes of glass in their correct positioning in relation to each other, awaiting hopefully further fragments being placed on that same leaf. Thus bit by bit a leaf grows, sometimes beginning quite humbly with one medium-sized fragment, or only with a couple of small fragments that belong together, into, one hopes, a much fuller leaf. But even if it remains so minimal, it is still evidence of a leaf in the original codex, deserving to be counted if one seeks to determine the number of leaves that originally made up the codex, even if, for all practical purposes, that leaf is lost.
Only when all the conservation that is possible has taken place is one really in a position to count how many panes of glass with the remains of a leaf there are, in distinction from panes of glass containing only unidentified fragments.
The comments of Roberty in the interview of February 13– 14, 2006, are hence very understandable:
It was painstaking puzzle work. It will probably be going on for some time.
…because we had a few more fragments popping up very recently. So there will be—for a full publication of the codex—there will be a delay.
Publication the week after Easter, April 17–21, just two months after admitting that fragment placement “will probably be going on for some time,” “a delay”? Of course, Kasser knew how much time such work takes when he promised in his speech of July 1, 2004, to publish the editio princeps by the end of 2005, a deadline that no one expected him to meet. But then the National Geographic Society required a deadline of the week after Easter (April 16, 2006), to profit most from Easter always being the occasion for a Christian focus in the news magazines, not to mention the release of the film version of The Da Vinci Code (May 17, 2006). The team was enlarged, and focus must have been shifted away from a complete editio princeps that would include the Coptic text as well as the translation(s), to what may only be a preliminary popularizing translation, no matter what assurances Emmel thinks he has received. Roberty has already provided the excuse for not meeting the promised deadlines with a definitive work. Kasser could have provided these explanations from the very beginning, but no doubt had to agree to meet a 2005 deadline in order to get the assignment for himself. Once he had the assignment and the work was well underway, one deadline extension after the other would be understandable, and, for some of us, predictable.
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE GOSPEL OF JUDAS
So what will be the significance of The Gospel of Judas? In his interview by the German news magazine FOCUS Steve Emmel makes some sound speculations:10
EMMEL: Naturally the text awakens, because of its pretended author, the interest on the most varied sides. How interesting it will ultimately be, we do not yet know. Certainly it was not written by Judas Iscariot himself (laughs)…
FOCUS: It has to do with a pseudepigraph…
EMMEL:… Exactly, a genre that contains fictional ascriptions to apostolic authors. Decisive is whether the text provides a new perspective on the early history of Christianity. Up until now, one cannot speak of that. The people who previously owned the codex always thought only about money. Also the current owners are out for sensation. I still doubt though that the text proves to be so terribly exciting. There are hundreds of unpublished Coptic manuscripts, only none have such sensational a title.
FOCUS: Is the delay in publication a scandal?
EMMEL:… at least I would not work that way. I would have produced a provisional edition. Normally experts exchange texts one with another. Here it is apparently the goal to stay covered so that once it appears everyone will immediately buy the book. One understands: He who has access to an especially interesting text will perhaps always want to win something from it: money, fame, honor, or whatever.
FOCUS: For a long time there are attempts to define in a new way the relation of heresy and orthodoxy, in early Christianity, for example in the sense that the Gnostic “heresy” presented perhaps the original part of Christianity. Will The Gospel of Judas play a roll here?
EMMEL: There are people who believe that, or want to believe it. The topic could become exciting—if the new text were to prove once for all that in the beginning Christianity was completely different. For 2000 years the church has invested a great deal in the orthodox form of its history. It uses a historical myth to support faith. Scholars have said for a long time that the history must have taken place differently. But what really happened back then is debated. Also the Gospels of the Bible were probably not written by eyewitnesses. Most probably we will never learn who Jesus was or whether there ever was such a person. The new material no doubt shows only, still another time, that early Christianity is to be seen very diversely. Much is unclear as to what counted then as genuine, heretical or orthodox.
FOCUS: What religious thought lurks behind The Gospel of Judas?
EMMEL: The most interesting thing will be whether a theologically thought-out reason for the betrayal of Judas is named. We already know sources according to which Judas is a hero in a certain sense, since without him the Christian salvation history could not have taken its course.
FOCUS: A conscious blasphemy is excluded?
EMMEL: Not necessarily. The authors of these texts were partly very smart people who found the simple faith a bit laughable. It can be that it had to do with putting orthodox concepts intentionally on their head. That belongs to the spirit of the second century, in which the doctrine of Gnosticism reached its peak.
There has been much speculation on what the discovery of The Gospel of Judas would mean for the Roman Catholic Church. The Swiss reporter Ralph Pöhner writes:11
The name alone—Gospel of Judas!—may inflame theses of conspiracy and provoke speculation as to whether the Pope now needs to tremble and the Vatican is shaken in its foundations.
But he has to concede that this is hardly probable:12
What the text really signifies theologically is another question. “I doubt,” says Charles W. Hedrick, “that the leaders of organized Christianity will waste a second thought on it, once the excitement about its discovery has once passed.”
Thiede has also picked up on this potential sensation:13
Internet authors, in the style of Dan Brown’s super-seller critical of Rome, The Da Vinci Code, have long since fabricated stories about the “unheard of shock waves” of the text, which will soon “shake” the Catholic Church “in its foundations.” The public prepares itself to be able possibly to buy the original text of an ancient “Anti-Bible,” which presents the pre-Easter events in the year of Jesus’ death (or, if one prefers, only in early church history) in a completely different light fr
om what the orthodox presentations have to offer.
Yet it is not simply a matter of scholars being able to choose whichever one prefers, “pre-Easter events in the year of Jesus’ death” or something “in early church history.” They do not have the choice between what their research convinces them is historically accurate and what is just sensational. The Gospel of Judas is a second-century apocryphal Gospel that in all probability tells us about the Cainite Gnostics of the mid-second century, not about what happened in AD 30!
Even Henk Schutten publishes a newspaper report in Het Parool entitled “Is there a copy in the Vatican,” for which he interviewed Roberty:
Roberty does not rule out at all that the Vatican owns a copy of their own all this time, securely locked away. “In those days the Church decided for political reasons to include the Gospels of Luke, Mark, Matthew and John in the Bible. The other gospels were banned. It is highly logical that the Catholic Church would have kept a copy of the forbidden gospels. Sadly, the Vatican does not want to clarify further. Their policy has been the same for years: “No further comment.”
In the early centuries, there was no such thing as the Vatican, much less a Vatican library. But even if the Church had had a copy, which is of course pure speculation, would they have retained it through all the centuries—when the capital of the Roman Empire moved to Constantinople, when Rome was captured by the Goths, when the Vatican moved to Avignon, France, when the old basilica was replaced by the present cathedral? It is very, very, unlikely that a copy is safely hidden away in the Vatican archives, and if it were, it would be highly unlikely that anyone on the staff at the Vatican knows that it is. Such speculation is simply invented to heighten the sensationalism, while designed to discredit the Roman Catholic Church.
Secrets of Judas Page 16