A fascinating article about the ethics involved in buying/using stolen items, written as the result of a decision by The National Geographic Society to publish a translation of the Gospel of Judas, which illegally smuggled from Egypt. Under international law the current owners don't have legal title to the manuscript, because it is classed as stolen: "When the Gospel of Judas first surfaced in Geneva in 1983, scholars wondered if the mysterious text could trigger a reappraisal of history's most infamous traitor. They never found out, however, because they couldn't afford the $3 million price tag on this second-century gnostic tale. Instead, the fragile pages vanished into private hands and set off on a 23-year, intercontinental journey through fist-pounding negotiations and even periods, reportedly, stuffed inside a Greek beauty's purse. . . . But the saga may be just beginning. That's because thieves apparently lifted the manuscript from the Egyptian desert, kicking off decades of illicit trafficking - and an ethical dilemma: Is it right to pay for and publish stolen documents for the purpose of spreading knowledge?"
On the one hand, the knowledge contained in the manuscript becomes public property, but on the other, a value is created for manuscripts acquired under similar circumstances. See the story on the above web page.
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Judas's Gospel. Error of Interpretation or Falsification?
The investigator Hispanic-Cuban Georgeos Diaz Montexano has realized a meticulous study of the principal papyrus of the codex that compose this supposed 'Judas's Gospel', and has found quite convincing proofs that the texts have been misinterpreted or maltraducidos, and that cannot affirm - in a categorical way - that it is not a question of a 'Gospel' either that it should not even belong to the same Judas Iscariote who is mentioned in the canonical Gospels of the New Testament. There even exist important indications that point to that it is a question as a possible fraud (at least in some parts of the document), created by some of the traffickers of antiquities implied, that for years had direct access to the codex.
Shortly it will go out publisher in several mass media of Spain these new paleographical discoveries.
The expert in paleography and ancient languages, Georgeos Diaz-Montexano, who knows very well the Egyptian language and his dialects, since it is Coptic Sahidic, has commented that in a few days in a personal Blog of his (http://georgeos-diaz-montexano.sitio.net/) there will publish a summary of these rewatching evidences, before going out in the mass media of the written press.
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Detail of the end of the codex where, according to the publishers hired by National Geographic it is possible to read "P.EUAGGELION Ñ.IOUDAS", that is to say, 'Judas's Gospel'. Click in the following link: http://www.antiquos.com/Copto/nioudas.swf, for to see the animation in flash.
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Maria FV Peñas
Madrid, Spain
05-11-2006
http://www.Antiquos.com/
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