The Gospel of Judas

Remember a year or two ago when the Gospel of Judas was released with such hype? The people selling the books (in this case, the National Geographic Society) said that the recently discovered Gnostic text told the story of how Judas was really a good guy, the most trusted disciple, and turned Jesus over because that's what Jesus wanted.

Well, it turns out that the Gospel of Judas doesn't say that at all. In December 2007, April Deconick, a Professor at Rice, wrote a devastating piece in the New York Times based on her translation of the original coptic.

So what does the Gospel of Judas really say? It says that Judas is a specific demon called the “Thirteenth.” In certain Gnostic traditions, this is the given name of the king of demons — an entity known as Ialdabaoth who lives in the 13th realm above the earth. Judas is his human alter ego, his undercover agent in the world. These Gnostics equated Ialdabaoth with the Hebrew Yahweh, whom they saw as a jealous and wrathful deity and an opponent of the supreme God whom Jesus came to earth to reveal.

Whoever wrote the Gospel of Judas was a harsh critic of mainstream Christianity and its rituals. Because Judas is a demon working for Ialdabaoth, the author believed, when Judas sacrifices Jesus he does so to the demons, not to the supreme God. This mocks mainstream Christians’ belief in the atoning value of Jesus’ death and in the effectiveness of the Eucharist. (source)

So much for Judas being the misunderstood good hero. The latest chapter is that the National Geographic Society (NGS) team is now working with the community of scholars (including Professor Deconick) and have substantially revised the English translation that got so much attention:

Marv and Gregor's revised popular edition of the Gospel of Judas should be released any day, and it is a much more "neutral" translation. Marv and Gregor asked each of us at the Codex Judas Congress to take a look at it and give input. Of course, they made the final decisions on what was changed and what was not, and there is not unanimous agreement. But their willingness to ask other scholars to be involved is exactly how the best scholarship is accomplished. It is too bad that the NGS policy did not allow for this the first time around, but that is water under the bridge now. (source)

The whole thing is another example of how the media's quest for sensational stories about Jesus distort scholarship. Yet it's hard to ignore the money these organizations have to fund research.

-t

Aesthetics

Father Jake's blog tends to discuss to focus a lot on the current controversies in the Episcopal Church, but check out this entry that is a response to a recent New Yorker Article by Tobias Wolff on the power of aesthetics.

And what drew me back, some time later, toward the possibility of faith? Poetry. George Herbert and Gerard Manley Hopkins and T. S. Eliot. One night, I was reading the last lines of “Little Gidding” to a friend, my voice thick with emotion, and when I looked up he was staring at me with kindly amusement. “So,” he said. “You really like that stuff?” (Wolff as quoted by Fr. Jake)

That's the thing about aesthetics: different people respond to the same signs and symbols differently. When we make the decision to, say, sing one hymn and not another, we have already privileged a certain set of tastes over another.

-t

Charlotte in Hawai'i

Here's a picture of my niece, Charlotte, at my dad's place:



-t

Baptism?

Here's one for the ain't-ministry-odd bin.

A guy comes in (without an appointment, of course) and wants to talk to me about baptism. I say "Great, have a seat." Then he explains that he grew up Muslim (in Africa) but not particularly religious. Since coming to Canada, he sees that there is truth in all religions and has found great spiritual unity with the divine power and would like to be baptized. As we explored further, he revealed that he had no interest in going to church, and had never, in fact, been in a church before that moment. Nor had he read even a small part of the Bible, but he wanted to be baptized. Why not come to church? Because Christians aren't very good people, according to what he's heard on TV. Shouldn't he come and judge for himself? No, thanks, he just wanted to be baptized and get out of here.

He is then quite mystified that I won't just baptize him right then and there. Why does it have to be on a Sunday? He doesn't want to sign up for anything--he just wants to be baptized. In fact, he tells me, he's already been baptized by the Divine Spirit. Why does he need me? Because, he says, it's important to fulfill outward appearances. Umm, huh.

So I'm at a loss with what to do with this guy. Interestingly, he seems to think he knows what Christianity is and what baptism is, and is not convinced otherwise be me. I pull out the BAS and try to walk him through the sacrament so he can understand it better, but he's not really listening to me except to find loopholes. His desire for this sacrament is totally based on a selfish desire for some metaphysical benefit that he could not describe but expects to receive.

So I'm polite and give him water to drink and suppress my frustration that this guy could be so ignorant and presumptuous. I tried to tell him a parable about how foolish it would be for me to tell him things about his home country based upon rumors I had heard--that I must listen to people like himself to know the place. He counters that rumors I have heard about his country are probably correct, and that I know all I need to know about his country. I realize, by this, that he is just playing games with me and has no interest in learning anything new--he just wants this blessing.

Stalemate. I tell him that I'm not going to baptize him today--but I exhort him to come on a Sunday and meet people and see how the church feels. He goes away utterly unchanged in his opinions. Hard not to feel like I failed to give a good account of "the hope that is in me." Sigh. They don't prepare you for this crap in seminary.

-t

The Pound

The other day, when Obama won the nomination, he touched fists with his wife in a gesture that's similar (but cooler) than the old high-five. Some people in the media (Fox news) called this a "terrorist fist jab" and then had to apologize when they realized what most people know: that the "pound" is gesture congratulations. I even do it with parishioners sometimes!



I love it.

-t

David and Velma's Visit

Betsy's parents, David and Velma, drove up from Pennsylvania to be with us this past weekend. It's always nice to have them around. On Monday we went with them our neighbors to a baseball game.





-t

Spring Fling Photos

The parish held a "Spring Fling" last weekend: about 24 of us gathered to clean up the gardens and plant things. Appropriately, it was also the 5-year anniversary of my ordination as a Deacon. Time for some servant leadership. A few pictures....





I was pleased that we had such a good turnout and that the planting turned out so well.

-t

Sermon - Pentecost 4 2008

Last Sunday's lessons were pretty complex--but the thread connecting them seemed to be this notion that we grow by moving beyond our homes to "those regions which are beyond." I was reminded of my seminary moto: In Illa Quae Ultra Sunct. (yes, I'm sure that spelling is wrong.) I argued that this extends to the post-Christian world. What takes us into those places is a certain and sure faith.



Here's a direct link to the MP3 file...

-t

Sermon - Pentecost 3 2008

This sermon was a call to return to the essentials of faith. I also talked about how the renewal of the Church of The Messiah begins with a sense of foundational truth--the love we have received from God--and then to the foundations of our church: community, building, worship, mission.



Here's a direct link to the MP3 file...

-t

Chant

Matthew (the Director of Music and Liturgical Arts) and I are planning ahead for summer worship without the choir. One of the things we are talking about doing is chanting the psalms. It is difficult to assess, however, how easily the congregation will learn this style of singing. It is also tricky to think of good ways to teach it. I wonder whether anyone out there in the blogosphere has any ideas?

-t

More Publicity for the "Naked Truth" Calendar

The Calendar my Dad's wife and their friends made to promote the cause of 100% pure Kona Coffee has gotten more press. The Star Bulletin's article makes more of the feminist angle and makes it clear that the calendar "suggests everything but reveals nothing," as Mary Lou Moss is quoted saying.

Apparently they sold out of the first printing and are going to print another run. Good for them!

-t

Birgenair 301

As regular readers of my blog know, I have a macabre interest in airline crashes. This probably stems for a healthy diet of such stories in my youth. Growing up as the son of a Boeing Project Manager and the grandson of a Pan Am Pilot will do that to you.

I saw a documentary about the sad case of Birgenair 301 the other day. The Boeing 757-225 had spent almost a month sitting on the Tarmac at the airport in Puerto Plata before being called into service in 1996. The Turkish crew was glad to finally be returning home, which may have been a factor in the Captain's decision not to abort takeoff when he and the co-pilot noticed that their airspeed indicators were disagreeing. Later, the investigation would determine that the pitot tube on the captain's side had been blocked and was giving false readings as a result. The co-pilot's system was correct all along.

At the point the two pilots noticed the problem, they still had room to abort, but instead the captain decided to proceed to acceleration and the take-off roll. Once in the air, he continued a string of mistakes that lead to the loss of the aircraft and 189 people. First, he activated the autopilot despite the faulty airspeed readings. By default the autopilot computer uses input from the captain's side pitot tube and therefore was misled. As the plane gained altitude, the pressure outside the blocked pitot tube went down, creating a differential between the inside and outside of the tube that was interpreted as data for the ASI (Air Speed Indicator). As they gained altitude the "speed" increased. The autopilot attempted to correct the problem by pulling the nose up and reducing power to the maximum of its authority.

In reality, the plane's speed was dropping precariously, but the pilots were being bombarded with warnings that they were traveling too fast. The pilots, confused about the source of the warnings, wasted precious seconds resetting the circuit breakers. This would only temporarily silence the alarms. Not trusting either ASI, the captain then made the critical mistake of pulling back on the throttles still further. This brought them to the edge of a stall. The computer sensed the stall and automatically disconnected the autopilot and made the pilot's control column shake as a warning of immanent stall.

Confused by the contradictory warnings (overspeed vs. stall) the captain failed to take action to avoid the stall. The co-pilot and a relief pilot in a jump seat behind the captain suggested that he maneuver to level flight. However, he maintained the nose-up attitude and the airplane began to enter the stall. Getting desperate, the pilot pushed the throttles to full power, but by that time the airspeed over the wing was too slow to support the setting and one engine failed. The asymmetrical power introduced yawl which exacerbated the stall. The airplane fell over on one wing and plummeted into the ocean. Everyone on-board died.

Several failures caused the accident. For one thing, the pitot tubes should have been covered to protect them on the ground. For another, the captain should have aborted take-off. Once in the air, he should have maintained awareness of what the aircraft was doing or delegate that task. Instead, he became preoccupied with the faulty instrumentation and failed to notice that the autopilot was taking them to the edge of the flight envelope. Then, once they were about the enter the stall, he ignored the advice of the two junior pilots. At that point, American crews are trained for the co-pilot to take over control. He should have taken hold of the control column and pushed forward. But remember, this was a turkish crew, and it is not culturally appropriate for a junior to usurp authority in this manner. These days, crews are trained in something called CRM (Crew Resource Management), which recognizes that crew members need to be smart about who pays attention to what as a crises looms. Too many people have died because pilots have been overwhelmed by the complexity of their aircraft.

To be fair to the captain, several crews put through a simulator failed this test. The contradictory warnings have a way of unnerving people. As a result, Boeing made changes in the warning systems and pilots are now required to go through at least one blocked-pitot tube scenario in simulator training.

That makes me feel better.

-t