The Codex Judas Papers

What to my wondering eyes should appear but

The Codex Judas Papers

! It arrived this morning in my mailbox, all 650 pages of it, and remarkably published in the year after the Codex Judas Congress had convened here at Rice University (March 13-16, 2008).

April DeConick (ed.). 2009.

The Codex Judas Papers: Proceedings of the International Congress on the Tchacos Codex held at Rice University, Houston, Texas, March 13-16, 2008.

Nag Hammadi and Manichaean Studies 71. Leiden: Brill.

It is an expensive volume so you might need to check it out of your library. See my

earlier post about the book for ordering information

.

The papers in it are of the highest quality, and the volume represents a landmark in Gnostic studies and our understanding of the

Gospel of Judas

. Scholars address issues of identity and community, portraits of Judas, astrological lore, salvation and praxis, text and intertext, and manuscript matters. Although the contributions show a variety of interpretations of the Tchacos texts, several points of agreement emerge, including the assessment that the Codex belonged to early Christians affiliated with classic Gnostic or Sethian traditions who were in conflict with other Christians belonging to the apostolic or conventional church.

Contributors include (in order of their appearance): Alastair Logan, Karen King, Johannes van Oort, Marvin Meyer, Gesine Schenke Robinson, John Turner, Birger Pearson, Fernando Bermejo Rubio, Kevin Sullivan, Ismo Dunderberg, Pierluigi Piovanelli, April DeConick, Nicola Denzey Lewis, Grant Adamson, Niclas Förster, Franklin Trammell, Elaine Pagels, Bas van Os, Johanna Brankaer, Tage Petersen, Louis Painchaud, Serge Cazelais, Matteo Grosso, Lance Jenott, Simon Gathercole, Gregor Wurst, Wolf-Peter Funk, Antti Marjanen, James Robinson.