Its not often that I get a chance to flex my Religious Studies major but I thought it would be a good time for a bit of a rant and a bit of a book review. The book is about media manipulation, hype, and how they butt up against scholarly research. By way of opening remember the Da Vinci Code, the book by Dan Brown and movie. Remember all the hype and hoopla associated with it. The book and movie’s main character, a symbologist (although he is clearly a semiotitician but that is a much harder word isn’t it?), is drawn into a web of danger, intrigue, and crafty thousand year old puzzles surrounding the ultimate secret of Christianity… that Jesus had a wife! Now that has sunk in and you are back in your chair don’t worry. For advertising purposes you were probably made to think that this is new, unheard of previously, and a shocking idea. However, this particular “heresy” is almost as old as the canonical gospels themselves and has long been known to scholars of ancient Christianity and early Gnostic sects of Christianity. Not exactly ideas that will crumble modern Christianity. I thought the vdov readership might like a book that unmasks this kind of sensationalism for what it is.

You may also remember that right before Easter Sunday in 2006 and just prior to the Da Vinci Code movie release there was the publication of a couple books on the newly found “Gospel of Judas” which presents an alternate view of the most infamous of Jesus’ disciples. There was of course an immediate media uproar with wild claims and unfounded speculation as to what this new gospel would mean for the Catholic Church, the future of Christianity, etc. etc. Now enter James M. Robinson, perhaps the foremost scholar on ancient Christian texts and specifically to alternative “gospels” like “The Gospel of Judas”. Robinson’s book The Secrets of Judas lays bare the shady history of the Swiss owners of the Gospel of Judas, their flagrant hyping of the document for cash, the fevered speculation of the news media, the anti-scholarly approach taken to the document, and finally the actual importance (in a scholarly fashion) of the document itself.

What really makes the book excellent is the almost conversational tone. It is very nearly like a chat with an old emeritus professor who knows all the key players and all the inside info. It’s an excellent window into the worlds of antiquity dealing, Coptic scholarship, and early Christian history. It is almost impossible not to get wrapped up in the details. I have yet to read the “official” account of the Gospel of Judas (which has been somewhat “whitewashed” it seems). However, I can only guess that it will seem very hollow and hyperbolic after this book. The subject matter of The Secrets of Judas is somewhat esoteric, but Robinson put everything in layman’s terms and explains the obscure bits in a way that is succinct and engaging. I definitely recommend the read.