April DeConick (Isla Carroll and Percy E. Turner Professor of Biblical Studies at Rice University) now has a new blog–called The Forbidden Gospels–which deals with apocryphal gospels, including the Gospel of Judas. Mmmm, “forbidden” — sounds delicious.

Commenting on a recent academic conference at the Sorbonne, DeConick notes the following about independent scholars’ common critiques of the National Geographic translation and interpretation of the Gospel of Judas:

The release of these popular materials was the public debut of the Gospel of Judas, but the Sorbonne conference was its academic debut, the moment that can be marked as the beginning of its academic assessment. Although the twenty-five presentations were varied on topic and method, what was surprising to many present was the fact that three scholars in attendance (myself, Louis Painchaud, and John Turner) presented papers with very similar interpretations and criticisms of the team’s transcription, translation, and representation of the Gospel. Each of us had worked independently at different universities (April DeConick, Rice University; Louis Painchaud, University of Laval; and John Turner, University of Nebraska-Lincoln) and were unaware of the opinions of each other until the presentations were made.

I also have a number of posts on the early Christian Apocrypha and Gnosticism, as well as the Gospel of Judas (including some of Painchaud’s opinions) here on this blog. And, of course, you already know about Tony’s excellent blog Apocryphicity.

Thanks to Stephen Carlson for noting this new blog by DeConick.