Sunday, April 16, 2006

MORE COPTIC GNOSTICA? This BYU panel discussion on The Gospel of Judas is not of great interest in itself, since it mostly covers well-trodden ground. But these comments by Professor S. Kent Brown merit highlighting:
When asked if the world should expect similar discoveries in the future, Brown said "yes." He said this gospel may be part of a larger cache that includes other documents.
"I actually had my hands on some of those, once," he added.
The texts he saw were being offered for sale and have yet to surface, he said. He believes the reason the documents haven't surfaced may be because they were obtained illegally. He's glad BYU didn't buy them, he said.
"That might have brought stain on the university," he said. "Right now the university enjoys wonderful relationships with authorities in Egypt."
And here we have the problem with looted antiquities. On the one hand we don't want to encourage the looters and the whole illegal-antiquities-trafficking infrastructure. On the other, we don't want to lose ancient manuscripts like the ones Brown seems to have seen, and sometimes these are found by accident and quite innocently. Whatever the solution in this case, it goes without saying that the Egyptian Government should be involved with it.

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