Sunday, March 19, 2006

Gospel of Judas on Sunday

The lead feature on this morning's Sunday programme on Radio 4 was on the Gospel of Judas. Simon Gathercole, Senior Lecturer in New Testament at the University of Aberdeen, was interviewed by Roger Bolton. You can listen here:

Sunday

The interview with Simon runs from about 9:10 to 13:30.

I can claim a little influence here. I had a long phone-call with the producer about the Gospel on Friday morning, expressed a little reluctance about the thought of driving in to Durham on a Saturday to do an interview, and recommended Simon, who did an excellent job, especially in explaining that the Gospel cannot tell us anything of interest about the historical Jesus and the historical Judas, which is always, of course, the angle the media are inclined to explore. Simon explained that the Gospel was written long after the living memory of the apostles, and that it featured anachronisms equivalent to our writing a document about Queen Victoria in which she comments on The Lord of the Rings and on her CD collection.

7 comments:

crystal said...

I've been following your posts about the gospel of Judas ... I've quoted this post of yours on my blog - hope that's ok. Thanks for the info.

Michael said...

I've been meaning to buy that Victoria CD. I hear she was quite the Tolkein fan, as well as having a fancy for Jaguars.

Anonymous said...

Hiya Mark

I understand why you could go on about missing British Tele and radio. Seeing the American stuff we get on the channel 4 spin offs e.g. E4, E4+1, More 4 etc. I completely understand! However there is this really good comedy called "my name is earl", that's a real novel comedy. But what do I know, there's probably a gazzillion channels in America and what we get is a tip of the iceberg. Dunno if you like the footie, watching it would be a hassle, I would miss the football.

Jonah

Mark Goodacre said...

Yes, we get My Name is Earl on Thursday nights, just before the American version of The Office, which has made a very successful transfer from the UK. On the footie front, we have Fox Soccer Channel, and I am watching more live football now than I ever was in England -- it's great!

Anonymous said...

Hi, Mark. I missed the radio program and, sadly, cannot find an archive of it. Can you be more specific about the anachronisms in the "Gospel of Judas" text that Prof. Gathercole pointed out? I would be grateful for your insights.

Blessings,

Steve

Mark Goodacre said...

I don't think Simon specified any anachronisms -- he was just illustrating the general point. But I don't recall that specifically.

Anonymous said...

Okay, perhaps I'll drop him a note.

Take care.