DeConick gives enough information about the transmission of the text and the role of National Geographic in its initial public translation to alert the reader to possible motives and controls at work other than those normally associated with scholarly professionalism. DeConick even has an interesting section that surveys the different films of Jesus before and since World War 2 and compares particularly the portrayal of Judas in those pre- and those post-Holocaust movies - in the pre-war movies he was always an evil villain through and through in the post-war movies he has been depicted with more understanding and compassion - a well-meaning idealist who just happened not to think the same way as Jesus. So much for Maloney and Archer’s collaboration on their fictional cum theological treatise of their Judas gospel! And this compulsion has led us to reappraise our portrayals of the bad Jew/Judah/Judas embedded in our foundational Christian myth. She suggests with Professor Louis Painchaud that since World War 2 and the Holocaust, and the widespread anti-Semitism preceding those years, there has been a powerful cultural need to absolve our collective guilt over the treatment of the Jews. She explains in easy to read terms the condition of the text and possible variations in how the original Coptic could be read. Fourthly, April DeConick proposes several reasons to explain such oppositional translations:. Like the Gospel of Mark, the Gospel of Judas was a parody and attack on apostolic Christianity and its doctrine of the atoning sacrifice of Jesus. 
Which immediately raises the question: Why would a gospel make the central character a demon? DeConick shows how the apparent structure and thematic development of the gospel aligns it with an agenda opposing that Christianity that traced its genealogy back to the Twelve Apostles.The National Geographic translation depicts Judas as the only true saint DeConick’s, as the arch demon himself - or at least destined to join with him in the end. Secondly, for most of us who have read the National Geographic translation of the Gospel of Judas, be prepared for a radical re-think of what we have read there.
Firstly, the book is easily accessible to the lay reader even though it discusses technical translation issues of the Coptic, as well as some of the history of the scholarship relating to the Gospel of Judas and its broader context.So many comments need to be made directed at so many interests:
I have just finished reading April DeConick‘s new book, The Thirteenth Apostle: What the Gospel of Judas Really Says.
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