Codex Tchacos is an
ancient Egyptian
Coptic
Coptic may refer to:
Afro-Asia
* Copts, an ethnoreligious group mainly in the area of modern Egypt but also in Sudan and Libya
* Coptic language, a Northern Afro-Asiatic language spoken in Egypt until at least the 17th century
* Coptic alphabet, t ...
papyrus
Papyrus ( ) is a material similar to thick paper that was used in ancient times as a writing surface. It was made from the pith of the papyrus plant, '' Cyperus papyrus'', a wetland sedge. ''Papyrus'' (plural: ''papyri'') can also refer to a ...
, which contains early
Christian
Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words '' Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρ ...
gnostic
Gnosticism (from grc, γνωστικός, gnōstikós, , 'having knowledge') is a collection of religious ideas and systems which coalesced in the late 1st century AD among Jewish and early Christian sects. These various groups emphasized pe ...
texts from approximately 300
AD: the
Letter of Peter to Philip
The Letter of Peter to Philip is a Gnostic Christian epistle found in the Nag Hammadi Library in Egypt. It was dated to be written around late 2nd century to early 3rd century CE and focuses on a post-crucifixion appearance and teachings of Jesu ...
, the
First Apocalypse of James
The First Apocalypse of James is a late second century Gnostic apocalypse.
Contents
The form of the text is primarily that of a Revelation Dialogue/Discourse between James the brother of Jesus (James the Just) and Jesus, with a rather fragme ...
, the
Gospel of Judas
The Gospel of Judas is a non-canonical Gnostic gospel. The content consists of conversations between Jesus and Judas Iscariot. Given that it includes late 2nd-century theology, it is widely thought to have been composed in the 2nd century (prio ...
, and a fragment of the Book of Allogenes (or the Book of the Stranger; this is different from the previously known Nag Hammadi text
Allogenes
Allogenes is a repertoire, or genre, of mystical Gnostic texts dating from the first half of the Third Century, CE. They concern Allogenes, "the Stranger" (or "foreigner"),Greek: (''allogenēs''), used in the Septuagint, meaning "rom adifferent f ...
).
Codex Tchacos is important because it contains the first known surviving copy of the Gospel of Judas, a text that was rejected as heresy by the early Christian church and lost for 1700 years. The Gospel of Judas was mentioned and summarized by the Church Father
Irenaeus of Lyons
Irenaeus (; grc-gre, Εἰρηναῖος ''Eirēnaios''; c. 130 – c. 202 AD) was a Greek bishop noted for his role in guiding and expanding Christian communities in the southern regions of present-day France and, more widely, for the deve ...
in his work ''
Against Heresies
''Against Heresies'' (Ancient Greek: Ἔλεγχος καὶ ἀνατροπὴ τῆς ψευδωνύμου γνώσεως, ''Elenchos kai anatropē tēs pseudōnymou gnōseōs'', "On the Detection and Overthrow of the So-Called Gnosis"), some ...
''.
[c. 180, Adv. Haer. 1.31.1.] This would make the Gospel of Judas older than the codex.
The Codex

The
codex
The codex (plural codices ) was the historical ancestor of the modern book. Instead of being composed of sheets of paper, it used sheets of vellum, papyrus, or other materials. The term ''codex'' is often used for ancient manuscript books, with ...
was rediscovered near
El Minya,
Egypt
Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Med ...
, during the 1970s, and stored in a variety of unorthodox ways by various dealers who had little experience with antiquities. One stored it in a
safe deposit box and another actually froze the documents, causing a unique and difficult kind of decay that makes the papyrus appear sandblasted. (Archivists can do nothing to remedy this damage since it is caused by the outer layers of the papyrus flaking off—taking ink with them.) Scholars heard rumors of the text from the 1980s onward as dealers periodically offered it for sale (displaying portions of the text or photographs of portions of the text in the process.) It was not examined and translated until 2001 after its current owner, Frieda Nussberger-Tchacos, concerned with its deteriorating condition, transferred it to the
Maecenas Foundation for Ancient Art The Maecenas Foundation is a Switzerland, Swiss foundation whose sole officer is Mario Roberty, a Swiss attorney. Centered in the city of Basel, it came to notice in 2005 when Swiss art dealer Frieda Nussberger-Tchacos, the owner of the Codex Tchaco ...
in
Basel, Switzerland
, french: link=no, Bâlois(e), it, Basilese
, neighboring_municipalities= Allschwil (BL), Hégenheim (FR-68), Binningen (BL), Birsfelden (BL), Bottmingen (BL), Huningue (FR-68), Münchenstein (BL), Muttenz (BL), Reinach (BL), Riehen ( ...
. She named it in honor of her father, Dimaratos Tchacos.
Roughly a dozen pages of the original manuscript, seen briefly by scholars in the 1970s, are missing from the Codex today; it is believed that they were sold secretly to dealers, but none have come forward. According to National Geographic's website, fragments purported to be from the codex may also be part of an Ohio antiquities dealer's estate.
In April 2006, a complete translation of the text, with extensive footnotes, was released by the
National Geographic Society
The National Geographic Society (NGS), headquartered in Washington, D.C., United States, is one of the largest non-profit scientific and educational organizations in the world.
Founded in 1888, its interests include geography, archaeology, ...
: ''The Gospel Of Judas'' (, April 2006). The Society also created a two-hour television documentary, ''The Gospel of Judas'', which aired worldwide on the
National Geographic Channel
National Geographic (formerly National Geographic Channel; abbreviated and trademarked as Nat Geo or Nat Geo TV) is an American pay television network and flagship channel owned by the National Geographic Global Networks unit of Disney General ...
on April 9, 2006. A special issue of ''
National Geographic'' magazine was also devoted to the Gospel of Judas. A critical edition of the Codex Tchacos, including complete, near life-sized color photographs of 26 pages, a revised transcription of the Coptic, and complete translation of the codex was published by National Geographic Society in 2007. The team also hopes to look at the cartonnage (a sort of paper-mâché used to stiffen the codex's cover) in order to find clues about who made the codex and when/where. (As a book the Tchacos Codex may be older than the twelve surviving codexes of the Nag Hammadi Library.)
April D. DeConick (the Isla Carroll and Percy E. Turner Professor of Biblical Studies in the Department of Religious Studies at
Rice University
William Marsh Rice University (Rice University) is a private research university in Houston, Texas. It is on a 300-acre campus near the Houston Museum District and adjacent to the Texas Medical Center. Rice is ranked among the top universit ...
) has published a book, ''The Thirteenth Apostle: What the Gospel of Judas Really Says'', questioning both the ''National Geographic's'' handling of the Gospel of Judas' publication and the veracity of its translation. She has argued both that ''National Geographic'' denied competent scholars access and that the scholars who were granted access to the Codex Tchacos were not able to go about their work properly due to the constraints put upon them, accusations similar to those leveled at the guardians of the
Dead Sea Scrolls
The Dead Sea Scrolls (also the Qumran Caves Scrolls) are ancient Jewish and Hebrew religious manuscripts discovered between 1946 and 1956 at the Qumran Caves in what was then Mandatory Palestine, near Ein Feshkha in the West Bank, on the ...
. Most notably, she points out that the first ''National Geographic'' translation omitted a "not," reversing the meaning of the text. In an opinion piece in ''The New York Times'' (December 2, 2007), she wrote:
The importance of the Codex Tchacos is not in doubt, but work has only begun in understanding its true influence and origin.
Notes
References
* J. Brankaer and H.-G. Bethge (eds), ''Codex Tchacos: Texte und Analysen'' (Berlin, Walter de Gruyter, 2007) (TU, 161).
External links
{{Commons
Frequently Asked Questions from National Geographic.
''The New York Times,'' December 1, 2007.
4th-century books
4th-century manuscripts
Gnostic apocrypha
Coptic manuscripts
Coptic literature