Conspiracy theories. Dr. Barton

Dr. Albert Mohler has posted this article on the Da Vinci Code, and this on N.T. Wright's response, and this on conspiracy theories. And, if you really want to hear some good stuff on the subject, listen to him.

I have to confess that I despise conspiracy theories, whether held by Dr. Langdon or Texe Marrs. Like most people, I suppose, I watched most of the early series' of The X-Files back in the 1990s, and I enjoyed it. Conspiracy theories make good entertainment. But when I hear (as I heard the other week) of a man or woman (I like to think that most conspiracy nuts are men) who actually believes in a conspiracy theory and lives in such a fantasy world, I want to shout that the man is a NUTCASE!!! To be honest, I have found in my career that conspiracy theories are the result of wanting to explain the whole world in some simplistic way. Everything is explained through the Conspiracy. But life just isn't like that. Life's complicated. I want to tell Jack Chick that the Roman Catholic Church did not create Islam, and I want to tell Dr. Langdon that the Roman Church (which did not exist as a separate entity in the 2nd Century) did not supress the truth about Jesus.

Please, let's get around to real history, not silly conspiracy theories.

The Characters

Dr. Norman Trevelyan, D.D., L.L.D., Ph.D., etc. is Professor of Religious Archaelogy at New College, Edinburgh. He has published books detailing his excavations at Samaria, Jerusalem, Babylon, Nineveh, and other places. In addition to these he has published on such widespread topics as Biblical criminology, the psychology of conspiracy theory, and the religious symbolism of the Hittites. He is married with eight children, and is an elder at Free St. George's. Dr. Trevelyan was born in Mumbai (Bombay), the son of an English father and an Indian mother. He is a crack-shot, an expect swordsman, a horseman of considerable skill and a licenced pilot. Some have compared him to Indiana Jones, a comparison he publically laughs at and privately enjoys. He lives in Edinburgh's New Town when he is not out digging things up.

Dr. Lilian P. Barton, Ph.D.,M.A., etc. is Professor of Symbology at St. Luke's college, Wymondham. Born in the United States, Dr. Barton has accompanied Dr. Trevelyan on many expeditions, and is a crack-shot herself. In fact she has many surprising accomplishments. Dr. Barton is unmarried, blonde and attractive. She has written two books on the Knights Templars, one on the Holy Grail, and one on the symbology of the Catholic Apostolic Church. She also reads widely in other disciplines. Her voice has been described as 'custardy' by some of her students. Apparently that is a compliment.

Rev. Sir Richard Arcos is pastor of the Mount Zion Free Grace Baptist Church, Mount Arcos, California. He is also owner of the Mount Arcos studio, and of Arcos Industries (notable for not actually making anything except movies). A prolific writer of film scripts he lives in a sprawling mansion in the Hollywood Hills. He has written a number of books, most notoriously a book on the Calvinist/Arminian controversy entitled A Whip for Free-Willers, which has been banned by every Christian Bookstore in the world, except the one attatched to his church. Sir Richard Arcos claims to be descended from the last Imperial line of Constantinople. Sir Richard Arcos is married, with seven children and four cats. He has no degrees.

Rev. Dr. James Rainy, D.D. is pastor of the Glenshilloch United Free Church. A former moderator of the United Free Church of Scotland, Dr. Rainy trained fror the ministry at New College, Edinburgh. He has written widely on textual criticism and the reliability of scripture, most recently in his book Jesus Said It! in which he defends the reliability of the gospel texts. Dr. Rainy is a widower with one daughter.


[Note: let it be understood that these characters (including Dr. Trevelyan) are entirely fictitious. With the exception of New College, Edinburgh, the institutions to which they belong are also fictitious. Any resemblance to real characters, either living or dead, is purely coincidental. Write to me if you object. Objections will be filed with Dr. Barton]

For any new readers

Some people may be a little confused by reading this blog. Who are the characters posting? And why do they refer to The Da Vinci Code's Dr. Robert Langdon and Sir Leigh Teabing as if they were real people?

The answer to these questions, in reverse order, is that I have deliberately adopted a semi-fictional format for this blog. Unlike the Da Vinci Code, however, all facts in this blog have been properly researched either in academic articles on the Internet, or in serious, scholarly books.
The characters are fictitious. There is only one writer in fact, and that is me. Some of the 'Sir Richard Arcos' posts contain more or less edited communications from a history Masters Student in Cardiff who periodically sends me information.

When did the Church start calling Mary Magdalene a Prostiture? Dr. Rainy

It is true that traditional Roman Catholic teaching confuses Mary Magdalene with the 'woman who was a sinner' in Luke 7.37. Dr. Langdon dates this from the fourth century, and claims that 'the Vatican' was responsible. Never mind the popes lived at the Lateran in those days, of course.
I'd agree with him, on the whole. But what Dr. Langdon does not seem to realise is that there never was a time when the whole Church regarded the Pope as head. The Eastern Orthodox Churches have always considered themselves equal to the Western Catholc Church, and the Patriarchs of Antioch, Constantinople, Alexandria and Jerusalem were of equal authority to the Church of Rome.
Eastern Greek fathers never confused Mary Magdalene and the 'Woman who was a sinner'. But in the West Pope Gregory I (Gregory the Great) did confuse the two. In fact, he confused Mary Magdalene, the 'Woman who was a sinner' and Mary of Bethany, the sister of Lazarus. He did this in a sermon in 591. This confusion of the three was common in the West until the Reformation, when Protestant exegetes actually looked at the original text of Scripture, they realised that Gregory had been hoplessly confused, and they distinguished the three.
Preaching on Mary Magdalene, I have noted first of all that she was not a prostitute, but a rich woman who was possessed by 'seven demons'. She must have been wealthy because she 'ministered' to Christ of 'her substance'.

Gospel of Judas resources (Dr. Barton)

Let it not be said that we do not give you all the information that you need. Here I shall be posting links to the reactions of all the major UK papers to the 'Gospel of Judas'.
The Times has this to say:
April 6th
April 7th
April 8th

The Telegraph articles, which we have been discussing here, are here:
April 7th, news article
April 7th, feature article ('Page 33')
Verses 5-25 of the 'Gospel'

The Guardian.
March 23rd. The Guardian notes the Daily Mail's hysteria.
April 7th. An excellent, balanced and sane article! I may start reading the Guardian after this!

The Independent.
April 7th. An 'underwhelming' article, so just what I've come to expect from the Independent.

Update: You can read the text of the Gospel of Judas in English translation via a link here. Another link contains the wonderful comment that "the premise alone is CLASSIC gnostic-type hooey!" The informed public have spoken!

Juggling with Judas. Dr. Barton

I have not seen this 'Gospel of Judas' text, only the quotations in the Telegraph (Dr. Trevelyan's copy, I'm staying with him while I do some research at New College, Edinburgh). It's pretty straightforward Gnosticism, if you ask me. Listen to this: "Often [Jesus] would not appear to his disciples as himself, but he was found among them as a child." Contrast that with the Jesus of the Gospels, who had a real phyical form.

Or how about this: "Judas said to him [Jesus] 'I know who you are and where you have come from. You are from the immortal realm of Barbelo. And I am not worthy to utter the name of the one who has sent you." Contrast that with the Gospel account that 'God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him might not perish but have everlasting life.' Give me the old Gospel any time.
This is just Gnosticism, which we have known about for centuries. And, no doubt, I shall be taking questions on it in the classroom when we get back to work in Wymondham. I look forward to hearing Dr. Rainy preaching on Easter Sunday, affirming the Truth.

If you want a proper, sensible assessment of this 'Gospel', there's one here.

Disturbing for Christians? Dr. Rainy

Should the discovery of the Gnostic 'Gospel of Judas' disturb us as we move forwards towards Easter? Ought I to use the pulpit at Glenshilloch to tell my congregation that we cannot be sure? Of course not! We have known about this text for centuries from the works of Irenaeus, who called it a 'fiction', to have the text Irenaeus read and opposed is of interest for people like Dr. Trevelyan, who study Church History in depth. We have previously only known this work from quotations in Irenaeus only, now we can compare Irenaeus' version of the book with the actual text. But there is really nothing here that is any more shocking or disturbing than the contents of the Nag Hammadi manuscripts found some fifty or so years ago.

More importantly, this text was actually found Thirty years ago! It's not a new discovery. So let us all calm down, smile, and say 'well, of course it's interesting.'
The Telegraph article from Friday April 7th (Page 33) claims that "if the Gospel [of Judas] was written in the middle of the second century, then it is almost contemporaneous with the Gospel of John." The trouble is that this is taking the very latest date for John, and the earliest for this 'Gospel of Judas'. But the earliest date for John is about AD 68-85. The Liberal John A.T. Robinson actually thought that the whole N.T. was complete by AD 70, since there is no mention of the destruction of Jerusalem in any New Testament book.
Disturbing? No, just interesting.

The Gospel of Judas, by Dr. Trevelyan

No doubt all of you will have heard of this text that is being trumpeted by all the usual suspects. Imagine my amusement as I turned over my Daily Telegraph here in Edinburgh on Friday morning to read the headline 'Gospel of Judas Presents traitor as Jesus' favourite.

The right-wing media over here can be just as anti-Christian as the left-wing. Both are pretty much packed with theological liberals. Thus I was not at all surprised to read in my Telegraph the following: "The publication of the gospel... will spark debate, with some experts arguing that it challenges traditional Christianity." To be fair, the next sentence read: "But other scholars said it was a mystical work by a minor sect that was written long after the New Testament gospels and which had no links with the historical Jesus." You will have gathered that I am of the second sort of scholars.
The phrase quoted on the front page of Friday's Telegraph interested me. "In a key phrase, Jesus says: But you will exceed all of them. For you will sacrifice the man that clothes me."
Sir Richard Arcos has recently been dealing with the Docetic Gnostic gospels, those who taught that Christ was not really a man. The Gnostic sect who produced this particular 'gospel' taught that the Christ Aeon was united in some way to the man Jesus and that, once the Aeon had given its teaching, the man Jesus had to be killed to free the Aeon so that it could return to the Pleroma, the spiritual fulness. Note that, in their own way, this sect, the Cainites, denied the true humanity of Christ. 'the man' is merely 'clothing' for the Aeon, nothing more.

Turning to page 6 for the rest of the article, I found Bart Ehrman quoted (surprise), but also Prof. Simon Gathercole of Aberdeen University. Prof. Gathercole said: "It contains themes which are alien to the first-century world of Jesus and Judas, but which became popular later."
In other words, the book contains an anachronistic philosophy and worldview.
I applaud the Telegraph for their full-page, in-depth article on P. 33, not so much for the tone of the article (the writer, Daimian Thompson, seems to have bought the whole of Bart Ehrman's thought), but for its quotations from 'Judas'. They reveal that the Gnostic 'Jesus' of the Gospel of Judas was not born, but he 'appeared'.
Unfrtunately, as I have already said, the actual article is basically a regurgitation of Bart Ehrman, who is quoted extensively. Mr. Thompson says that the find is "disturbing for Christians." I am a Christian. I am not disturbed.

Gospel of Judas resources (Dr. Barton)

Let it not be said that we do not give you all the information that you need. Here I shall be posting links to the reactions of all the major UK papers to the 'Gospel of Judas'.
The Times has this to say:
April 6th
April 7th
April 8th

The Telegraph articles, which we have been discussing here, are here:
April 7th, news article
April 7th, feature article ('Page 33')
Verses 5-25 of the 'Gospel'

The Guardian.
March 23rd. The Guardian notes the Daily Mail's hysteria.
April 7th. An excellent, balanced and sane article! I may start reading the Guardian after this!

The Independent.
April 7th. An 'underwhelming' article, so just what I've come to expect from the Independent.

Remarks on World of Docetic Twaddle. Dr. Barton

Like yourselves, I have been reading Sir Richard Arcos' World of Docetic Twaddle posts. Well, on Friday I had to go to London for a conference at the May Fair hotel. Wandering around near the hotel, I passed the 'Third Church of Christ Scientist' on Curzon Street. They have a copy of Science and Health in a glass case outside. Having nothing better to do, I read it. It was (Thanks for the expression, Sir Richard) Docetic Twaddle. Does Dr. Langdon read it? Is Dr. Langdon a Christian Scientist? I looked for him at the conference, and I found him and asked him. He says he isn't. He also mistook me for a reporter and said he doesn't give interviews. I told him who I am, and he apologised. He's a pretty good-looking guy, but not my type. He then refused to answer all my questions, so I went off to the bar, where I got my revenge by 'accidentally' stepping on Dr. Langdon's right foot with a three-inch heel. I'm assuming he's not going to read this, of course.
He struck me as a very charming man, but a man who's really superficial. I wouldn't want to date him. He knows a certain amount of stuff, but he thinks he knows everything, and that's pretty awful in a guy.