Customer Reviews

Judas: The Definitive Collection of Gospels and Legends About the Infamous Apostle of Jesus

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Meyer's book should really be called 1/4 a book. It is 184 pages long, but it is printed on 5 1/4 by 8 1/4 paper using a 1 1/2 line spacing. Which means it's probably about 120 pages long if printed as most books are printed. But, if you subtract the 35 pages of notes and the 26 page introduction, we are well under 100 pages. If you then subtract the dozens of pages that consist of translations of various texts (e.g., Gospel of Judas, Dialogue of the Savior) you probably have fewer than 50 pages of original text.

Much of that text is repetitious. Meyer tells us many times about the dates that the gospels were authored, about the verb paradidonai which means "handed over" and not "betrayed", about the fact that Paul never mentions Judas, etc. In a book that is already too short to really be called a book, such repetitions deprive us of even more information.

The bottom line is that $22.95 is a lot to pay for 1/4 book!

Putting all this aside, what value can we find in this 1/4 book? Meyer's excellent writing skills (excepting the repetition) are very much in evidence, as is his scholarship. But the book is really more of a platform to simply present texts about Judas. Meyer does very little to explain anything, merely to describe.

The various texts about Judas probably tell us more about the people who wrote the texts than they do about Judas. None of this important material is addressed by Meyer.

All things considered, there is very little to merit reading this 1/4 book. If you have no other source for some of the texts (e.g., Acts of John, The Concept of our Great Power, Arabic Infancy Gospel, etc.) then this may be a useful text. But otherwise your money (and time) is best spent elsewhere.

This slender book does not live up to its subtitle of being "the definitive collection of Gospels and legends about the infamous apostle of Jesus." There are many such legends omitted; for example, Benedeit's "Voyage of St. Brendan." Perhaps the author meant to limit the book to only legends from ancient times. The main section consists of a translation of the recently discovered Gospel of Judas. What is really disappointing and distracting in this book is the use of endnotes. Mostly the endnotes direct the reader to "cf." some biblical passage. In order to do so, the reader must have the Bible with the passage referred to immediately available. Although it would have markedly increased the size of this book, it would have been much more convenient to the reader if the endnote supplied the passage referred to, rather than to require the reader to interrupt the flow of his reading to look up the endnote, then to look up the passage in a separate book. Moreover, the constant use of the "cf." appears to reflect a laziness on the part of the author. There is little or no discussion of the importance or significance of the comparison. If the comparison is of minor importance, then the reader would be better served if the author would omit the distraction of endnotes and simply state the general point that the stories have certain similarities. All in all, it appears this book is merely one more exploitation of the discovery of the Gospel of Judas, dressed up in pseudo-scholarship for the masses.