Department of No Surprise: Judas Edition

Remember the Gospel of Judas?  The National Geographic Society's big find, which was supposed to prove that Jesus and Judas were pals, and that the so-called traitor is actually the hero of the story?

Yeah.  Not so much, it turns out.  After the initial rush-job commissioned by the Society, scholars have started to look more carefully at the text, and the emerging consensus is that it was seriously misrepresented by the initial publicity.  The two scholars singled out, even by their collaborators, for an excess of revisionist zeal are Marvin Meyer and Bart Ehrman.  Click the link and scroll for the pricelss moment at which Elaine Pagels, the best friend Gnosticism ever had, grabs a microphone and forcefully disassociates herself from Ehrman's views.  

No surprise here -- Ehrman has recently replaced the Jesus Seminar people as the most irritating figure to take a permanent position at the strange crossroads where the Society for Biblical Literature meets Time magazine.