NEW TESTAMENT APOCRYPHA WATCH:
Artist finally puts a face to the name of Mrs Judas Iscariot (Nick Clark,
The Independent).
She goes unmentioned in the Bible, but Mrs Judas Iscariot is finally getting recognition thanks to her first-ever portrait, which is the star attraction at a new exhibition of paintings set to tour cathedrals.
The show, inspired by ancient stories that fleshed out Biblical characters centuries afterwards and even added new ones, seeks to give a voice to unnamed and forgotten women in the scriptures.
Artist Chris Gollon has painted 17 new works for Incarnation, Mary & Women from the Bible, which opens at Chichester Cathedral next week and will subsequently travel to the cathedrals of Durham and Hereford.
One of the most striking new works is the portrait of Judas’s wife, a figure who does not feature in the Bible but begins to be referenced in story fragments from as early as the fifth century.
[...]
And this is intriguing:
One papyrus fragment with Coptic text dates to the fifth century, telling the story of Judas’s wife convincing him to betray Jesus and then refusing to feel remorse after he does.
Typically, the article does not tell us which text this is. But perhaps
Tony Burke will enlighten us.