The situation is, to put it mildly, not ideal. From the leaves of the codex that have been studied and published, it is evident that the book preserves a distinctive type of text for Exodus that has been only minimally harmonized with the Masoretic Text. From a text critical standpoint, the codex is thus quite important. Nevertheless, to draw on Petrie’s observations, this artifact has not only been murdered, it has also been dismembered. Any contextual knowledge about where and when this text was used has been lost. And that loss of knowledge does not even begin to touch upon the cultural heritage issues at stake with an Egyptian artifact whose history cannot be reliably traced prior to the early 1980s.Dr. Nongbri's book, God's Library, was published last month. Regular PaleoJudaica readers are familiar with his blog, Variant Readings. Past posts on the Gospel of Judas are here and many links.
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