Translation

On April 6, 2006, the National Geographic Society announced that a lost gospel had been restored and translated. It was the Gospel of Judas, and the story that ran everywhere that spring was simple enough to fit in a headline. Judas wasn’t the traitor. He was the one disciple who understood Jesus, and he handed him over because Jesus asked him to. About a year and a half later, a Rice University scholar named April DeConick wrote in the New York Times that the translation had turned the text upside down. In her reading, the Judas of this gospel was a demon. ...

Here is the version you’ve probably seen, on a poster or a quote site or tucked into a book on creativity: “If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.” It’s a beautiful sentence. The two halves mirror each other perfectly, and the message is easy to carry around. Express what’s in you or it will eat you alive. Write the novel, start the business, say the thing you’ve been holding back. ...