{"title":"April D Deconick","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"thirteenth-apostle-book-april-d-deconick-9780826499646","title":"The Thirteenth Apostle","description":"In 2006, National Geographic released the first English translation of the \"Gospel of Judas\", a second-century text discovered in Egypt in the 1970s. The translation caused a sensation because it seemed to overturn the popular image of Judas the betrayer and instead presented a benevolent Judas who was a friend of Jesus. In \"The Thirteenth Apostle\", April DeConick offers a new translation of the \"Gospel of Judas\" which seriously challenges the National Geographic interpretation of a good Judas. Inspired by the efforts of the National Geographic team to piece together this ancient manuscript, DeConick sought out the original Coptic text and began her own translation. \"I didn't find the sublime Judas, at least not in Coptic. What I found were a series of English translation choices made by the National Geographic team, choices that permitted a different Judas to emerge in the English translation than in the Coptic original. Judas was not only not sublime, he was far more demonic than any Judas I know in any other piece of early Christian literature, Gnostic or otherwise.\" DeConick contends that the \"Gospel of Judas\" is not about a \"good\" Judas, or even a \"poor old\" Judas. It is a gospel parody about a \"demon\" Judas written by a particular group of Gnostic Christians known as the Sethians who lived in the second century CE. The purpose of the text was to criticize \"mainstream\" or apostolic Christianity from the point of view of these Gnostic Christians, especially their doctrine of atonement, their Eucharistic practices, and their creedal faith which they claimed to have inherited from the twelve disciples. Professor DeConick provides her English translation and interpretation of this newly recovered gospel within the previously overlooked context of a Christianity in the second century that was sectarian and conflicted. The first book to challenge the National Geographic version of the Gospel of Judas, \"The Thirteenth Apostle\" is sure to inspire to fresh debate around this most infamous of biblical figures.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49542092062993,"sku":"GOR003791756","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49709396984081,"sku":"CIN0826499643G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0826499643.jpg?v=1750882659"},{"product_id":"thirteenth-apostle-revised-edition-book-april-d-deconick-9781847065681","title":"The Thirteenth Apostle: Revised Edition","description":"In 2006 National Geographic released the first English translation of the Gospel of Judas, a second-century text discovered in Egypt in the 1970s. The translation caused a sensation because it seemed to overturn the popular image of Judas the betrayer and instead presented a benevolent Judas who was a friend of Jesus. In The Thirteenth Apostle April DeConick offers a new translation of the Gospel of Judas which seriously challenges the National Geographic interpretation of a good Judas. Inspired by the efforts of the National Geographic team to piece together this ancient manuscript, DeConick sought out the original Coptic text and began her own translation. \"I didn't find the sublime Judas, at least not in Coptic.  What I found were a series of English translation choices made by the National Geographic team, choices that permitted a different Judas to emerge in the English translation than in the Coptic original. Judas was not only not sublime, he was far more demonic than any Judas I know in any other piece of early Christian literature, Gnostic or otherwise.\" DeConick contends that the Gospel of Judas is not about a \"good\" Judas, or even a \"poor old\" Judas. It is a gospel parody about a \"demon\" Judas written by a particular group of Gnostic Christians known as the Sethians who lived in the second century CE.  The purpose of the text was to criticize 'mainstream' or apostolic Christianity from the point of view of these Gnostic Christians, especially their doctrine of atonement, their Eucharistic practices, and their creedal faith which they claimed to have inherited from the twelve disciples. Professor DeConick provides her English translation and interpretation of this newly recovered gospel within the previously overlooked context of a Christianity in the second century that was sectarian and conflicted. The first book to challenge the National Geographic version of the Gospel of Judas, The Thirteenth Apostle is sure to inspire to fresh debate around this most infamous of biblical figures. This fully revised and updated edition includes a new chapter, 'Judas the Star', and a substantial new preface which reflects upon the controversial reception of The Thirteenth Apostle and the advances in scholarship that have been made since its publication.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49608728379665,"sku":"GOR013706086","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49796207477009,"sku":"CIN1847065686VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49974882435345,"sku":"GOR008611877","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51804555510033,"sku":"CIN1847065686G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52597033074961,"sku":"NLS9781847065681","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1847065686.jpg?v=1752143814"},{"product_id":"holy-misogyny-book-april-d-deconick-9781623565565","title":"Holy Misogyny","description":"In Holy Misogyny, bible scholar April DeConick wants real answers to the questions that are rarely whispered from the pulpits of the contemporary Christian churches. Why is God male? Why are women associated with sin? Why can't women be priests? Drawing on her extensive knowledge of the early Christian literature, she seeks to understand the conflicts over sex and gender in the early church—what they were and what was at stake. She explains how these ancient conflicts have shaped contemporary Christianity and its promotion of male exclusivity and superiority in terms of God, church leadership, and the bed.   DeConick's detective work uncovers old aspects of Christianity before later doctrines and dogmas were imposed upon the churches, and the earlier teachings about the female were distorted. Holy Misogyny shows how the female was systematically erased from the Christian tradition, and why. She concludes that the distortion and erasure of the female is the result of ancient misogyny made divine writ, a holy misogyny that remains with us today.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49876328513809,"sku":"CIN1623565561G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51040366100753,"sku":"NIN9781623565565","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52331499290897,"sku":"NLS9781623565565","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1623565561.jpg?v=1751466010"},{"product_id":"comparing-christianities-book-april-d-deconick-9781119086031","title":"Comparing Christianities","description":"A ground-breaking introductory textbook for the study of the New Testament and the first Christians, written for the next generation of students   Comparing Christianities: An Introduction to the New Testament and the First Christians maps the historical rise of Christianity out of a network of early Christian movements. This major new textbook systematically explores the struggles to define the faith by presenting Christianity as the result of a lengthy process of religious consolidation which emerged from a landscape of persistent Christian diversity.   The book delves into the history of the first five generations of Christians, from Paul to Origen. The first chapter considers the challenges of constructing Christian histories and offers a new model of Christian families to organize and explain the emergence and competition of different varieties of Christianity. Each successive chapter focuses on key issues that Christian leaders engaged over the centuries, demonstrating how the questions they posed and the answers they provided gave Christianity its distinct shape. As the movements competed for social advantage, Christians began identifying certain Christian movements as enemies and consolidated against them. The final chapter schematizes the Christians studied in the book into three families of Christian movements based on the particular God they worshipped and other shared patterns of thought and practice. This chapter also explains where the varieties of Christianities came from and how the process of consolidation undertaken by some churches shaped Christian identity within a forge of intolerance that still affects us today.   Comparing Christianities explores the answers to questions:     Who were the early Christians and what did they write? What did Christians think about sex, women, immortality, Judaism, suffering and death? What rituals did the first Christians practice, and what did their religious experiences mean to them?  How did Christians live in a Roman-dominated world? How did the first Christians explain the origins of their movement?  Comparing Christianities: An Introduction to the New Testament and the First Christians serves as an excellent primary textbook in undergraduate classrooms for Introduction to Christianity, Introduction to Religion, New Testament Studies, Christian Origins, World Religions, and Western World Religions, and a thought-provoking resource for anyone wishing to know more about Christianity.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":50814554079505,"sku":"NGR9781119086031","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1119086035.jpg?v=1751144227"},{"product_id":"paradise-now-book-april-d-deconick-9781589832572","title":"Paradise Now","description":"A substantial introduction to the study of early Jewish and Christian mysticism, this volume examines major aspects of the mystical tradition within early Judaism and Christianity. This tradition was centered on the belief that a person directly, immediately, and before death can experience the divine, either as a rapture experience or one solicited by a particular praxis. The essays define and analyze the nature and practices of mysticism as it emerges within early Judaism and Christianity, recognizing this emergence within a variety of communal environments. Larger questions about the relationship between hermeneutics and experience, as well as the relationship between mysticism and apocalypticism are also discussed, and a substantial bibliography of the field is provided. The book is the result of ten years of work of the Early Jewish and Christian Mysticism unit of the Society of Biblical Literature. The contributors are Cameron C. Afzal, Daphna Arbel, Kelley Coblentz Bautch, Ra'anan S. Boustan, James R. Davila, April D. DeConick, Celia Deutsch, Rachel Elior, Frances Flannery-Dailey, Charles A. Gieschen, Rebecca Lesses, Andrea Lieber, Christopher R. A. 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Here, April DeConick provides a new English translation of the entire Gospel of Thomas, which includes the original 'kernel' of the Gospel and all the sayings. Whilst most other translations are of the Coptic text with only occasional reference to the Greek fragment variants, this translation integrates the Greek and offers new solutions to complete the lacunae. A unique feature of this book is that translations to the parallels of the Gospel are also included. Since its discovery, scholars and the public alike have been intrigued to know what the Gospel says and what light it sheds on the formation of early Christianity. In 'Recovering the Original Gospel of Thomas', April DeConick argued that the gospel was a 'rolling corpus, ' a book of sayings that grew over time, beginning as a simple written gospel containing oracles of the prophet Jesus. As the community faced various crises and constituency changes, including the delay of the Eschaton and the need to accommodate Gentiles within the group, its traditions were reinterpreted and the sayings in their gospel updated, accommodating the present experiences of the community. This volume was originally published in hardback as volume 287 in the Journal for the Study of the New Testament Supplement series and is part of the Early Christianity in Context subseries.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52121377014033,"sku":"NLS9780567042927","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9780567042927.jpg?v=1757430387"},{"product_id":"recovering-the-original-gospel-of-thomas-book-april-d-deconick-9780567043320","title":"Recovering the Original Gospel of Thomas","description":"Explores tough questions that have occupied scholars since the discovery of the Gospel of Thomas in the sands of Nag Hammadi, Egypt, in the 1940's. Where did this gospel come from? When was it written? Who wrote it? Why was it composed? What is its meaning? This book examines these issues.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52122617807121,"sku":"NLS9780567043320","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9780567043320.jpg?v=1757441350"},{"product_id":"voices-of-the-mystics-book-april-d-deconick-9780567081285","title":"Voices of the Mystics","description":"The Gospel of John has always been perceived as a more mystical Gospel than the Synoptics. This book explores the mysticism of John in its historical context and puts forward evidence that the mysticism developed in this text is the result of the textualization of a dialogue between the Johannine and Thomasine Christians on the subject of soteriology. In contradiction to the Christians who revered the Gospel of Thomas and taught salvation through ascent and vision mysticism, the Johannine Gospel argues for a mysticism based on the faith experience. Evidence from the Preachings of John, the Gospel of the Savior (P. Berolinensis 22220), the Apocryphon of James, the Ascension of Isaiah, and the Dialogue of the Savior is examined to show that this soteriological controversy did not end with the composition of the Gospel of John but continued well into the second century. This book not only sheds new light on the development of Johannine ideology, but also forges a new path in New Testament","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52149320614161,"sku":"NLS9780567081285","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9780567081285.jpg?v=1757606452"},{"product_id":"seek-to-see-him-book-april-d-deconick-9781481307925","title":"Seek to See Him","description":"In Seek to See Him April DeConick argues that the Gospel of Thomas, contrary to the way Thomas is normally understood, does not originate from gnostic traditions. Instead, she proposes that Thomas is best explained by Hermetic and Second Temple Jewish mystical traditions.   DeConick substantiates her proposal by first examining the developmental stages of the Gospel of Thomas, questioning the classification of Thomas as gnostic on the basis of Thomas' dualism and his speculation about original sin. DeConick carefully delineates the difference between Thomas' and gnostic views of the world and of salvation before going on to demonstrate the crucial role of purification, heavenly ascent, and visio dei - final transformation through an experience of seeing God - in this Gospel. In the end, DeConick shows that Thomas is best explained as arising from the fusion of Jewish Mysticism and Hermetic praxis and not as being shaped by gnostic traditions.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52472215994641,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52472216486161,"sku":"NLS9781481307925","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9781481307925.jpg?v=1765446789"},{"product_id":"original-gospel-of-thomas-in-translation-book-april-d-deconick-9780567043825","title":"The Original Gospel of Thomas in Translation","description":"This title provides the first comprehensive analysis of the stages of development of the Gospel of Thomas, including a reconstruction, translation, and analysis of the original form of this gospel, the Kernel Gospel of Thomas, as well as the later accretions. 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Given that the Tchacos Codex is a newly-conserved ancient book of Christian manuscripts which had yet to be discussed collaboratively by a body of scholars, the research conducted and published within this book by the members of the Codex Judas Congress is nothing less than a landmark in Gnostic studies. Scholars address issues of identity and community, portraits of Judas, astrological lore, salvation and praxis, text and intertext, and manuscript matters. Although the contributions show a variety of interpretations of the Tchacos texts, several points of agreement emerge, including the assessment that the Codex belonged to early Christians in conflict with other Christians who belonged to the apostolic or conventional church. Contributors include: Grant Adamson, Johanna Brankaer, Fernando Bermejo Rubio, Serge Cazelais, April D. DeConick, Ismo Dunderberg, Niclas Forster, Wolf-Peter Funk, Simon Gathercole, Matteo Grosso, Lance Jenott, Karen King, Nicola Denzey Lewis, Alastair Logan, Antti Marjanen, Marvin Meyer, Elaine Pagels, Birger A. Pearson, Pierluigi Piovanelli, James M. Robinson, Gesine Schenke Robinson, Kevin Sullivan, Franklin Trammel, Johannes van Oort, Bas van Os, Louis Painchaud, Tage Petersen, John D. Turner, and Gregor Wurst.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52692771111185,"sku":"NLS9789004181410","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9789004181410.jpg?v=1768559553"},{"product_id":"recovering-the-original-gospel-of-thomas-book-april-d-deconick-9780567043429","title":"Recovering the Original Gospel of Thomas","description":"The Gospel of Thomas is an enigmatic collection of 114 sayings of Jesus. Here, April DeConick explores tough questions that have occupied scholars since the discovery of this gospel in the sands of Nag Hammadi, Egypt, in the 1940's. Where did this gospel come from? When was it written? Who wrote it? Why was it composed? What is its meaning? Rather than taking the conventional approach to answering these questions, DeConick examines these issues anew by proposing that the gospel developed within a climate dominated by oral consciousness as a product of communal memory. She argues that the gospel was a \"rolling corpus,\" a book of sayings that grew over time, beginning as a simple written gospel containing oracles of the prophet Jesus. This suggests that the sayings in the gospel represent different moments in the history of the Thomasine community and can be read as memoirs of practices, beliefs, and conflicts that arose within the community over time. As the community faced various crises and constituency changes, including the delay of the Eschaton and the need to accommodate Gentiles within the group, its traditions were reinterpreted and the sayings in their gospel updated, accommodating the present experiences of the community. This is volume 286 in the Journal for the Study of the New Testament Supplement series and is part of the Early Christianity in Context series.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53112557437201,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53112557535505,"sku":"GOR014748135","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9780567043429.jpg?v=1770654977"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/en-gb\/collections\/author-books-by-april-d-deconick.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}