Egypt to retrieve 13 Coptic manuscripts

"Egypt will be able to retrieve 13 manuscripts of its rare stolen possessions, including the early Christian leather-bound codex identified as the Gospel of Judas," Culture Minister Farouq Hosni announced yesterday.

The manuscript was discovered in the early 1970s in Central Egypt and at some point later was smuggled out of the country.

The National Geographic Society volunteered to pay $2 million for the repair of the badly damaged document, and asked the Maecenas Foundation to return it to Egypt.

The conservation and translation work was recently completed, sponsored by renowned Coptic Scholar Rodolphe Kasser, formerly of the University of Geneva, with support from the Waitt Institute for Historical Discovery.

The manuscript, written in Coptic, the language of early Egyptian Christians, will be housed in the newly renovated Coptic Museum in Cairo after their return back to Egypt.

On his part, Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities Zahi Hawwas expressed his appreciation of the efforts of National Geographic society and the international team that has worked for several years to restore and translate the manuscript.

Hawwas said he looks forward to future cooperation with the team as conservation and study of the document continues.

The gospel offers an alternative view of the relationship between Jesus and his disciple Judas Iscariot, offering new insights into the disciple who betrayed Christ.

Unlike the accounts in the New Testament Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, in which Judas is portrayed as a reviled traitor, this newly discovered gospel portrays Judas as acting at Jesus' request when he hands Jesus over to the authorities.