Campus Conversations with the President: April DeConick

In this edition of “Campus Conversations with the President,” Professor April DeConick sits down with President David Leebron to talk about her translation of the Gospel of Judas.

DeConick, the Isla Carroll and Percy E. Turner Professor of Biblical Studies, is a historian whose focus is on early religious texts. She was the first to seriously challenge the interpretation and translation of the Gospel of Judas that was published by National Geographic in 2006. Her examination led to her book “The Thirteenth Apostle: What the Gospel of Judas Really Says” (New York: Continuum 2007). DeConick’s work resulted in National Geographic having to edit and thoroughly revise its book in a second edition (2008). DeConick’s book has been translated into several languages and republished in 2009 in a revised expanded format.

DeConick is also the author of “Holy Misogyny: Why the Sex and Gender Conflicts in the Early Church Still Matter” (New York: Continuum 2011) and is starting another book, “The Ancient New Age: How Gnostic Spirituality Revolutionized Religion in Antiquity and Modern America.”