Thanks rsr. This was really interesting. The bias of National Geographic is well known. In the light of that, this article certainly points up the necessity of honest scholarship in translation. The translator must never translate what he wants the text to say, only what it says.
I have a book entitled the Lost Books of the Bible, if that's what you mean. I haven't looked at it for a long time, but as I remember it is basically the pseudopigripha. The "Gospel of Judas Iscariot" exists, but it is just another pseudopgripha, or fake (what you meant I suppose?). They had fakes in the third and fourth centuries just like we have now.
There is a good article today on the GetReligion blog, lifting up not only this scholar's discoveries about mistranslation, but documenting that a number of other scholars have come to the same conclusions independently.
GetReligion suggests that this is a common journalistic error -- the desire for a sensational scoop leads to ignoring or misrepresenting evidence.
This whole thing reminds me of a well known town in northern Honshu, Japan, which claims to have the burial place of Christ. :tongue3: There is an unusual mound there with a cross carved in stone. Their story is that Judas died in Christ's place, allowing Christ to flee to Japan, where He married a Japanese girl and had lots of kids! :rolleyes: In reality, it is probably the grave of some unknown Nestorian missionary 1200 years or so ago.