"Gateway to Knowledge." San Diego Union-Tribune. 02 July 2006

The following interview was originally published in The San Diego Union-Tribune, July 2nd, 2006 "Gateway to Knowledge." San Diego Union-Tribune. 02 July 2006

July 2, 2006 In April, the National Geographic Society announced that San Diego resident Ted Waitt had donated more than $1 million to fund the restoration and preservation of the Gospel of Judas manuscript. Waitt, 43, is the founder and former CEO of Gateway Inc., the computer maker. The La Jolla-based Waitt Family Foundation and Institutes are nonprofit organizations "dedicated to the improvement of mankind's knowledge through historical and scientific exploration." The San Diego Union-Tribune's Diane Bell asked Waitt about his role in the Judas codex in an interview that was conducted via e-mail.

QUESTION: How and when did you first learn of the existence of the Judas codex and what was your role?

Ted Waitt: I first heard of the Gospel of Judas in 2004 in discussing various ideas for my institute with people from National Geographic. The whole concept blew me away. I'm on the council of advisers there and have backed large projects before like their Genographic Project (using DNA to trace early human migration). We were discussing other projects I could potentially fund, and that's when I first heard of the Gospel of Judas. Next thing I knew, I was on a plane to Switzerland to see if it was real. Did you ever see the document and, if so, when? Who had it at the time, and was there any intrigue involved?

Ted Waitt: The first time I saw the document was in early 2005 in what I could best describe as a "Swiss Howard Johnson" or a "Swiss truck stop." We were upstairs of a gas station restaurant, and there were some very "dodgy" people there. I think one of them was probably packing a gun. The codex was in very bad shape, and being stored in disposable Tupperware-type containers. The purported owners had a hard time answering questions of the document's history, and where the document had been. They dodged questions as to who really owned it, where it came from, etc. There was one good person there who I was very impressed with and trusted completely, and that was Dr. Rodolphe Kasser. He was the restorer and translator of the codex. The document looked so bad it had to be old. You just can't fake that. He had been translating the document, and he read us excerpts and its contents were startling. I believed it to be authentic at that point, but wasn't going to support further conservation or publication until we authenticated it scientifically.

I believed the document to be basically for sale at that point, although that was never stated directly, and most of my questions as to the provenance of the codex were never answered directly. We set out with National Geographic to rescue the documents, and share them with the world. Did you or your Institute of Historical Discovery actually "buy" the manuscript or pay for a portion of it? If you can't divulge the price, can you say what it had been offered for sale for on the antiquities market by previous owners? I know you've said it will be donated to the Coptic Museum in Cairo, but who owns it now?

Ted Waitt: No, we were never interested in owning or purchasing the codex. I feel important artifacts like this should be part of the public domain. We provided a grant to National Geographic to secure the publishing rights to the documents. Our interests were first of all making sure it was authentic, so our grant was contingent on the carbon dating and other scientific tests to ensure this. Second of all, we wanted to make sure that a variety of biblical scholars had access to it to complete the proper restoration, translate and interpret the codex. And finally, we wouldn't do anything with it unless we were assured it would be returned to Egypt.

The document was and still is "owned" by a Geneva-based nonprofit headed by Mario Roberty. As far as I know, that foundation is just a vehicle for Mario Roberty and Frieda Tchacos, another previous owner, to make money. That bothers some, but it was a small price to pay to be able to share the contents with the world. I feel our grant allowed the document to be wrested from their control, translated and interpreted properly, published widely and appropriately, and then guaranteed to be returned to Egypt where it belongs. If it wasn't for us, who knows what might have become of it. What is your personal interest in learning what the documents actually said? Did you have a fairly good idea going into the expensive process of restoration and authentication, or were the contents a total mystery until the translation was initiated?

Ted Waitt: I find the contents of the codex fascinating, as well as the rest of the Gnostic gospels. Gnosis means knowledge, and the Gnostics thought that knowledge was the key to salvation. I knew the "punch line" of the Gospel of Judas before we made our grant (how, according to the codex, Judas was asked by Jesus to betray him), but that was about it. I didn't know the entire contents. There are many things in the document and in the entire codex that are as interesting or even more interesting than the portrayal of Judas' betrayal of Jesus. I'll leave the contents and the interpretation of those passages to the biblical scholars, or to anyone who wishes to read the entire translation. It's available on National Geographic's Web site, or in the books that have been recently published.

The first time I read it was approximately three or four months before it was published, and I was blown away.

Were you or your institute involved in the initial authentication efforts of dating the papyrus, ink and writing style? (I assume this was done before restoration took place.)

Ted Waitt: The restoration of the document took place for several years, long before it was scientifically authenticated. Our grant to National Geographic that allowed them to publish the contexts of the codex was contingent on scientific proof that it was authentic.

National Geographic commissioned the carbon dating, papyrus, ink and handwriting analysis, etc., in order to receive our grant as well as to ensure them, obviously, that the codex was authentic. We got the results immediately. Once we got the results, we were very excited, and made the grant that started the chain of events toward publication.

Obviously great pains were taken to release this story at Easter time; was it difficult to keep this tremendous find a secret? How long ago was the translation actually completed?