Ancient Scrolls, Medieval Castles, and For All You Sports Fans........

The National Geographic Society Museum is a treat this month. I have not yet given it the attention it deserves.

For one thing, it is exhibiting several papyrus pages of the 4th century scrolls, recently found in Egypt and now being studied, including the Gospel of Judas. The scrolls are obviously fascinating to look at, and the explanations are very interesting, going into the discovery, the creation of the scrolls, the language, the contents, the dating and the preservation. You can also watch on a small screen tv the NG cable show where all this is visualized.

I can't say that I understand the Gospel of Judas, other than to know that, until now everyone assumed (and most probably still do) that Judas was evil, and this Gospel makes him a good guy. Of course, I don't understand fundamental Christian theology at all. I don't know what makes someone good or bad in Christian religious terms. As I understand the thinking, God put Jesus on earth to suffer and die for the sins of mankind, and Judas, along with Pontius Pilate and a bunch of Romans and some Jewish leaders, went along and assisted in the suffer and die part. Does that make them bad because they made Jesus suffer and die? Or does that make them good, because they were fulfilling God's plan? It seems to me you can't have it both ways.

But what do I know?

In any event, after you ponder all of this, you are transported about 1000 years later, and you see very large and detailed models of a Crusader Castle and of an Arab bazaar. Very neat. And there is signage to tell you all about the many, many crusader castles, with maps, descriptions of architecture and usage and photos and individual descriptive information about (I would guess 20 to 30 of them).

And, if that is not enough, you get a third exhibit (and this museum is pretty small) about how soccer is played around the world. Not that I found this one very interesting: pictures of people playing soccer in Africa and in Europe and in Latin America. Folks, no matter where it is, they seem to play the same and dress the same.

But, forget about the pictures on the wall. What you get is a VERY large screen projection TV, tuned to ESPN2, showing you World Cup action live, with bleachers built so about 25 people can watch at any time.

The scrolls leave June 9; the other exhibits are there until September, along with a photographic exhibit about to open featuring pictures taken by someone named Reza who has been photographing wars and tragedies for decades.