DeConick is a historian of early Jewish and Christian thought. Her work focuses on New Testament and pre-Nicene literature, non-canonical gospels, gnostic literature and movements, mysticism and esotericism in early Christianity, new religious movements past and present, the biosocial study of religion, and a theoretical point of view called post-constructivism. She is known also for her original work on the
Gospel of Judas, a Coptic Gnostic gospel rediscovered in 2006. Her work has been called "revisionist," challenging to seek answers beyond the conventional. When National Geographic released the first English translation of the Gospel of Judas, a second-century text discovered in Egypt in the 1970s, DeConick was the first scholar who seriously challenged the National Geographic "official" interpretation of a good Judas. She contended that the Gospel of Judas is not about a “good” Judas. Rather it represents a gospel parody about a “demon” Judas written by a particular group of Gnostic Christians known as the Sethians. DeConick published her criticisms in the New York Times and in her book called
The Thirteenth Apostle: What the Gospel of Judas Really Says. She was featured in CNN's documentary on the Gospel of Judas that premiered in 2015 on the TV series "Finding Jesus.” DeConick is the founder and executive editor of
Gnosis: Journal of Gnostic Studies (Leiden: Brill) and a recruiting editor for the monograph series Nag Hammadi and Manichaean Studies (Leiden: Brill). She is active in the Society of Biblical Literature as the founding chair of the “Mysticism, Esotericism and Gnosticism in Antiquity Section,” and the past-chair of the Committee for the Status of Women in the Profession. DeConick also organized and chaired for many years the Early Jewish and Christian Mysticism Group. She is also affiliated with the North American Patristics Society, and the International Association for Coptic Studies. == Honors ==