Gospel of Judas

[greenghost]

Don't know if anyone has seen this, but it seems like a pretty interesting discovery: Gospel of Judas (http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060406/ts_nm/religion_judas_dc;_ylt=AquELSXjJIjkidRkEjkv6FF34T0 D;_ylu=X3oDMTBjMHVqMTQ4BHNlYwN5bnN1YmNhdA--)

[Esquire]

Here's some history of this text. It won't be making it into the cannon, I don't believe! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel_of_Judas

[Quadrafletch]

This is but one of many Gnostic apocryphal manuscripts. Because of its mention by Ireneas it has significant historical interest. Because of its origin in Gnosticism, it shares a credence value similar to other Gnostic literature. Gnostic literature is very much at odds with the more conservative material that was canonized and often contains things that are really way out there. Gnosticism was considered apostate in early times when it existed, and unless one is willing to accept really extreme, far out ideas, must be considered apostate now.

I guess that I am saying that this book comes from an already known source and does not really represent anything new.

[greenghost]

Thanks for the info. Maybe not such an interesting discovery in itself, but it is still pretty fascinating that such old texts might resurface.

[Cato]

This is new to me, so bear with me. But to buy into this as truth, you pretty much have to deny the other Gospels, and the prophesies concerning Judas don't you? In the other four Gospes we find reference to Satan entering Judas, that he was found to plunder the funds set aside for alms, and to deny the Gospel account of Judas becoming remorseful, and killing himself. And there is Old Testament prophesy of Judas betraying for the 30 pieces of silver. Those things come to mind without much thought. I feel sure I am not thinking of others.

[Quadrafletch]

Feral Donkey

I'm afraid I must disagree. The New Testament was written before the Catholic Curch was even the Catholic Church. The early Christian Church existed when Paul was writing to its churches and when the Gospels were written. Many groups broke off, such as the Gnostics. Many of these wrote pseudepigrapha, such as the Gospel of Judas. Their are many other gospels, such as the Gospel of Philip and the Gospel of Thomas. These were generally written after the fact, but some (especially the Gnostic) were written fairly early. Use the false ones all you like to justify your behavior with your boss, but learn from the true ones

[Bowcephalus]

"God didn't write that book."..............Wow.........Embrace Judas, deny the Gospell and an authority on God's own past activity.......The catholic church wrote the New Testament? Didn't know Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were catholic or running Rome.....Somebody better tell all those historians they got it all wrong...........

[Bowcephalus]

... Why, pray tell, if the Catholic church was scribing a document of church propaganda, did the reformation ever occur?......What was it they used to do if you got caught with a copy?....Ever hear of "Bloody Mary"?......

[Bowcephalus]

http://www.greatsite.com/timeline-english-bible-history/

[Quadrafletch]

Isn't it interesting that this document "just happened" to surface right at Easter?

[lucznik]

Isn't it interesting that this document "just happened" to surface right at Easter?


Actually it didn't. The manuscript itself was found some years ago. It was peiced together and translated by scholars over a lengthy process and has been on display for some time now. The manuscript is very interesting, not for its religious-like contents but, for the historical value of having a text that can be reliably dated to the third century A.D.

In contrast, the television special about it which is being broadcast now was produced and prepared specifically to be aired at Easter. It's just a marketing ploy designed to capitalize on peoples' hightened religious focus associated with the holiday.

To me the manuscript is of little value as there is no way to directly identify the identity of the author or the source of the manuscripts inflammatory claims. It is called the gospel of Judas because of what it says about him, not because there is any evidence that he was the actual author. The physical manuscript itself was made over 300 years after Christ's death (which means we can gaurantee it wasn't written by the hand of Judas) and without some indication of its original source, it has to fall under the category of historically interesting fiction.

[Bowcephalus]

May be that ole Dan Rather is older than we thought...........

[Garry]

Apostasy Alert (http://www.fivedoves.com/letters/apr2006/jim411.htm)

[Quadrafletch]

Feral Donkey,

The New Testament books were originally written in Greek. We have a small fragment of the Gospel of John that was written about 125 AD and had spread down to Egypt by then. We have major Biblical manuscripts that date to the year 200, and many paprylogical fragments that are earlier than that, such as the Bodmer papyrii. See the "Translation of the Bible" thread for a further discussion. All of these are Greek manuscripts.

The Latin version was first translated from the Greek about 200 AD. By this time, the canonization process was already pretty well complete. It is after this time (in 1054 AD) that the Roman and Greek Orthodox split and the Roman Church adopted the Latin version as their official bible.

This Gospel of Judas was referred to in the "New Testament Apocrypha" by Hennecke-Schneemelcher in 1963. It has been a known quantity for a long time, and has been taken as seriously as have the other Gnostic apocryphal gospels (in other words, they are of interest, but differ significantly in form and content from the early Christian writings).

[greenghost]

Cool stuff and some really knowledgeable folks here.

One of the things I found interesting, not knowing much of anything about the Gnostics, is the amount of sectarian split even fairly early on. Does somebody know how early the Gnostic split occurred and how much of a folloiwng? I mean, was Gnosticism originally a fairly significant movement that died out over time, or was it always a really "fringe" sect?

[Quadrafletch]

The Gnostic movement was a very early schism of Christianity. It taught that Christ never really had a body and that the resurrection was not a resurrection of the body. John referred to it in 1 John 4:1-3.

Their were many sects of Gnosticism. The Cainites glorified Cain as a hero, and it is commonly thought that this is the same group that created the Gospel of Judas, glorifying Judas as a hero. By the year 200 AD they had pretty well died out as a meaningful sect, though some of their teachings were to be troublesome for some time afterward.

I am afraid that I have lost a lot of respect for National Geographic over all of this. The awareness of the Gospel of Judas, and even the "new" manuscript have been around for quite awhile. Yet the National Geographic chooses the Easter week to put out their own translation and make sure that a major fuss is made in all of the newspapers for this commonly know anti-Christ Gnostic document. They also happen to omit all of the Gnostic background and try to foist it off as a real Gospel. They know better, yet they are deceptively promoting this for the publicity or for other private agendas. Shame on them!

[greenghost]

Quadrafletch, Don't be too hard on NG, it is part of the nature of the publishing business. Just look at even the best hunting mags...

As a side note, the similarities between the Gospel of Judas and the character of Judas in the '60s play "Jesus Christ, Superstar" are pretty striking. I think there must be a connection.