The Gospel According To Judas








Judas Iscariot, vilified as Christ's betrayer, acted at Jesus' request in turning him over to the authorities who crucified him, according to a 1,700-year-old copy of the "Gospel of Judas" unveiled on Thursday.

It is not known who wrote the Judas gospel. The copy unveiled in early April is of a document probably mentioned in the year 180 in a treatise called "Against Heresies," written by Irenaeus, bishop of Lyon, in what was then Roman Gaul. Irenaeus' opposition was caused by this document claiming that Judas was the only one in Jesus' inner circle who understood his desire to shed his earthly body. "He's the good guy in this portrayal," said Bart Ehrman, a religion professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. "He's the only apostle who understands Jesus."

The Judas gospel's introduction says it is "the secret account of the revelation that Jesus spoke in conversation with Judas Iscariot." Later, it quotes Jesus as saying to Judas, "You will exceed all of them (the other disciples) for you will sacrifice the man who clothes me." "The idea in this gospel is that Jesus, like all of us, is a trapped spirit, who is trapped in a material body," Ehrman said. "And salvation comes when we escape the materiality of our existence, and Judas is the one who makes it possible for him to escape by allowing for his body to be killed."

The National Geographic Society, unveiled a translation of the Judas gospel and helped authenticate, preserve and translate the document. The leather-bound copy of the gospel was written in Coptic script on both sides of 13 sheets of papyrus, and spent most of the past 1,700 years hidden in a cavern in the Egyptian desert, said Terry Garcia of the National Geographic Society. This document was probably copied from the original Greek manuscript around the year 300, Garcia said. Discovered in the 1970s near Minya, Egypt, the volume -- including the gospel and other documents -- was sold to an Egyptian antiquities dealer in 1978. The dealer offered it for sale without success, and eventually locked it in a bank safe deposit box in Hicksville, New York, for 16 years, which hastened its decay. In images displayed at the briefing, the papyrus looked like brown, dry autumn leaves. Garcia said it had crumbled into more than 1,000 pieces.

In 2001, the Maecenas Foundation for Ancient Art in Switzerland began an effort to transcribe and translate the volume from the Coptic. In the next years, scientific tests - including radiocarbon dating, ink analysis and multispectral imaging - showed the document was copied down around 300. The Judas gospel is being published in book form by National Geographic and pages from the papyrus manuscript is now on display at the society's museum in Washington. The manuscript will ultimately be housed at the Coptic Museum in Cairo.

http://www.banneroftruth.org/pages/articles/article_detail.php?1044

Actually, it's GENERALLY accepted already by a few experts I've listened to that the thing is a Gnostic text. The parts where Jesus supposedly shows Judas the nature of the universe & God, etc... are all but identical to Gnostic teachings.

Beyond that, it's hard to say if it was made up by them, or Judas wrote it, and they later got ahold of it, etc... "Christianity" was almost as fragmented back then as it is now, with quite a few sects. The text ends with Judas accepting the coin for the "betrayal", so what happened to him afterwards & a more in-depth analysis of his feelings about his actions is left unwritten.

Actually, it's GENERALLY accepted already by a few experts I've listened to that the thing is a Gnostic text. The parts where Jesus supposedly shows Judas the nature of the universe & God, etc... are all but identical to Gnostic teachings.

Beyond that, it's hard to say if it was made up by them, or Judas wrote it, and they later got ahold of it, etc... "Christianity" was almost as fragmented back then as it is now, with quite a few sects. The text ends with Judas accepting the coin for the "betrayal", so what happened to him afterwards & a more in-depth analysis of his feelings about his actions is left unwritten.
We the Bible does say that Jesus told Judas "What you must do, do it quicky".
Now it also states that Jesus warned of him who would betray Him, "It woudl be better that he was not born". The Bible is all full of paradoxes.

We the Bible does say that Jesus told Judas "What you must do, do it quicky".
Now it also states that Jesus warned of him who would betray Him, "It woudl be better that he was not born". The Bible is all full of paradoxes.

Some of that is translation error, particularly with the Old Testament. Some of it is just mucking with the book by various groups along the way. Best example I heard was to the effect that the line about suffering not a witch to live could be translated as prostitute instead of witch.


Me personally, For interpretation, I apply alot of prayer, common sense and an attitude that the rules will have changed a little bit as humans grow & evolve. Kinda like you have to be stricter on little kids while they're learning what's safe in the world, etc...