Wed
Apr
12
2006
The not-so-gospel of Judas
John Dickson has written the following short paper for his congregation at Roseville Anglican, about the Gospel of Judas:
A Spectator’s Guide to the Gospel of Judas
by Dr. John Dickson,
Honorary Associate, Department of Ancient History, Macquarie University, Sydney.
1. We’ve known of the existence of a ‘Gospel of Judas’ ever since Bishop Irenaeus toward the end of the second century made reference to a newly devised Gospel designed to cast Judas as the hero of the faith (and all the other apostles as ill-informed).
2. The sole manuscript copy of the Gospel of Judas was discovered in Egypt in the mid-1970s.
3. The manuscript itself dates to AD 300.
4. The document is a Coptic translation of an earlier Greek text composed in the mid-to-late second century, 100 years after Jesus (at the earliest).
5. The text, which is fragmentary, would fill about 10 pages of a modern Bible (though it is unlikely ever to appear there!).
6. The document is clearly Gnostic, that is, part of a lively second century movement which claimed true ‘knowledge’ (gnosis) about the spiritual realm was passed on by Jesus secretly to close confidants, in this case Judas.
7. The core claim of the Gospel of Judas is that the eleven other apostles were deluded and worshipped a lesser deity they presumed to be the true God. Jesus, however, took Judas aside a few days before his death and revealed to him the truth about the myriad of spiritual worlds and deities over which he (Judas), as the leader of true Christianity, would one day rule. Jesus is quite explicit: no one from the generation of the eleven apostles had true gnosis. Judas is the great priest who sacrifices the body of Jesus and so is elevated to celestial, if not historical, glory.
8. No scholar is claiming the historical Judas produced the text.
9. No scholar is claiming the text records the teaching of the historical Jesus.
10. All scholars approach this text—as they do the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Philip, etc.—as important evidence of the variety of ‘Christian’ beliefs in the second and third centuries.
11. The full text (in English translation) can be downloaded here
Nice summary.
Comment
Commenting is closed for this article.
Well, thanks for the link to the document. Now I know all about Saklas (or should that be Santa Claus). Its going to be fun now seeing documentaries about how the bible isn’t true because of the “amazing discoveries” from this LSD inspired fiction. I think every piece of news I’ve read about it is severely misleading if not completely untrue
— David Corless · Apr 12, 04:32 PM · #
The Jesus depicted in the ‘Gospel of Judas’ appears somewhat cruel to me… rather than loving even when rebuking as Christ appears in the true Gospels.
— David G · Apr 13, 04:29 AM · #
I suspect this will quietly and fairly quickly fade away.
When all is said and done, it’s just another gnostic gospel – certainly not the first.
Rightly or wrongly, the vast majority of people couldn’t care less…
— NeilA · Apr 13, 07:27 AM · #
Even the Mormon I spoke to today at Pendo shops didn’t know or care about the Judas codex. I felt like saying, “But you guys should know about false gospels. You peddle them by trade, don’t you?”
— Ben · Apr 13, 11:02 AM · #