The Gospel of Judas

by James Free 26 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  M.J.

  Interesting quotes from the AP article:

  Religious and lay readers alike will debate the meaning and truth of the manuscript. But it does show the diversity of beliefs in early Christianity, said Marvin Meyer, professor of Bible studies at Chapman University in Orange, Calif. The text, in the Coptic language, was dated to about the year 300 and is a copy of an earlier Greek version. A "Gospel of Judas" was first mentioned around A.D. 180 by Bishop Irenaeus of Lyon, in what is now France. The bishop denounced the manuscript as heresy because it differed from mainstream Christianity. The actual text had been thought lost until this discovery. Elaine Pagels, a professor of religion at Princeton University, said, "The people who loved, circulated and wrote down these gospels did not think they were heretics."

  Christianity in the ancient world was much more diverse than it is now, with a number of gospels circulating in addition to the four that were finally collected into the New Testament, noted Bart Ehrman, chairman of religious studies at the University of North Carolina. Eventually, one point of view prevailed, and the others were declared heresy, he said, including the Gnostics who believed that salvation depended on secret knowledge that Jesus imparted, particularly to Judas.
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  funkyderek

  Narkissos:

  I think nobody takes the Gospel of Judas as an authentic work of Judas Iscariot in the 1st-century.

  You're probably right, but only because it's newly discovered. After all, there are many people who believe the Gospel of Matthew to be an authentic first century work by the disciple Matthew, and so on.

  Of course this text is apocryphal. But what's interesting about it is that it comes from the early days of Christianity and can tell us what the movement was like then, in ways that the "canonical" works can't hope to.
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  Narkissos

  But what's interesting about it is that it comes from the early days of Christianity and can tell us what the movement was like then, in ways that the "canonical" works can't hope to.

  As the corpus of available early Christian writings grows, not only do we get a better picture of the early Christian diversity but we perceive more easily the reflection of this diversity in the canonical works too. In spite of their eventual canonisation the NT works are far from being the product of one "party line". They already contain all the major disagreements of 2nd- and 3rd-century Christianity, only in a slightly less developed way. Later works draw the lines more clearly, but they do not create them. The main tenets of Marcionism are already in Paul, those of Gnosticism in Mark or John, those of the Ebionites in Matthew, those of early Catholicism in Luke-Acts or the Pastorals. So in the end the issue is not canonical works vs. non-canonical works imo.
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  KW13

  i will certainly look at this with interest but i note that Jesus did not say what the betrayers motives were. Could Judas of done this thinking it wasnt going to happen but it was him all along?
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  Mulan

  I've never understood the hatred of Judas. If not for his betrayal (which came about because his weakness (greed) was used against him) then Christ's sacrifice could have been delayed or some other fallguy would have been used. Judas was a fallguy, if not him then someone else would have been used and then hated. I just don't get why he's hated, just like I've never understood why the Jews were hated for Christ's cruifixtion.

  I have had a problem with this too. It never made sense to me.

  Another thing............why did god need to sacrifice his son? Didn't he say such a thing never came into his heart........in Jeremiah, when talking about the way the Canaanites sacrificed their children to their gods? Such sacrifices were part of the culture of that time. Surely a loving god wouldn't require such a thing.
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  unclebruce

  To truly understand the origins of Christianity in its earliest forms a good understanding of the make up and intent of Jesus Nazarean Party is essential. Through the study of Judas Iscariot a more complex drama is revealed than that taught in any Watchtower Study or Sunday School. Have fun bible students.

  unclebruce.

  Recomended reading: The Messianic Legacy by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh and Henry Lincoln (1986) ISBN: 0-552-13182-2
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  Apostate Kate

  That's a cool link Nark