by Ticker 24 Replies latest watchtower bible
I read transcript of this "Gospel" this morning. I could not see any real point , except to sell magazines perhaps.
Nobody claims that it the work of Judas. We all know, from the Bible that all sort of Christian writings were circulating even in Pauls day.Some against the teaching of the early church .
If Judas died so quickly , how did all this get recorded? If it is just a work of fiction written at least decades later - so what?
The gospel is important for understanding the development of the early proto-orthodox church and its struggles in the second century with non-orthodox Gnostic Christians. It provides another emic witness to the Gnostic worldview. Prior to the recovery of the Nag Hammadi codices, the Gospel of Mary, and now the Gospel of Judas, all we had were the very biased reportings of second and third-century heresiologists (such as Irenaeus). Now we can examine their own writings for a more accurate understanding of what was going on. It was through this conflict that the Church defined its orthodoxy, so it is a matter of some significance.
What I find startling about this gospel is its fresh, clear explanation of how Jesus' death was conceptualized within a docetic christology. Following Platonic ideas about the immortality of the soul (that the divine spark is buried in spiritually-impoverished flesh and must be liberated through death), the Savior consists of the divine Son entombed within the robe of the flesh, i.e. the man Jesus, and Judas helps him free himself by "sacrificing" the man Jesus. Judas is thus faithful to his Master's wishes and helps him achieve immortality. The docetic version of the passion entertained by Cerinthus claimed, among other things, that when Jesus was nailed to the cross, the Christ fled him and exited his body. When Christ later appeared to his disciples, he no longer had any "body" and thus appeared in various guises. Even before his death, we see in the Gospel of Judas that Jesus could transfigure his form, appearing to them as a child. The proto-orthodox view, of course, is that Jesus was raised in the flesh. Through such witnesses as the Gospel of Judas, we can understand more clearly how docetism worked; the polemical statements against it in some texts in the NT are in themselves muted and do not reveal clearly what was claimed.
Although it does not relate Judas' suicide (or even Jesus' crucifixion), the gospel hints that Judas' motivation for killing himself was not out of remorse or shame but simply through imitation of his Master. In a sense, it construes Jesus' death as an assisted suicide and in harmony with Platonism, suicide is not a bad thing (think of Socrates, for instance). Of course, it is not hard to understand why such a work was reviled among proto-orthodox Christians...
there is a new 2 hour special about this tonight on NGEO (national geographic) channel on tv.
7pm-9pm central usa time.
It makes perfect sense to me that Jesus would choose to be betrayed when alone and when there would be less chance for innocent followers to lose their lives in the ensuing confusion and drama.
Perhaps he was lovingly thinking of those of the great crowds who followed him who would fight to save him.
You know, I am so sceptical now of the scriptures and what I've been told that I am really very open to a new view of the Christ.
I am surprised it ever came to light true or not. It will start raising so many questions the "leaders" can't answer, it will expose their true ignorance and lust for power and control. They are not equipted to answer questions, and don't really want to. Time to become "students" again for them?
It probably (hopefully) it the end of their mad quest. That would be justice IMO
their knowledge shoukld have been used to help and guide others, not punish and control them.
I wish for it to all go away.(their "knowledge").
Hope I get my wish too.
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While the Gnostic Judas is clearly dependent on the traditional character of "Judas the betrayer," which is reflected diversely in the canonical Gospels and other extra-canonical works, one must not forget that the latter character too is the result of (legendary?) tradition development. As for other important characters in or around the nebula of "early Christianity" we find a plethora of "Judases": a Judas "brother of Jesus" (Mark 6:3); a Judas "of the Twelve" in addition to Judas Iscariot (Luke 6:16, absent from Mark-Matthew); a "Judas, not the Iscariot" as one of the interlocutors of the Johannine Jesus (John 14:22); and in extra-canonical writings Thomas ("the Twin," in Greek Didumos, cf. John 11:16 etc.) is called "Judas Thomas" (GThomas 1); at least some of those may represent alternative and concurrent tradition developments (as is likely for "John" and "James").
Moreover, Ioudas, so close to Ioudaios ("Jew"), was an ideal name for the "betrayer" in the perspective of early Christian anti-Judaism. And the NT shows diverging developments of the "betrayer" traditions, as illustrated by the two alternate "endings" of Judas Iscariot (he gives the money back and hangs himself in Matthew, he keeps the money, buys a field and dies of falling in Acts). In Mark nothing is said about Judas' fate. He is only he who "hands" or "gives" (paradidômi) Jesus (3:19; 14:10f,18ff,41ff); John the Baptist is "given" (1:14, without a "betrayer") and Jesus is to be "given" in a similar way (9:31; 10:33); as the Jews will "give" Christians, including their own "brothers", to their sunedria ("sanhedrins") and synagogues (13:9ff); as the Jewish priests will "give" Jesus to Pilate (15:1,10), and Pilate himself will "give" him to death (15:15). Maybe at some point the passive saying "the Son of Man will be given" just called for a subject, someone doing the "giving," in the narrative plot.
How all those parameters may have contributed to the Judas stories is subject to guesswork. Perhaps memories of some prominent Christian figure, viewed as a foremost revealer by some and as an apostate by others, at some point met the narrative need of posing an absolute Jewish villain in front of Jesus, as an intimate enemy or a dark twin? In that case the Gospel of Judas might be a further step, where the former hero become villain is revealed as a hero in his role of villain. Who knows?
I just saw the show on National Geographic now, I think it was pretty good. Leolaia wrote:
What I find startling about this gospel is its fresh, clear explanation of how Jesus' death was conceptualized within a docetic christology. Following Platonic ideas about the immortality of the soul (that the divine spark is buried in spiritually-impoverished flesh and must be liberated through death
...and this was emphasised in the program. I have a question:
On the program (in the explanation of the gospel) they said that the gnostics believed that God (the "highest" god) was not the same as the creator of the world! So I was wondering: This "highest god" is obviously not El (Elyon?) of the OT, Yahwehs daddy, this is some other god. Was this (highest) God believed to be on the "top of the God-hierarchy", that he was above El and Yahweh? Or had they (the gnostics) just forgotten about Yahweh and El all together?
More than anything I think that the Judas-gospel shows once and for all that that christianity wasn`t a "coherent story", just a fulfillment of the OT and a continuation "according to Gods plan", such as JWs and christians believe.
And also: Is this line of thought (a "highest God" that is not the creator of the world) the same thing as in "Sophia of Jesus Christ"? :
Matthew said to him: "Lord, no one can find the truth except through you. Therefore teach us the truth."
The Savior said: "He Who Is is ineffable. No principle knew him, no authority, no subjection, nor any creature from the foundation of the world until now, except he alone, and anyone to whom he wants to make revelation through him who is from First Light. From now on, I am the Great Savior. For he is immortal and eternal. Now he is eternal, having no birth; for everyone who has birth will perish. He is unbegotten, having no beginning; for everyone who has a beginning has an end. Since no one rules over him, he has no name; for whoever has a name is the creation of another."
He is unnameable. He has no human form; for whoever has human form is the creation of another.
"And he has a semblance of his own - not like what you have seen and received, but a strange semblance that surpasses all things and is better than the universe. It looks to every side and sees itself from itself. Since it is infinite, he is ever incomprehensible. He is imperishable and has no likeness (to anything). He is unchanging good. He is faultless. He is eternal. He is blessed. While he is not known, he ever knows himself. He is immeasurable. He is untraceable. He is perfect, having no defect. He is imperishability blessed. He is called 'Father of the Universe'".
Actually, El does appear in the Gospel of Judas:
"And the aeon that appeared with his generation, the aeon in whom are the cloud of knowledge and the angel, is called El" (Judas 50-51).
El is specifically one of the 72 aeons generated by the Father from the luminous cloud (= the Pleroma?). The Creator is the demiurgical Yaldabaoth, a name derived from Aramaic "child of (Sa)baoth"....Sabaoth being a well-used epithet of Yahweh in the OT (Yahweh Sabaoth, "Yahweh of armies"). Yaldabaoth's assistant in creating the cosmos was Saklas (Aramaic for "fool"), who was responsible for creating man: "Then Saklas said to his angels, 'Let us create a human being after the likeness and after the image' " (Judas 52). These are rebel angels; in fact, Judas gives Yaldabaoth the nickname "Rebel" (i.e. Nebrod). Jesus laughs at the apostles who worship the Creator and those who give offerings in the Temple, and the gospel even gives a little critique of non-gnostic Christians: "They have planted trees without fruit in my name, in a shameful manner" (Judas 39).
As for YHWH, there is a vague hint of this name in Judas' great confession: "I know who you are and where you have come from. You are from the immortal realm of Barbelo" (Judas 35). The name Barbelo is found in other Sethian texts and it is thought to derive from the Hebrew phrase "God in four [letters]" (b-'rb 'lwh), a circumlocation that evokes the tetragrammaton...
All of this is clear evidence that the gnostic lore surviving in Coptic and Greek originated in a Semitic milieu and is based on a rich tapestry of post-exilic angelology...some of it likely survivals of an earlier polytheism (relegated to the inferior realm of the aeons, with the true God embracing all and being greater than all of these), but recycled and adapted in innovative ways.
An interesting article on the origin and role of "Barbelo" in Gnostic speculations:
Leo,Nark, thank you.
No wonder the gnostics were considered heretics. That`s just to many Gods for anyone to handle. The gnostics must have had a lot of different (and mutually excluding?) ideas. Isn`t the gospel of John influenced by gnostic thought? And here, Jesus is identified as "the word" and creator of the earth and the humans? And in the gospel of Judas, Jesus laughs at them for worshipping the creator Yaldabaoth, who is the son of Yahweh, but who still is definitely (?) someone other than Jesus (because he laughs at him). Pretty complicated, all of this.
