The Gospel of Judas

The Gospel of Judas, once thought decayed beyond repair, has been successfully restored by the National Geographic Society, and is now being made public.



I find these sorts of things fascinating, but confess that I know just enough about the science of it all to be dangerous.

What worries me about this discovery is that the document is being publicized as presenting a very different view of the relationship of Judas and Jesus, and even makes the claim that Judas was acting on orders from Jesus (the way a friend would fulfill the wishes of his friend-even if it meant killing him).

The Gospel of Judas gives a different view of the relationship between Jesus and Judas, offering new insights into the disciple who betrayed Jesus. Unlike the accounts in the canonical Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, in which Judas is portrayed as a reviled traitor, this newly discovered Gospel portrays Judas as acting at Jesus' request when he hands Jesus over to the authorities.

Skeptical
The problem for me is that the years have hardened me to antiquities that make these sorts of claims. Remember the Ossuary of James? The Shroud of Turin?

There is no doubt that there are archeological finds that are the real thing, i.e. The Dead Sea Scrolls. But I find that it takes decades to verify, cross check, and make sure that it is the real thing. National Geographic states that the refurbishing of the Judas Gospel took a mere 5 years, which is lightning speed for this type of work.

Timing
Which leads me to my next question. Why was this made public now, with a special television presentation the week before Easter? I believe that the question is actually the answer. Experts have known about this gospel since the 70s, and the project began in 2001. It appears to me that the release of the document to the public was carefully planned to coincide with a time of year when most people's attention is focused on Jesus and the Easter story. This makes a lot of sense from a marketing standpoint, but deep down it makes me wonder if it is also meant to place question marks in the mind of the public.

Judas
And of course Judas would have a different story! When you were a kid, if you ever got into trouble and were sent to the principal's office (as I did often), all parties involved in the infraction had a slight variation on the story that painted their involvement in the most positive light possible.

The author of the Gospel of Judas remains anonymous. The original Greek text of the gospel, of which this is a Coptic translation, is thought to have been written by a group of early gnostic Christians sometime between when the New Testament Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were penned and A.D. 180

The gnostics who wrote this document could have been Judas sympathizers for all we know, anxious to exonerate him from being known as the most infamous betrayer in history.

Conclusion
There is no doubt that this is an authentic text (the website goes into great detail on how they verified it), and that this is a significant find. However, I believe that at most it demonstrates that early Christians held different beliefs, not that the Bible as we know it is incorrect or somehow missing information.

Jesus Christ said that He would be betrayed and crucified, just as it had been prophesied:

The Son of man indeed goeth, as it is written of him: but woe to that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed! good were it for that man if he had never been born. Mark 14:21

This does not sound like the words of someone addressing a friend who is doing him a favor.
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