The Gospel of Judas
The National Geographic Society has released that it has been working with an ancient document that contains The Gospel of Judas.
The National Geographic Society has been part of an international effort, in collaboration with the Maecenas Foundation for Ancient Art and the Waitt Institute for Historical Discovery, to authenticate, conserve, and translate a 66-page codex, which contains a text called James (also known as First Apocalypse of James), the Letter of Peter to Philip, a fragment of a text that scholars are provisionally calling Book of Allogenes, and the only known surviving copy of the Gospel of Judas.
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.
There will be more about the Gospel of Judas on a television special Sunday night and in the May issue of National Geographic. Judas has been an interesting biblical character to me for the last couple of years partly because I want to understand his motivations; was he selling out Jesus, trying to force Jesus' hand, or as this docuement may say, acting on Jesus' orders. I look forward to finding out more about what the Gospel of Judas.
Comments
I've always felt Judas is the most interesting, and under discussed, disciple. Though more from the point of view of the larger supporting structure of the church then Judas as a character with personal motivations.
I think that's because Judas represents some really hard and defining decisions for how the church interacts with others. Did Judas see heaven for playing his role in the sacrifice of Jesus? Was he evil and God simply used him in the required role to make the sacrifice happen? If the "using a convenient tool of evil" scenario, isn't there some culpability for the failure to help Judas as one of God's children? What if Judas wasn't there to betray Jesus or wouldn't?
I find questions like this get the subject changed amazingly quickly.
Posted by: Aric Czarnowski | April 10, 2006 10:26 AM
Recent pop-culture pieces have played with the ambiguity of Judas' intentions. The Last Temptation of Christ plays with this idea of Judas' betrayal as part of the divine plan. Jesus Christ Superstar takes a view of Judas as one trying to force Jesus hand as a political figure.
I also think it is interesting how Judas gets blacklisted and a place in the bowels of Dante's hell for his betrayal, yet Peter's denial of Jesus is generally excused and he gets the keys to the kingdom.
Not long ago I saw a woodcut of the last supper (in the House of Blues in Orlando, actually) with only eleven disciples depicted, we can only assume it was Judas not present. However in the Luke gospel account, Judas is present for the last supper, implying Judas is not outside grace.
Anyway, I have a lot of the same questions. Thanks for posting yours.
Posted by: Ryan Torma | April 11, 2006 10:05 PM