'Gospel of Judas' Surfaces After 1,700 Years - NY Times

Honest people can usually be counted on to write what they believe to be true — which is not necessarily the same as what is true.  In the early church, different factions believed different things to be true about Jesus's life and death — and we don't know how to reliably determine who, if anyone, got the actual history correct.  This article by John Noble Wilford and Laurie Goodstein, published in today's NY Times, brings us an illustration:

An early Christian manuscript, including the only known text of what is known as the Gospel of Judas, has surfaced after 1,700 years. The text gives new insights into the relationship of Jesus and the disciple who betrayed him, scholars reported today.

In this version, Jesus asked Judas, as a close friend, to sell him out to the authorities, which led to the Crucifixion. * * *  The 26-page Judas text is said to be a copy in Coptic, made around A. D. 300, of the original Gospel of Judas, written in Greek the century before.  *  *  *

"The codex has been authenticated as a genuine work of ancient Christian apocryphal literature," Mr. Garcia said, citing extensive tests of radiocarbon dating, ink analysis and multispectral imaging and studies of the script and linguistic style. The ink, for example, was consistent with ink of that era, and there was no evidence of multiple rewriting.

"This is absolutely typical of ancient Coptic manuscripts," said Stephen Emmel, professor of Coptic studies at the University of Munster in Germany. "I am completely convinced."

The most revealing passages in the Judas manuscript begins, "The secret account of the revelation that Jesus spoke in conversation with Judas Iscariot during a week, three days before he celebrated Passover."

The account goes on to relate that Jesus tells Judas that he will "exceed" the other disciples. "For you will sacrifice the man that clothes me," Jesus said. By that, scholars familiar with Gnostic thinking said, Jesus meant that by helping him get rid of his physical flesh, Judas will act to liberate the true spiritual self or divine being within Jesus.

Unlike the accounts in the New Testament Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, the anonymous author of the Gospel of Judas believed that Judas Iscariot alone among the 12 disciples understood the meaning of Jesus' teachings and acceded to his will.  In the diversity of early Christian thought, a group known as Gnostics believed in a secret knowledge of how people could escape the prisons of their material bodies and return to the spiritual realm from which they came.

Elaine Pagels, a professor of religion at Princeton who specializes in studies of the Gnostics, said in a statement, "These discoveries are exploding the myth of a monolithic religion, and demonstrating how diverse — and fascinating — the early Christian movement really was."

The Gospel of Judas is only one of many texts discovered in the last 65 years, including the gospels of Thomas, Mary Magdalene and Philip, believed to be written by Gnostics.

The Gnostics' beliefs were often viewed by bishops and early church leaders as unorthodox, and they were frequently denounced as heretics. The discoveries of Gnostic texts have shaken up Biblical scholarship by revealing the diversity of beliefs and practices among early followers of Jesus.

*  *  *

Karen L. King, a professor of the history of early Christianity at Harvard Divinity School, and an expert in Gnosticism who has not yet read the manuscript released today, said that the Gospel of Judas may well reflect the kinds of debates that arose in the second and third century among Christians.

"You can see how early Christians could say, if Jesus's death was all part of God's plan, then Judas's betrayal was part of God's plan," said Ms. King, the author of several books on the Gospel of Mary. "So what does that make Judas? Is he the betrayer, or the facilitator of salvation, the guy who makes the crucifixion possible?"

At least one scholar said the new manuscript does not contain anything dramatic that would change or undermine traditional understanding of the Bible. James M. Robinson, a retired professor of Coptic studies at Claremont Graduate University, was the general editor of the English edition of the Nag Hammadi library, a collection of Gnostic documents discovered in Egypt in 1945.

"Correctly understood, there's nothing undermining about the Gospel of Judas," Mr. Robinson said in a telephone interview. He said that the New Testament gospels of John and Mark both contain passages that suggest that Jesus not only picked Judas to betray him, but actually encouraged Judas to hand him over to those he knew would crucify him.

Read it all.

Comments

[Derek]

The gospel of Judas is third century. It--like the other gospels of the time--contain absolutely no historical information not already found in other sources. These are helpful documents in so far as they illuminate debates and doctrinal development within movements calling themselves Christians. What will academics do with this? Well, unless we're third century people--we'll yawn. What will the media do with this? They'll call it startling new evidence that shakes Christianity at its very core...

[Derek]

Actually--head here and see what the professionals *did* say. The news broke in our field a while ago so the posts on it aren't current, but just search on "Judas" at Hypotyposeis and the NT Gateway blog.

[Robert Landbeck]

Like the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Nag Hammadi Library before, the publication of the Gospel of Judas, continues to undermine the conception of 'Canonical Scriptures' and raises big questions about the traditions built upon them. What would Christianity look like if all these resources were available from the beginning?

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