The gospel of judas

The dust has barely settled in Christian circles regarding The Da Vinci Code and its questionable claims on the sanctity of Jesus and his relationship with Mary Magdalene. In the last few months a new controversy has emerged, that of the Gospel of Judas.

In brief, the Gospel of Judas is an ancient Gnostic manuscript, discovered in the 1970s, that appears to be an account written by Thomas of Jesus' interactions with Judas Iscariot. The transcript portrays Judas as Jesus' beloved disciple, and unlike the New Testament gospels does not provide a narrative account of Jesus' life. Instead it is a collection of sayings and conversations between Jesus and Judas.

Massive controversy surrounds the documents. Since their discovery they have been traded on the antique black market for millions. Over the decades, the manuscript had not been meticulously handled: some single pages may be loose on the antiquities market (one half page turned up in Feb. 2006, in NYC), and the text is now thought to be less than three-quarters complete. A group of translators and historians have attempted to translate the transcripts from the original Coptic language and piece together coherently the pieces that are missing. Their attempt can be read here from the National Geographic. For an account of how the documents emerged, read it here from the NY Times.

From a faith perspective, thanks to Wikipedia as a source, the controversy lies in the claim that Judas acted as he did in order that mankind might be redeemed by the death of Jesus' mortal body - this being a consistent Gnostic belief. For this reason, they regarded Judas as worthy of gratitude and veneration. In this theory, it is suggested that Judas, who in common with the other disciples looked for a temporal kingdom of the Messiah ("the anointed one"), did not anticipate the death of Jesus, but wished to precipitate a political crisis and hasten the hour of triumph, thinking that the arrest of Jesus would provoke a rising of the people who would set him free and place him on the throne. In support of this, they point to the fact that, when Judas found that Jesus was condemned and given up to the Romans, he immediately repented of what he had done. These theories are at odds with those of mainstream church doctrine as derived from canonical scripture. In a nutshell, it is contended that Judas acted on Jesus' instruction to "betray" him.

As the document is only ¾ complete, one has to question how authoritative it is despite the fact that the academic world does not question is authenticity. Like many conspiracy theories of late, the Christian world gets spun into madness as people who were once secure in their faith in Jesus suddenly have to embrace a paradigmatic shift in our faith. A brief read of the transcript leaves one feeling that much is missing from the text where important detail is needed to consolidate a stand on the document.

A few stark observations from a brief reading: Jesus laughs maliciously at his disciples often for their ignorance; Jesus refers regularly to cosmology and the role of the stars in the lives of the disciples; Jesus takes regular leaves of absence from his disciples to visit a generation that is superior to that of the disciples. Taken out of context, these observations seem ridiculous. So, my recommendation is that you read the document to make your own observations. Oh, before you decide to comment on the Gospel of Judas, do read it. We Christians are so good at slating things we have never read.

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