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Judas and His Moral Makeover?
By Pastor Myron Vierra
Did Judas
actually conspire with Jesus
according to the Gospel of Judas? Should we believe
this Gospel of Judas vs. the four Gospels in the Bible?
The
Gospel of Judas debuted last week in Washington, D.C. by
National Geographic and will open up another round of
the ongoing “controversy” about the origins of
Christianity. According to the advanced publicity the
book will “shed new light on the historical figure of
Judas.” Judas, according to the press, has been totally
misrepresented or at least misunderstood by traditional
Christianity.
The
translation is due for release around Easter, and with
the Da
Vinci Code
movie coming out in May
as well, all this
advance publicity is sure to maximize sales. Anything
which questions mainstream Christianity these days seems
to prove a best seller, particularly if a controversy
can be attached to it.
What's the Gospel of
Judas, you ask?
Well,
it's not a gospel, not in the traditional sense used in
the New Testament. And it's not written by Judas, if you
remember - he hung himself, according to an eye witness
account recorded by the Gospel of Matthew and retold in
a sermon given by Peter (an eye witness as well) in
Acts. Acts is a record of the life of the early church
recorded by Luke who was a part of this first Christian
church.
What should we
believe about this Gospel of Judas?
The
Gospel of Judas was composed after the New Testament
Gospel’s were written. No doubt, like them, The Gospel
of Judas made use of the title Gospel to accredit itself
against the New Testament writings. Gospel of Judas was
not written by Judas — after all, he had been dead for
over a century — but may not be what the public assumes
a Gospel would be — a collection of the stories and/or
sayings of Jesus recorded by eye witnesses. The Gospel
of Judas is not an eye witness account. The Gospel of
Judas will in all probability teach us a lot more about
the Gnosticism of the second century, than about the
public ministry of Jesus.
So where did this Gospel come from?
Sometime in the 1970s, in a cave in Egypt, a copy of the
“Gospel of Judas” was discovered. The circumstances of
the discovery have been described as shady, with those
possessing the copy asking for exorbitant amounts of
money for the codex. For decades, no institution was
willing to pay for the purchase due to its dubious
origins. What changed the interest? One could say the
Da Vinci Code
and the up and coming movie release.
The Gospel of Judas was purchased by a
foundation in Switzerland and the existence of the
Gospel of Judas codex was made public in 2004, but the
actual release of the content of the codex has been
repeatedly delayed, with the now expected release date
of April, 2006. The dating of the Gospel of Judas codex
is likely 5th century A.D. Up to one third of the codex
is missing or illegible.
The only reference to the Gospel of Judas
was in the writings of a 2nd century Christian named
Irenaeus. Irenaeus essentially wrote that the gospel of
Judas was the “invented history” of a long line of
heretics and rebels against God. The essential message
of the Gospel of Judas is that Jesus wanted Judas to
betray Him because it was necessary to fulfill Jesus’
plan. If it was Jesus' plan for Judas to betray Him, why
would Jesus label Judas the "son of perdition" (John
17:12), and state that it would have been better if
Judas had never been born (Matthew 26:24)? If Judas were
simply following Jesus' instructions, why would he
commit suicide once he saw that Jesus was condemned
(Matthew 27:5)?
The papyri
on which the Gospel of Judas is written are fragmentary
with some sections missing, in some cases scattered
words, in others many lines. This is most likely due to
the wear and tear associated with the elements and the
passage of time. According to
Professor Rodolphe Kasser of Switzerland one of the
world's leading Coptic scholars,
the text originally contained 62 pages; but when it came
to the market in 1999, only 26 pages remained because
individual pages had been removed and put up for sale.
From time to time, these missing pages appear and are
identified. The estimated range of dating of the Judas
gospel is 130–170. The Gospel of Judas is one of
the 16 other gospels about which some information has
historically been preserved in early church writings.
Who Wrote the Gospel of Judas?
Most scholars believe the Gospel of
Judas was written by the group called the Cainites
who were a
Gnostic and
Antinomian sect
known to worship
Cain as the first
victim of the Demiurge
Jehovah. Demiurge
Jehovah refers to the belief the Cainites Gnostic had
about the creator of the material world, which is evil
by nature. Hence, the Demiurge Jehovah was identified by
the early Cainites Gnostics with
Yahweh, the
Old Testament
God. Many of the
early Gnostic identified the Demiurge Jehovah as
evil. The Cainites
Gnostic sect was relatively small and they worship Cain,
the murderer of Able because he freed Able from the
material world. They were mentioned by
Tertullian and
Irenaeus as
existing in the eastern
Roman Empire
during the
2nd century. One
of their
apocryphal texts
was the
Gospel of Judas.
Tertullian and Irenaeus were early Christian writers and
they believed this sect was not Christian.
What is
Gnosticism?
Gnosticism
is a historical term for various
mystical initiatory religions,
sects and
knowledge schools which were most active in the first
few centuries around the
Mediterranean and
extending into central
Asia. These
systems typically recommend the pursuit of
mysticism or
"special knowledge" (gnosis)
as the central goal of life. They also commonly depict
creation as a
mythological
struggle between competing forces of light and dark, and
posit a marked division between the material realm,
typically depicted as under the governance of malign
forces (such as the
demiurge), and the
higher spiritual realm from which it is divided,
governed by
God (the
Monad) and the
Aeons.
According to many Gnostic teachers, Jesus either did not
actually appear in the flesh, or he at least wanted to
shed his skin as soon as possible. Jesus longed to
return to the spirit world. Judas helped make that
happen. ("You will sacrifice the man that clothes me,"
the "spiritual Jesus tells Judas in this document.)
Also, Gnostics believed only a select few would truly
apprehend the knowledge of heaven. The gospel of Judas
teaches that only Judas, Jesus' favorite disciple, fully
understood.
Christian belief contrasts
sharply with Gnosticism. Fully God and fully man, Jesus
endured birth in a manger and death on a cross. He
shared in our humanity, "so that by his death he might
destroy him who holds the power of death" (Heb.
2:14).
This message is not restricted to a few who will
ascertain gnosis (knowledge). The gospel "is the
power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes:
first for the Jew, then for the Gentile" (Rom.
1:16).
Clearly, Gnosticism, as understood by the early
Christian Church fathers, like
Tertullian and Irenaeus,
was not “Christian” but totally in
contradiction to the historical teachings of Jesus
Christ, the founder of Orthodox Christianity.
Does the Gospel of Judas Change Christianity?
Some
claim the gospel of Judas and other Gnostic texts throw
orthodox Christianity into doubt. "As the findings have
trickled down to churches and universities," New York
Times reporters John Noble Wilford and Laurie
Goodstein wrote, "they have produced a new generation of
Christians who now regard the Bible not as the literal
word of God, but as a product of historical and
political forces that determined which texts should be
included in the canon, and which edited out. For that
reason, the discoveries have proved deeply troubling for
many believers."
Who
are those troubled believers? I for one had no trouble
with the Gospel of Judas or the other 13 Gnostic
Gospels. All of these Gospels were not written by eye
witnesses of what Jesus taught and did. They were
individuals who took New Testament names and used them
to give some authority to their writers. They didn’t
believe in Orthodox Christianity, as taught by Jesus
Christ and recorded by eye witnesses in the New
Testament. In regard to the Cainite Gnostics history
tells us they earned their name rehabilitating disgraced
biblical figures, including Cain, the Sodomites, and
Judas.
In the New Testament, we
receive a very different and contrasting perspective on
Judas. Mark portrays Judas as a slow learner, just like
the other disciples who misunderstood Jesus' teaching.
Writing later, John explains Judas differently. Judas
exploits his position as treasurer to steal from the
till, and Jesus calls him a "devil" (John
6:70).
The balance of the New Testament Scripture indicates
Judas expected a different type of Messiah.
Disappointed, he turned in Jesus, whom he considered a
threat to the Jewish nation. Judas, according to the New
Testament is a tragic individual who rejected Jesus
because he didn’t fit into his own understanding or
expectations. The Gospel of Judas doesn’t give to
Christianity anything new but just the same old
controversy with those who reject Orthodox Christianity
as first taught by Jesus Christ and recorded in the New
Testament by eye witnesses. This is nothing new, it is
simply re-packaging of an old controversy first started
by Gnostics in the second century. And based on eye
witness accounts, Judas shouldn’t get any new moral
makeover, at least not according to those who knew him
personally.
References:
Theological Dictionary of
the New Testaments;
Christianity Today, April
10, 2006;
If you have any additional
questions please contact us at life@nwi.net.
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