Continuing with the religious theme on UncommonSense, I was interested to read about the authentication of a recovered alternative Christian text that had been lost for 1,700 years.
The Gospel of Judas was rejected for inclusion in the Bible in 180 A.D. It purports to tell the real truth of Jesus' relationship to the man the Bible teaches us betrayed him to his death on the cross.
The papyrus manuscript, probably written around 300 A.D. in Coptic script, is a copy of an earlier Greek manuscript, said Terry Garcia of the National Geographic Society, which made the manuscript public.Even for those of us who accept the Bible as the word of God, this is fascinating from a historical point of view.
It was discovered in the desert in Egypt in the 1970s and has now been authenticated by carbon dating and studied and translated by biblical scholars, National Geographic announced.
Unlike the four gospels in the Bible, this text indicates that Judas betrayed Jesus at Jesus' request.
The text begins "the secret account of the revelation that Jesus spoke in conversation with Judas Iscariot."
The key passage comes when Jesus tells Judas "you will exceed all of them. For you will sacrifice the man that clothed me."
This indicates that Judas would help liberate the spiritual self by helping Jesus get rid of his physical flesh, the scholars said.
There is a TV special about this on Sunday night, by the way.
5 comments:
There are a lot of writings from that era and earlier that exist(ed) but are not included in the Bible both old (Life of Adam and Eve, the Psalms of Solomon, etc.) and new (The Gospel of Thomas, The Acts of Peter, etc.) testament. These were not included in the Bible because they have inaccuracies and/or are not believed to have devine authority and/or were not/are not used.
I think we could be looking at a biblical era example of "spin."
Here's a man simply trying to explain that the end justified his means.
It will be nice to see Judas' reputation improved. He's suffered a lot, what with the public scorn, the loss of the silver pieces and the suicide by hanging, which sounds a little dodgy, frankly. "Um...yes your praetorianship...we just came across him swinging here...no, no money on him, we heard he had some silver pieces but they were scattered and grew into these lovely trees you see here. What? They grew that fast because they're a new breed of bamboo."
It would be a nice case study in a person's rehabilitation. …”Worked on improving the image of J. Iscariot, long believed to have been responsible for selling out the Savior. Helped create positive news around recovered documents showing that J.I.’s actions were sanctioned by the Son of God to give SOG a more heroic ending. Good placement in the major press has helped revive “the Goat’s” standing among believers and the condemned. Foundations and scholarships subsequently created in his name.”
It will be nice to see Judas' reputation improved.
I must say I don't see much potential for reputation rehab. After all, the man's very name is synonymous with "traitor."
However, a study of "The Gospel of Judas" can provide a window into the workings of the early church and the way its identity was forged. That is compelling stuff.
The gospel of Judas looks like it is a part of a larger collection of manuscripts know as the Nag Hammadi Library. Considering the state of Christianity in the early years, with all the competing heresies running around, it is quite possible that the book of Judas is the product of a heretic, and not of the apostle himself.
In addition ,the Nag Hammadi are also commonly known as the "gnostic" bible for a reason, and as mentioned before on this thread, contain contradictions with regards to Old Testament cosmology, among other things. They are an interesting read, but honestly, their inclusion into the New Testament would have made the work as a whole more confusing than it already is.
For instance, one common theme in the Nag Hammadi seems to be that salvation is achieved through the aquisition of secret knowledge. This would run counter to the New Testament idea that salvation requires just a belief in JC as the Savior.
Nonetheless, the discovery and translation of the "Book of Judas" is an interesting development all the same. But if it is part of the Nag Hammadi, then I don't expect it to stray too far from the Library's common themes.
As an aside, it is believed that the books of the Nag Hammadi were hidden to protect them from Church authorities bent on destroying the work of heretics.
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