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Judas: this is what really happened
After being reviled for more than 2,000 years as the embodiment of treachery, Judas Iscariot's side of the story was finally published yesterday. Thanks to a newly discovered gospel in Judas's name, we now know what his excuse was: Jesus made me do it.
The Gospel of Judas, a fragile clutch of a leather-bound papyrus thought to have been inscribed in about AD300, was unveiled yesterday in Washington by the National Geographic Society, and it represents a radical makeover for one of the worst reputations in history.
The Gospel of Judas, a fragile clutch of a leather-bound papyrus thought to have been inscribed in about AD300, was unveiled yesterday in Washington by the National Geographic Society, and it represents a radical makeover for one of the worst reputations in history.
According to this version of events, not only was Judas obeying orders when he handed Jesus to his persecutors, he was Christ's most trusted disciple, singled out to receive mystical knowledge.
According to the 26-page gospel, copied in the ancient Coptic language apparently from a Greek original more than a hundred years older, Jesus told Judas: "Step away from the others and I shall tell you the mysteries of the kingdom. It is possible for you to reach it, but you will grieve a great deal."
In the days before the fateful Passover holiday, Jesus also told Judas: "You will exceed all of them. For you will sacrifice the man that clothes me." The line, according to biblical scholars, suggests that Jesus chose Judas to help him achieve his destiny by liberating him from his earthly body.
"It's a striking contrast with the negative portrayal of Judas as the quintessential traitor," said Marvin Meyer, a biblical scholar from Chapman University in California who helped translate the gospel. "The figure of Judas is often portrayed as the evil Jewish person who turned Jesus in to be killed."
It is unlikely, however, that the documents are about to trigger a total rehabilitation for the Iscariot name, with shrines in his name and readings from his gospel at church services, let alone a film treatment by Mel Gibson.
The initial reaction from Christian scholars was wary. Even if the gospel is authentic, they said, it appears to be the work of a particular 2nd-century sect, the gnostics, who had different beliefs from the mainstream church and who were long ago declared heretical.
The leading biblical scholar and translator of the dead sea scrolls, Professor Geza Vermes of Oxford University, said: "The document is of interest for the ideas of the gnostics but it almost certainly adds nothing to our understanding of what happened 150 years before it was written."
But the Gospel of Judas is bound to focus more attention on the gnostics, whose belief that they possessed secret knowledge leading to salvation resonates with new-age mysticism. Another gnostic text, the Gospel of Mary Magdalene, discovered a century ago, has been given a dose of publicity lately by The Da Vinci Code.
The manuscript also serves as a reminder that the four gospels in the New Testament were not the only versions of Jesus's life in the early Christian era, according to Bart Ehrman, a religious studies professor at the University of North Carolina, at its unveiling yesterday. "In the struggle among Christian groups to win converts only one emerged victorious," he said. "It declared itself orthodox and all others heretics."
More
http://www.guardian.co.uk/frontpage/story/0,,1748970,00.html
According to the 26-page gospel, copied in the ancient Coptic language apparently from a Greek original more than a hundred years older, Jesus told Judas: "Step away from the others and I shall tell you the mysteries of the kingdom. It is possible for you to reach it, but you will grieve a great deal."
In the days before the fateful Passover holiday, Jesus also told Judas: "You will exceed all of them. For you will sacrifice the man that clothes me." The line, according to biblical scholars, suggests that Jesus chose Judas to help him achieve his destiny by liberating him from his earthly body.
"It's a striking contrast with the negative portrayal of Judas as the quintessential traitor," said Marvin Meyer, a biblical scholar from Chapman University in California who helped translate the gospel. "The figure of Judas is often portrayed as the evil Jewish person who turned Jesus in to be killed."
It is unlikely, however, that the documents are about to trigger a total rehabilitation for the Iscariot name, with shrines in his name and readings from his gospel at church services, let alone a film treatment by Mel Gibson.
The initial reaction from Christian scholars was wary. Even if the gospel is authentic, they said, it appears to be the work of a particular 2nd-century sect, the gnostics, who had different beliefs from the mainstream church and who were long ago declared heretical.
The leading biblical scholar and translator of the dead sea scrolls, Professor Geza Vermes of Oxford University, said: "The document is of interest for the ideas of the gnostics but it almost certainly adds nothing to our understanding of what happened 150 years before it was written."
But the Gospel of Judas is bound to focus more attention on the gnostics, whose belief that they possessed secret knowledge leading to salvation resonates with new-age mysticism. Another gnostic text, the Gospel of Mary Magdalene, discovered a century ago, has been given a dose of publicity lately by The Da Vinci Code.
The manuscript also serves as a reminder that the four gospels in the New Testament were not the only versions of Jesus's life in the early Christian era, according to Bart Ehrman, a religious studies professor at the University of North Carolina, at its unveiling yesterday. "In the struggle among Christian groups to win converts only one emerged victorious," he said. "It declared itself orthodox and all others heretics."
More
http://www.guardian.co.uk/frontpage/story/0,,1748970,00.html
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The Gospel of Judas, a papyrus document from the 3rd or 4th Century AD, tells the story of Jesus' death from the fallen disciple's point of view.
Alleged to be a copy of an even older text, it casts Judas as a benevolent figure, helping Jesus to save mankind.
The early Christian Church denounced such teachings as heretical.
The 31-page fragile document, written in the Coptic language, was discovered in Egypt in the 1970s.
The National Geographic Society in the US is to publish the first English translation of the text on Thursday and show some of the papyrus pages for the first time.
Breakaway sect
For 2,000 years Christianity has portrayed Judas as the treacherous apostle who betrayed his divine master with a kiss, leading to his capture and crucifixion.
More
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4882420.stm
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It will "shake Christianity to its foundations". Or so the pre-publicity suggested. A 3rd or 4th-century document called "The Gospel of Judas" was launched upon an unsuspecting world yesterday by no less a biblical authority than the National Geographic magazine in Washington. Its contents were "explosive", according to Mario Roberty, president of the Swiss foundation which now owns the ancient papyrus manuscript.
So as the heat faded from the television lights at the press conference, has 2000 years of orthodox Christianity been overturned? Well, not quite. But it was all jolly interesting, for those who love that sort of thing.
Half of the 62-page codex, written in Coptic script, is devoted to an account of the final days of Jesus Christ written from the viewpoint of the man who has for two millennia been excoriated as Christ's deadly betrayer. The text begins: "The secret account of the revelation that Jesus spoke in conversation with Judas Iscariot three days before he celebrated Passover..."
Secret, hang on to that. That's the important bit.
And though the manuscript has been carbon-dated to around 300AD, it is likely to be a copy of an earlier Greek manuscript written around the year 150AD, in the same period when the gospels of Mark, Matthew, Luke and John were also written down. So, the new discovery is serious competition, the National Geographic people implied, for the official version.
More
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/science_technology/article356265.ece