Judas cast in new light -- Gospel of Judas gives alternate view

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Judas cast in new light

Apr. 7, 2006. 05:12 AM

FRANCINE KOPUN

FEATURE WRITER

 

One of the greatest villains in history was in truth a hero for the ages,

according to an ancient gospel unveiled yesterday in Washington.

Judas Iscariot, a man whose name became synonymous with betrayal for selling

information about Jesus to the Romans for 30 pieces of silver - an act that

led to the arrest and crucifixion of the man Christians regard as the son of

God - was acting on orders from Jesus himself.

"He's the good guy. He's the only apostle who understands Jesus," said Bart

Ehrman, chair of the Department of Religious Studies at the University of

North Carolina at Chapel Hill and an expert in the New Testament. "In this

gospel it turns out that Judas does turn Jesus over to the authorities, but

according to this gospel, this is what Jesus wanted."

In fact, Jesus entrusted Judas with a secret he did not reveal to any of his

other disciples: That this world was not created by the one true God, but by

a lesser, evil divinity as a place to entrap divine spirits.

"The idea of this gospel is that humans have a divine spirit trapped within

them that needed to escape their bodies and Jesus was just here temporarily

and he also needed to escape and Judas provided him the way of doing it,"

said Ehrman.

Jesus even told Judas that he would come to be reviled through the ages for

his actions, according to the gospel.

"Step away from the others and I shall tell you the mysteries of the

kingdom," Jesus says. "It is possible for you to reach it, but you will

grieve a great deal ... you will be cursed by the other generations ... and

you will come to rule over them ... you will exceed all of them. For you

will sacrifice the man that clothes me."

The "man that clothes me" is believed to be a reference to the human body

occupied by Jesus.

The leather-bound papyrus text was found in the desert near El Minya, Egypt,

in the 1970s.

It had been lost for nearly 1,700 years and some biblical scholars are

calling the Gospel of Judas the most significant archaeological find in 60

years. The gospel was found in a codex, or ancient book, that dates back to

the third or fourth century A.D.

It then circulated among antiquities traders, moving from Egypt to Europe to

the U.S., according to information from the National Geographic Society,

which held a news conference in Washington yesterday to announce the find.

The society owns the publishing rights to the gospel and it is featured on a

TV special on the society's digital channel on Sunday night, one week before

the holiest day of the Christian calendar, Easter.

The text languished in a safe-deposit box on Long Island, N.Y., for 16 years

before being bought by a Zurich-based antiquities dealer. During that time,

as much as 20 per cent of the manuscript, believed to have been copied down

in Coptic - the language of the Christian church in Egypt - around 300 A.D.,

crumbled beyond salvation.

When attempts to resell the manuscript fell through, it was transferred to

the Maecenas Foundation for Ancient Art in Basel, Switzerland, in February

2001 for conservation and translation.

The papyrus manuscript - a form of paper made of dried water plants - has

been authenticated by radiocarbon dating, ink analysis and multispectral

imaging. Leading scholars who have studied the content and linguistic style

of the manuscript have verified its authenticity.

There is no doubt it is genuine, said Ehrman.

Putting it back together was like assembling a jigsaw puzzle with 1,500

pieces, no picture to work with and many of the pieces missing. The

manuscript was so brittle it crumbled at the slightest touch.

The view of Judas as Jesus' favourite apostle was espoused by the Gnostics,

members of a second century A.D. Christian sect. The Gnostics believed that

the way to salvation was through secret knowledge given by Jesus to his

inner circle, and that Judas was the most enlightened apostle.

Mention has been made several times throughout history of the existence of a

Gospel of Judas - the first known reference was made in 180 A.D. by

Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyon, who denounced it as heresy.

The gospel was suppressed by the early Church because it conflicted with the

teaching that the world was created by the one true God and that Jesus was

his son, said Ehrman. The Gospel of Judas teaches that Jesus was the son,

not of the creator, but of the true God, completely spiritual, beyond the

world and our imagination. It conflicts with the Nicene Creed, recited in

church services, which states: "I believe in one God, the Father Almighty,

maker of heaven and earth."

Canadian Bill Klassen, a biblical scholar and author of a book called Judas:

Betrayer or Friend of Jesus, was one of the experts consulted in the lead-up

to the release of the documents. He spent a week in Jerusalem in

consultations, and says he's not 100 per cent persuaded it's the real thing.

"There have been so many fraudulent things."

He says there are many clues in the New Testament that point to the

possibility that Judas was not a traitor, but in fact the most beloved of

Jesus.

According to the New Testament, Judas betrayed Jesus with a kiss to identify

him to his persecutors. Crazed with guilt, Judas later hanged himself. His

name has become synonymous with treachery.

But he has been reclaimed in pop culture. Judas was sympathetically

portrayed in the hit musical Jesus Christ Superstar, the controversial movie

The Last Temptation of Christ, and in songs throughout the ages.

Klassen said he hopes the discussion surrounding the gospel will lead people

into a deeper consideration of "the other," to decrease their suspicion of

those who are different, to question motives.

If Judas, the most notorious turncoat of all times, was actually the good

guy, what does that say about others we believe to be bad?

Ehrman said he doubts the newly revealed gospel will change anyone's

beliefs.

"I think what this gospel does is show us that Christians in the early

centuries believed an extremely wide range of things."

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Gospel of Judas gives alternate view

 

The National Geographic Society releases a modern translation of the ancient

text.

 

BY GUY GUGLIOTTA AND ALAN COOPERMAN

Washington Post

 

WASHINGTON - The National Geographic Society on Thursday released the first

modern translation of the ancient Gospel of Judas, which depicts the most

reviled villain in Christian history as a devoted follower who was simply

doing Jesus' bidding when he betrayed him.

The text's existence has been known since it was denounced as heresy by the

bishop of Lyon in A.D. 180, but its contents had remained an almost total

mystery. Unlike the four gospels of the New Testament, it describes

conversations between Jesus and Judas Iscariot during the week before

Passover in which Jesus tells Judas "secrets no other person has ever seen."

The other apostles pray to a lesser God, Jesus says, and reveals to Judas

the "mysteries of the kingdom" of the true God. He asks Judas to help him

return to the kingdom, but to do so, Judas must help him abandon his mortal

flesh: "You will sacrifice the man that clothes me," Jesus tells Judas, and

acknowledges that Judas "will be cursed by the other generations."

Scholars said the 26-page document was written on 13 sheets of papyrus leaf

in ancient Egyptian, or Coptic, and was bound as a book, known as a codex.

It is one of dozens of sacred texts from the Christian Gnostics, who

believed that salvation came through secret knowledge conveyed by Jesus.

National Geographic, which funded much of the research, said it

authenticated the codex through radiocarbon dating, ink analysis and study

of the script. And despite a murky history, no scholar has suggested the

document is a forgery.

As an authentic ancient Gnostic text, the Gospel of Judas is certain to

spark a surge of interest by both theologians and the faithful, but scholars

said it is unclear whether it also will prompt a re-evaluation of the

traitor denounced by Matthew for betraying Jesus for "30 pieces of silver."

---------

 

By Charles A. Radin, Globe Staff | April 8, 2006

 

Parishioners at morning Mass at St. John Chrysostom church in West Roxbury

were buzzing yesterday over news reports about the release of the Gospel of

Judas, which some scholars suggest could revolutionize people's

understanding of early Christianity.

 

Rev. David Michael sensed a teaching moment was at hand.

In his homily, the priest explained that the Catholic Church of today

rejects the Gospel of Judas, just as it did in the early centuries of

Christianity. The main reason, he said, is that the text asserts that

salvation comes through special knowledge imparted by Christ to select

people during his time on earth. Catholics and many other Christians believe

that salvation comes through the death and resurrection of Jesus.

''These gospels emphasize knowledge that initiates have and others do not,"

Michael said, recapping his homily in a telephone interview yesterday

afternoon. ''Jesus made a wide-open gift of salvation to humanity. In the

real Christian tradition, salvation comes through faith."

Clergymen, theologians, and scholars reacted with elation, caution, and

occasionally anger yesterday to the reports flooding the media -- stoked by

a massive National Geographic Society public relations campaign -- that the

reclaimed Gospel of Judas could, as one leading scholar put it, ''turn

everything on its head." National Geographic announced in Washington on

Thursday that a team of researchers had restored, authenticated, and

translated the text, which dates back to roughly the second century.

 

YESTERDAY'S BOSTON GLOBE: A new Judas emerges from rediscovered gospel (By

Charles A. Radin, Globe Staff, 4/7/06)

 

NECN: Manuscript offers new view on Jesus and Judas

 

More on the Judas gospel

 

Numerous parishioners came to Michael after the West Roxbury Mass to thank

him for taking up the topic, which has created confusion. The New Testament

includes four gospels -- Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John -- and some at

Michael's church wondered how to view the Judas manuscript in relation to

the Christian Bible they were taught.

''People are wondering; people have questions," Michael said. ''Clearly it

behooves us as priests to address this."

Interest is also boiling in academic and theological circles.

Some scholars say they are certain that the text will have a major impact,

at the least in forcing a revision in thinking about the archvillain of the

New Testament, a man so reviled in the Christian mind throughout the

centuries that he is portrayed in Dante's Inferno being eaten by Satan at

the lowest level of Hell. In the Gospel of Judas, Judas is portrayed as a

favored disciple of Christ who turned him over to the Romans for execution

at Christ's urging.

It's ''very exciting, a real boon," said Jennifer Knust, a professor of New

Testament and Christian origins at Boston University. ''It makes a

difference in the way teachers teach. I teach seminarians, and they are very

interested."

Others are expressing doubts about the authenticity of the document, and

some resent the way the news is being controlled, by National Geographic and

the Swiss foundation that owns the manuscript, which this week put it on

display.Continued...

The influential early Christian theologian Irenaeus of Lyon, a formative

influence in the church's canonization of the four gospels, tried to make

the authors and groups that embraced other gospels appear heretical and

ridiculous, Knust said.

But she believes that because the Judas text and others of the same era have

been discovered, Irenaeus will increasingly be viewed as just one of many

sources on the beliefs of early Christianity, rather than the definitive

source.

Both at BU and at her previous teaching post at the College of the Holy

Cross in Worcester -- where, Knust said, most of her students were religious

Catholics -- some were already questioning the depiction of Judas in the

Bible.

''Students were already coming in saying, 'Didn't Judas get a bad rap?' "

Knust said. ''Wouldn't Jesus be sympathetic with him? Didn't he do a great

deed, because Jesus had to die for salvation to happen?' "

Pheme Perkins, a specialist on the New Testament and other gospels, noted

that modern portrayals such as the film ''The Last Temptation of Christ" and

the Broadway hit show ''Jesus Christ Superstar" conveyed the idea that Judas

was in league with Jesus and that there was a closer relationship between

them than tradition has portrayed, a major theme of the newly authenticated

Gospel of Judas.

But Perkins also said she is not yet convinced of the authenticity of the

Gospel of Judas, and she criticized those involved in the rediscovery for

presenting the text to the public before they made sufficient information

available to the scholarly community.

''It could be a patchwork; it could be a modern forgery," Perkins said,

criticizing one of the lead scholars involved in the translation for using

phrasings that are similar to proven Christian texts, when other words also

could have been used.

Many people have been promoting rediscovered early gospels that say

salvation is based in knowledge, rather than on the death and resurrection

of Christ, as ''spirituality for the 21st century," Perkins said. However,

the texts do not involve knowledge in the modern sense, but complicated

mythology and metaphysics, she said.

One of the leading international authorities on the gospels that disappeared

in the early centuries of Christianity is James M. Robinson, professor

emeritus of religion at Claremont Graduate University. Robinson was offered

the Judas manuscript in 1983, but was unable to meet the price demanded by

the antiquities dealer who possessed it at the time. He was not involved in

the National Geographic conservation and translation effort.

Robinson said in a telephone interview yesterday that he is convinced the

document is not a forgery. But he also disputed assertions that it provides

new information about what happened on Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, or

Easter.

Participants in the National Geographic effort ''are making the sly

suggestion that the Gospel of Judas is more or less equally valid" with the

gospels of the New Testament and ''contains things that could pull the rug

out from under Christianity as we know it," said Robinson. ''That is just

ridiculous."

Robinson's new book on the Judas gospel is due out next week and will be in

competition with two other new volumes authored by scholars associated with

the National Geographic effort. He said that a principal reason the

manuscript was kept secret until this week's mega-promotion effort was so

that revenue from the books, the May National Geographic magazine, and a

television documentary to be broadcast tomorrow night ''would allow them to

recoup the $1 million they had to pay for exclusive rights."

Haley Robinson, a Methodist studying for a master's degree in divinity at

BU, said it helps her to read documents like the Gospel of Judas that make

Jesus more accessible.

''It strengthens my faith to see Jesus portrayed as more human than he is in

the gospels," she said. ''It makes it lots easier for me to connect to him."