Reading Judas: The Gospel of Judas and the Shaping of Christianity

[Guest guest]

, " Violet "

<violetubb wrote:

>

> Dear Jagbir and all,

>

> there is more material coming, which examines the resurrection of

> Jesus Christ, which i think clarifies that Jesus' resurrection was

> the resurrection of a different body, a resurrection body, which

> though felt like flesh to the disciples, however also had what the

> author calls an " unusual physicality " :

>

 

Dear Violet and all,

 

Thanks Violet for this great piece. All of us must read " Sacrifice

and the Life of the Spirit " again:

 

/message/9910

 

as it truly underscores how religious institutions began to be

corrupted/misinterpreted/misguided centuries ago. When Jesus and Shri

Mataji talk about God Almighty you ... (know billions have been easy

prey to the error of false gods, sacrifices, idols and preachers).

 

Reading Judas: The Gospel of Judas and the Shaping of Christianity is

yet another eye-opener. The last few weeks have been 'intense' for me

and i am beginning to experience a shift in consciousness. For the

first time i can see how the Saviour and the Comforter have always

been working collectively to give humanity hope, joy, faith and

evidence " that there is a wider universe of the spirit beyond the

limited world people perceive, and unless they come to know it, they

will never know God or fulfil their own spiritual nature. "

 

But this new shift in consciousness is coming from authors like

Elaine Pagels, Karen King, Deepak Chopra and others. You begin to

truly realize from them how corrupted religions have become, and how

much we truly owe to Shri Mataji and Jesus Christ for teaching

humanity that " there is another glorious divine realm above the

material world, and an immortal holy race exists above the perishable

human race ... " the mysteries of the kingdom " (Judas 9:20). As long as

they remain ignorant, people are easy prey to the error of false gods "

................ that both have " appeared on earth in order to show

the true nature of the universe and the end time so that those who

understand these things would turn away from the worship of false

gods – with all its sacrificial violence and immorality – and

discover their true spiritual nature. "

 

Both Shri Mataji and Jesus want us to realize our Self, our true

spiritual nature, so that before the end time " those who understand

these things would turn away from the worship of false gods " .

 

regards,

 

jagbir

 

Note: Both Shri Mataji and Jesus talk about the " all knowing all

seeing " Great Invisible Spirit " (the " real God " ) from which

everything emanates. Humans have this Spirit within them, but they

must search for it by examining the Self. Jesus' death will

serve as an example to humankind that they can escape their physical

bodies and enter the Heavenly Kingdom via the discovery of this inner

Spirit. " This is the Self--the " Great Invisible Spirit " (the " real

God " )--that must be realized exisitng within us. You need no external

rituals/worship/mantras/visualizations for realizing the Self! On the

contrary, they will only hinder and keep you languishing for years in

either the kindergarten or Grade One class.

 

--------------------

 

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

 

This accessible, engaging book has Princeton religion professor

Pagels (The Gnostic Gospels; Beyond Belief) in a dream team pairing

with King (The Gospel of Mary of Magdala), who teaches ecclesiastical

history at Harvard Divinity School. Together they take on the

controversial Gospel of Judas, published in April 2006 after some

years of languishing in a safety deposit box after its initial

discovery in the 1970s. In their hundred-page introductory essay,

Pagels and King date the gospel to the middle of the second century

and situate it amidst the deadly persecution of Christians in the

Roman Empire. Such persecution, they say, drove the author of the

Gospel of Judas, who " could not reconcile his belief in a deeply

loving, good God with a particular idea other Christians held at the

time: that God desired the bloody sacrificial death of Jesus and his

followers. " The key to understanding this gospel, they argue, is its

relentless unmasking of the triumphant rhetoric of martyrdom. Though

the gospel text appears angry and polarizing, Pagels and King have

come to realize that they " cannot easily dismiss this author as

either a madman or a lunatic. " Instead, they delve deeply into his

theological view that a pure, spiritual realm exists beyond the

physical world that we see—a Gnostic chestnut that recurs in other

second-century texts. Alive to irony and historical nuance, this

remarkably concise primer opens readers to a plausible and often

persuasive interpretation of the disquieting Gospel of Judas.

 

 

-------------------

 

The Spiritual Reviewer Rates this book 8.2 on a 1-10 Scale, April 2,

2007

By The Spiritual Reviewer (Center Harbor, NH United States)

 

SUMMARY

This book presents us with a content analysis and the actual

translated text of the Gospel of Judas, which was accidentally

discovered by peasants in a burial cave in the 1970's in Middle Egypt

near al Minya. The archaeological find was finally made public by the

National Geographic Society in April 2006. Award-winning authors,

Pagels and King, who study, translate and specialize in early

Christian writings, estimate that the Gospel " was written sometime

around 150 C.E., about a century after Judas would have lived, it is

impossible that he wrote it; the real author remains anonymous. "

 

In addition to its outside-the-box spiritual teaching, this Gospel is

valued because it clearly shows that the early Christian movement was

not characterized by the unified, simplistic and fixed message that

we hear today. Rather, it's yet another piece of evidence that

demonstrates there were many different and controversial messages,

each competing for a position of supremacy, each claiming to be the

divine truth, each messenger asserting to be the most special and

favored one. While many people are comforted by the idea that the 12

apostles worked together and that they unanimously embraced and

delivered the same doctrines, this homogenized and white-washed

picture is a distortion of the historical facts, rivalries and power

struggles that are now being revealed.

 

MESSAGE OF LOVE: Score 10

If God is Love and only Love, He cannot be violence. The Gospel of

Judas renounces violence, sacrifice, martyrdom and even the

cannibalistic practice of symbolically eating the body and blood of

Christ as God's Will. This is in direct contrast to one of the

central messages of Christianity, where sacrifice and suffering is

used as a bargaining tool with God: " With the suffering of just one

hour, you can purchase for yourself eternal life! "

 

The central idea is that " those who imagine human sacrifice pleases

God have no understanding of the Father... " And even more, " By

teaching that Jesus died in agony for the sins of the world and

encouraging his followers to die as he did, certain leaders send them

on a path toward destruction - while encouraging them with the false

promise that they will be resurrected from death to eternal life in

the flesh. " The Gospel of Judas teaches that at the moment of death

the human body dies and there is no resurrection of the flesh.

Eternal life has to do with understanding our spiritual, non-physical

connection to God. Judas says that the crucifixion of Jesus

demonstrates that the death of the body is not an end of our " real "

life. " What dies is only the mortal body, not the living spirit. "

 

INSPIRATION: Score 10

Inspiration from this work does not come in the conventional manner,

as an emotional surge. Rather, it comes as a subtle opportunity to

forgive Judas and to release him from the judgments we hold against

him (and thus, against ourselves)

 

The reader is invited to perceive Judas Iscariot in a new, uplifting

and more loving way. Instead of meeting him as the predictable and

villainous betrayer, we are re-introduced to him as the only one who

really understands and gets the message that Jesus was trying to

deliver: that suffering is not necessary; that suffering has no

value; that suffering can be transcended. Judas is characterized as

the only disciple who is ready and able to hear the mysteries of the

kingdom: " ...that there is another glorious divine realm above the

material world, and an immortal holy race exists above the perishable

human race. "

 

PRACTICALITY OR RELEVANCE: Score 10

Anything that forces us to open the mind and look more closely at

fundamental religious beliefs to see if they still make sense is

highly relevant. This is because our beliefs guide our actions and

our actions determine our life experience. The authors tell us that

over the past 40 years " we have gained access to over forty gospels,

letters, and other early Christian works. " The Gospel of Judas is as

important today as it was when it was written.

 

READABILITY: Score 4

Reading Judas is scholarly, well-written and well-researched. But

that said, the actual reading experience is more like forcing

yourself to take medicine or to do a homework assignment. You know

it's good for you, but you don't really enjoy it. Because of that,

this book would best be suited for those who are more intellectually

inclined than those who are looking for a quick and easy read.

 

TOTAL SCORE: 34

AVERAGE SCORE: 8.2

 

 

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Beyond Anger to Revelation, April 18, 2007

By Robin Friedman (Washington, D.C. United States)

 

In April 2006, the National Geographic Society published an ancient

text, the " Gospel of Judas " that had been discovered in the mid-1970s

in Egypt. The original Greek text dates from about 150 A.D., although

the version recovered was a Coptic translation written several

hundred years thereafter. The publication of the " Gospel of Judas "

excited a great deal of scholarly and popular interest due, in part,

to the light it might cast on the early development of Christianity.

 

In their recent book, " Reading Judas: The Gospel of Judas and the

Shaping of Early Christianity " (2007), Elaine Pagels and Karen King

offer early thoughts on the Gospel of Judas and its significance.

Pagels is Harrington Spear Paine Professor of Religion at Princeton

University and the author of several books on Gnostic Christianity,

including " The Gnostic Gospels " . King is Winn Professor of

Ecclesiastical History at the Harvard Divinity School, and she has

also written several books on Gnosticism.

 

This short but difficult book is in two parts. The first

part, " Reading Judas " consists of four chapters jointly written by

Pagels and King examining the Gospel of Judas in the context of the

traditional New Testament canon, the history of early Christianity,

and other Gnostic texts. The second part of the study consists of an

English translation of the Gospel of Judas by King together with her

detailed commentary on the translation. Interpretation of this newly

published text is difficult. It is obscurely written with names and

characters that are unfamiliar. Extensive and important passages of

the text have been lost over the years. It should also be remembered

that the text of the Gospel of Judas is itself a Coptic translation

of an original Greek version that we do not possess.

 

Pagels and King present their text as casting light on the diverse

character of early Christianity before it assumed its canon and

orthodox formulation, but the fascination of the Gospel of Judas is

at least equally due to the text itself. As Pagels and King point

out, the text is the work of an angry author who was critical of the

disciples of Jesus and of the form that what would become mainstream

Christianity was taking and who was anti-semitic and homophobic as

well. But they find the text passing " beyond anger to revelation " (p.

103) as it leaves polemic behind and ventures into the realm of the

spirit in considering the nature of God, human character, and the

problem of evil.

 

Pagels and King argue that the Gospel of Judas was written as a

response to Christian martyrdom at the hands of the Romans. The

author of the Gospel could not believe that a just God would allow

His followers to be murdered, tortured, and sacrificed in His name.

In place of what the Gospel author saw as a cruel, vengeful God, the

author proposed a creation story consisting of a realm of two levels:

the higher level the realm of the spirit, and the lower level the

realm of the physical world. The persecutions of the Christians were

not part of the divine will but were part of the world below. The

realm of the spirit could be reached, for the author of the Gospel of

Judas, by an effort to " bring forth the perfect human. " In the text,

Jesus enjoins Judas " to seek [after the] spirit within you. "

 

The Gospel of Judas thus is an attempt to recast what became standard

religious religious thought by internalizing God and the spiritual

search. This theme, in broad outline, resonates with many people

today who find themselves religiously inclined but uncomfortable with

what they perceive as traditional religious dogma.

 

Pagels and King admirably place the Gospel of Judas in the context of

the development of Christianity. They offer a nuanced account that

recognizes the value and the need for the four traditional Gospels in

establishing a foundation for Christianity in its many creeds, from

Catholicism and Orthodoxy to evangelical Protestantism. But the

fascination with the text is ultimately the fascination with the

message. This book, as well as other recent works exploring

Gnosticism, casts light on traditional religious belief, but it also

encourages the efforts of those contemporary readers who wish to

explore alternative forms of spiritual development.

 

Robin Friedman

 

 

-------------------

 

From Great Deceiver to Bosom Buddy..., June 11, 2007

By ewomack " ewomack " (MN USA)

 

Judas Iscariot has played the role of Christianity's ultimate traitor

for centuries. Tradition, as portrayed in the synoptic gospels,

claims that he handed Jesus over to the Romans for thirty silver

pieces. This vile act led to Jesus' crucifixion and death. So

repugnant was this that his name has become synonymous with deceit

and betrayal. For example, when Bob Dylan abandoned folk music for

electric rock in 1966, an appalled audience member at the Royal

Albert Hall yelled " Judas! " Right or wrong, everyone knew what that

single name implied. Some cheered, some hissed. Pope Benedict XVI

upheld the tradition in 2006 by accusing Judas of greed and power

mongering. And why did the leader of the Catholic Church feel the

need to reiterate this well-worn point in the twenty-first century?

Because the long lost Gospel of Judas had resurfaced. A translation

of this document's extant text appears in Part Two of " Reading

Judas. " Written sometime before 180 CE, the short gospel inverts

tradition by depicting Judas as Jesus' most trusted Apostle, as his

bosom buddy, his confidante. Not only that, Jesus shares

the " mysteries of the Kingdom " with this great deceiver. And only

with him. The gospel portrays the other Apostles as weak and

conniving dolts who, according to Jesus, worship the wrong God

through cruel sacrifice. Jesus' delineation of the " Mysteries " evoke

elements similar to Pythagorianism, Platonism, Vedanta, and Buddhism.

Certain sections of the gospel read more like Plato's " Timaeus " than

the New Testament. In these passages, Jesus outlines a mystical

mathematical transcendental cosmology involving a pantheon of lesser

imperfect gods, one of which, called Saklas, created humanity, and

the all knowing all seeing " Great Invisible Spirit " (the " real God " )

from which everything emanates. Humans have this Spirit within them,

but they must search for it by examining the Self. Jesus' death will

serve as an example to humankind that they can escape their physical

bodies and enter the Heavenly Kingdom via the discovery of this inner

Spirit. Jesus entrusts Judas with initiating this sacred event. Judas

then indentifies Jesus to the accusers as instructed, receives some

copper coins, and the text ends. Thus does Judas become, in this long

lost gospel, the catalyst to humanity's salvation. Judas also sees

the vision of his demise. The other Apostles will apparently stone

him to death. But, as Jesus points out, such is the price for

the " Mysteries of the Kingdom. "

 

Part One of " Reading Judas " analyzes the Gospel in historical

context. Drawing from voluminous sources, including the Bible, other

Gnostic gospels, and various miscellaneous ancient texts, the essay's

authors, Pagels and King, frame the Gospel of Judas as a text infused

with anger. What caused this anger? In the second century CE,

Christianity as we know it was solidifying under the auspices of

bishops and clergy. Recent discoveries show that other

interpretations of Jesus' death co-existed with the now dominate

view. In other words, Christianity was not as homogenous as tradition

suggests. Over time the fringe groups, along with their documents,

were suppressed and outlawed as heretical. The Gospel of Judas, argue

the authors, represents one of these alternate, or dissenting,

ideologies. At the time of its composition Christian persecution was

widespread and expanding. Certain founders of the nascent church,

such as Tertullian, Ireneaus, and Heracleon, began to glorify the

suffering of those who were killed in horrifying and unimaginable

ways by the then pagan Roman government. Others Christians followed

them " to glory " and met similar ghastly ends. Pagels and King argue

that the Gopel of Judas' fervent anger stems from the church's

encouragement of martyrdom. The " false venegeful God, " according to

the Jesus of the Gospel of Judas, demands such needless sacrifice.

But the " true God " never would. Jesus demands that the

Apostles " cease sacrificing! " So was the Gospel of Judas a protest

piece? Maybe. It definitely paints an alternate picture of Jesus and

Christianity.

 

Overall, " Reading Judas " enables general readers to grasp the

document's signifigance. Most helpful are the some forty pages of

commentary that accompany the translation. Though Pagels and King

claim that this gospel doesn't belong in the Christian canon, they

argue that it nonetheless demonstrates that the Christianity we have

today was written by the winners. And those winners suppressed

dissent so effectively that the Gospel of Judas, among others,

remained lost for almost two millennia. All together, these ancient

texts help scholars piece together the story of Christianity's

development. " Reading Judas, " though unlikely to alter anyone's

faith, provides fascinating and provocative glimpses into the history

of western civilization's dominant religion.

 

 

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Modifying monotheism, May 19, 2007

By Stephen A. Haines (Ottawa, Ontario Canada)

 

Mind-bending drugs should be taken in small doses - which perhaps

explains the brevity of this study. It's certainly challenging, yet

surprisingly unfulfilling. The authors examine the recently

discovered and painstakingly translated gospel, written about the

middle of the 2nd Century CE. They include the entire available text

plus commentary on the translation as part of this volume. They

suggest it provides a fresh image of early Christianity - things not

revealed by the other texts such as that from Nag Hammadi - the so-

called " Gnostic Gospels " . It demonstrates the many conflicts

besetting the movement prior to the imposition of

Constantine's " orthodoxy " on Christian society. The Gospel of Judas

is most significant for its redefinition of the deity. It's an

insightful and compelling account, but raises nearly as many

questions as it provides answers.

 

We [should] all know of the " Judas kiss " purportedly betraying the

teacher of a new relationship to the Judaic divinity. According to

the four Synoptic Gospels, Judas supposedly sold out his teacher for

a few coins, later regretting the act and taking his own life in

consequence. This gospel demolishes that old story, replacing it with

one in which Judas was directed to perform his act by the victim

himself. The reasons for this overthrow many commonly accepted ideas

of who the deity was and what was desired of its followers. Judas is

portrayed as outside the original group of twelve, and given special

recognition by his teacher. So detached was his role, that he's shown

to be in serious conflict with his colleagues. The strife was intense

enough that Judas, instead of a suicide, becomes the victim of murder

by his colleagues.

 

The themes underlying this gospel are the role of martyrdom and the

act of sacrifice. What kind of god demands the ultimate sacrifice?

The author of The Gospel of Judas is particularly disparaging of

those Christians who accepted, indeed willingly embraced, the

martyr's role. He viewed this as a violation of a loving deity, the

novel idea Jesus had taught. As a short-cut to Paradise, the author

of the Gospel of Judas found martyrdom unacceptable. Innumerable

questions arose over what kind of martyrdom Jesus had really

suffered, resulting in extensive debate about his human aspects. That

debate, of course, hasn't ceased, the Trinitarian concept being but a

stopgap. The authors see The Gospel of Judas as depicting Jesus as a

special entity, capable of reaching beyond the human body even while

living. At one point, he's said to leave the group of disciples to

enter Paradise directly, and enabling Judas to do the same. Martyrdom

need not be endured if the proper faith is exercised. If Judas could

achieve it, so could anybody who understood what Jesus' message

conveyed.

 

If martyrdom was a misleading idea, what of the role of sacrifice?

Jesus own death, often depicted as a sacrifice, was anathema to many,

often blocking potential conversions. Human sacrifice was becoming

seen as deplorable even in pagan societies. Animal sacrifice was a

substitute, but did the deity view it that way? In their discussion

of this and other offering practices, the authors show that the

monotheism we consider essential to Jesus' teaching wasn't truly in

place in that era. The Great Invisible Spirit referred to in the

Judas Gospel was merely the highest in a confusing hierarchy of

deities, angels and other spirits. The world wasn't created by

Elohim, as the Jews generally taught, but by Saklas, a lesser deity.

Another god was in charge of the sun, while yet others guided the

planets and stars. The monotheism of Genesis is overturned in this

Gospel. Instead of one creator, an array of over 360 " luminaries " ,

each taking a particular role is depicted. Jesus own death is decreed

by one of these, a " false god " , to which the disciples, excepting

Judas, make sacrifices. Jesus' taught Judas to bypass these

unreliable spirits to reach the Great Invisible Spirit.

 

While the authors successfully demonstrate that Christianity was a

hotch-potch of beliefs and practices, particularly as the author of

The Gospel of Judas recognised, their own statement of how the text

should now be considered is little short of staggering. They contend

that elevating the text from its historical value to one of

theological teaching " is not useful - and beside the point " . The long

history of the Synoptic Gospels being used in many faiths as

the " standard " overrides whatever contribution either the Judas

Gospel or the spectrum of " Gnostic " writings might make. Given that

each of these has its own version of both Jesus and the deity who

supposedly spawned him, this seems bizarre. We are left, after all

these centuries of still wondering which deity should command our

attention and worship. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]