Translation and Comments on Gospel of Judas - Segment 16

[Guest guest]

A./ 'English Translation of the Gospel of Judas'

 

Segment 16:

 

(P.122) [1] [Then] their chief priests murmured because [he (Jesus)] entered

[in]to the guest room for his prayer. [2] And some scribes were there watching

closely in order to catch him at prayer, [3] for they were afraid of the people

because he was held to be a prophet by them all.

 

[4] And they approached Judas. [5] They said to him, " What are you doing in this

place? [6] You are the disciple of Jesus. "

 

[7] But as for him, he answered them according to their will. [8] Then Judas

received some copper coins. [9] He handed him over to them.

 

- The Gospel of Judas

 

('English Translation of the Gospel of Judas' - Pg.122)

 

 

 

 

B./ 'Comments on the Translation' (Gospel of Judas) - Segment 16

 

[1]-[9] of Segment 15

 

(P.122) [Then] their chief priests murmured because [he (Jesus)] entered [in]to

the guest room for his prayer. And some scribes were there watching closely in

order to catch him at prayer, for they were afraid of the people because he was

held to be a prophet by them all.

 

And they approached Judas. They said to him, " What are you doing in this place?

You are the disciple of Jesus. "

 

But as for him, he answered them according to their will. Then Judas received

some copper coins. He handed him over to them.

 

Comments:

 

(P.164) The final scene of the 'Gospel of Judas' appears to stage the moment in

the story, like that in the 'Gospel of John', when Jesus has told Judas to go

and do what he has to, as Stephen Emmel has pointed out. [29] Jesus (with his

disciples?) has entered the " guest room " of the Temple, like the guest room of

the house where Jesus prepares for Passover with his disciples in other gospels

(the same term, 'kataluma', is used in 'Mark' 14:14 and 'Luke' 22:11). Some

scribes are waiting outside, hoping to catch him away from the crowds that

follow him (as Judas does, according to the 'Luke' 22:6), because those crowds

consider him to be a holy prophet. Judas, too, is standing outside and the

scribes approach him, recognizing that he is one of Jesus's intimate followers.

Judas then takes the money and hands Jesus over. The gospel comes to an end.

 

 

 

 

Christian readers of the second century surely knew how the story continued:

that Jesus was arrested, tried, and put to death but rose from the dead and

ascended into heaven. (P.165) For the 'Gospel of Judas', however, everything

necessary has already been said, for it is Jesus's teaching that brings eternal

life, not his death or even his resurrection. They merely demonstrate the truth

of what he has told Judas: that while the body perishes, the spirit is alive in

God.

 

When the 'Gospel of Judas' was first published, newspapers and other media

announced that it would undermine Christian anti-Judaism by rehabilitating Judas

(whose name is related to the word 'Jew'). No longer the betrayers of Christ,

Jews would be free from that slander at last. But while the 'Gospel of Judas'

does give a positive face to Judas's act of handing Jesus over, it also portrays

the Jewish chief priests and scribes as the ones who are waiting to catch Jesus.

No hint appears that the Romans - who actually put Jesus to death - played any

role at all. All blame is placed squarely on the Jews - those scribes who pay

Judas to hand Jesus over and even Jesus's own disciples, who are portrayed as

killers and sinners standing at the altar of the Jerusalem Temple. This ending

offers no redemption for Jewish-Christian relations, but it does call us to

reconsider how the (largely unhistorical) portrait of Judas in the gospels and

many other unhistorical features of the gospel story need to be corrected. [30]

Whether people accept or reject what the 'Gospel of Judas' says, it should be

approached in terms of what we can learn about the historical situation of the

Christians who wrote and read it: their anger, their prejudices, their fears -

and their hopes.

 

Reading Judas - The Gospel of Judas and the Shaping of Christianity,

'Comments on the Translation' Pg.164-165

Elaine Pagels and Karen L. King

Penguin Group - London, England

ISBN 978-0-713-99984-6

 

 

Notes:

 

[29] This reading is based on the excellent insight of Stephen Emmel (from an

unpublished paper on " The Presuppositions and the Purpose of the Gospel of

Judas, " presented at the " Colloque international, CNRS-Universite Paris

IV-Sorbonne, " titled " L'Evangile de Judas. Le contexte historique et litteraire

d'un nouvel apocryphe, " October 27-28, 2006, the proceedings of which are

expected to be published under the editorship of Madeleine Scopello). My thanks

to him for generously making his paper available in advance of publication.

 

[30] See, for example, the excellent study of Francois Bovon, 'The Last Days of

Jesus' (Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press, 2006), a readable

introduction to New Testament scholarship on the last days of Jesus that charts

a middle path between " history remembered " and " prophecy historicized, " arguing

that both are part of Christian attempts to understand the theological meaning

of Jesus's death, and pointing out where Christian tellings of this story are

motivated by anti-Jewish sentiment.