The Gospel of Judas

Now, Religion in the News, a report and comment on religious trends and events being covered by the media.This week’s item is from nationalgeographic.com, April2006, with a headline:The Gospel of Judas.The following are excerpts:The Gospel of Judas:It’s a revelation conjuring heated debate.According to a recently translated ancient text called, The Gospel of Judas, the disciple infamous for betraying Jesus may well have been Christ’s most faithful servant, and because the Savior asked him to, accepted perpetual disgrace to bring about Jesus’ death.Explore the mysticism of early Gnostic thought expressed in words written on a 1,700 year old, leather-bound papyrus:Hear the interpretations of 4 biblical scholars:Follow this fragile document from its discovery in Egypt to its translation and ultimate presentation to the world, and share your thoughts on the gospel of Judas.

Tom:

Dave, before you share your thoughts on the gospel of Judas, let me give you a little background here.This is a National Geographic special, and I think they are rerunning it because they play to one point, and then there are other dates that they are going to keep bringing you back.Now, let me give you some other quotes from an article that was in National Geographic on this particular subject.It says:Biblical scholar Marvin Meyer of Chapman University---you remember, a couple of years ago we did a news alert on Chapman University because they built a chapel, very expensive chapel, but it was for everything that even thought about being a religion, you know, you could go there and worship.Well anyway, he worked with Coptic expert Redolpha Casser to translate the gospel, and it sums up the situation as, “Christianity trying to find its style.”Okay, continuing to quote:“This is really exciting, he exclaimed, this explains why Judas is singled out by Jesus as the best of the disciples, the others didn’t get it.”Now, let’s have a comment or two, and then I will read a little bit more for you.

Dave:

Judas was singled out by Jesus as the best of the disciples?

Tom:

He did Jesus a favor, which you will learn in a minute.

Dave:

Well, Tom, they made a movie out of this, there was a book and a movie, so this isn’t that new.

Tom:

No, it’snot that.

Dave:

The Passover Plot, it was called, and Jesus and Judas, supposedly conspired together.Jesus was going to fulfill all these prophecies so that they would think that He was the Messiah.You have a couple of serious problems:Number One:If he has to do those kind of shenanigans, and he’s not the Messiah, I mean, he’s not God, he’s got to get himself killed.Then how is he going to rise from the dead?Well, of course they come up with all theories, he just swooned and then they thought he was dead, etc, etc.I don’t think that would fool the disciples, and it wouldn’t fool the centurion, it wouldn’t fool Roman soldiers who were angry because he was dead already.And then on top of that they thrust a spear through his side, that would kill anybody.So, Jesus had to conspire?Then he’s not a Messiah that we want to put our faith in, and certainly didn’t die for our sins, he couldn’t pay the penalty for our sins.But furthermore, Tom, it gets a little more complicated than that, how did Judas and Jesus together, or whoever it was, how did they pay off that big crowd?There must have been thousands of people hailing Jesus as the Messiah in fulfillment of scriptures as He rode into Jerusalem.How did they get all of those people to do this, you know.How did they get the soldiers to gamble for His clothes, because that’s part of the prophecies?How did they even know who would be on duty that day?So you wouldn’t know which soldier to bribe---to give him vinegar mingled with gall, and all of this kind of stuff.Tom, it’s just too much to believe.

Tom:

Well, Dave, what surprises me about this is, do any of these people read the Bible?For example, I’m going on with the National Geographic article, all right.You know, in the past we have seen what National Geographic has done with so-called evolution to the point where I have heard people refer to it as National pornographic, you know, it’s absurd!Anyway, the article writer Andrew Copran writes, “In fact it is unclear whether the authors of any of the gospels, even the familiar four, actually witnessed the events they described.”I mean, did he read 1 John, Him that we had held, had touched, you know, and so on?

Dave:

That which we have seen, which we have heard, which our hands have handled are the word of life, we make known to you.Tom, so now, it’s all based upon life.

Tom:

Well, let me just give you one more and then you can take off on this, Dave.The key passage comes when Jesus tells Judas, “You will sacrifice the man that clothed me.”In plain English, or Coptic, Judas is going to kill Jesus, and thus do him a favor. “That really isn’t Jesus at all, says Meyer, he will at last get rid of his material, physical flesh, thereby liberating the real Christ, the divine being inside.Now, the gospel of Judas, the gospel of Thomas, these are all Gnostic writings, and they believed that the flesh was evil.So Judas was actually doing Jesus a favor by killing his body so that his Christ’s Spirit could prevail.It’s insane!

Dave:

Well, Tom, remember, I had a debate on the radio many years ago with Robert Funk, co-founder of the Jesus Seminar, and he got so angry that he hung up.We were both coming in by phone, and then they stopped the program.I said, Well, I didn’t hang up, I’m willing to keep going.But anyway, what did he get angry about?I said to him, Bob, you guys sit around and try to decide whether Jesus said this, or what He did, you vote with your B’s and so forth, you were born 1900 years too late, you were not there.We have an eyewitness, in fact, we have four eyewitness accounts, and we can prove that these are eyewitness accounts.So, your speculation is of no value whatsoever.Well, he got really angry.They just want to make it up as they go along.

Tom:

Right.

Dave:

They weren’t there, neither was, whoever it was, who wrote the Gnostic gospels.You see, the world wants to escape Jesus, and they want to believe anything that comes along that discredits the Bible, and they are whistling the wrong tune, and one day it’s going to catch up with them.