Judas Gospel

The Gospel of Judas: More Heretical Trash From Egypt [Excerpts]

The Gospel of Judas is all over the news. It has been hugely promoted

by the National Geographic Society, which funded its reconstruction

and translation, and has been trumpeted by practically every major

news publication in the world. USA Today's front-page headline is

typical: "Long-lost gospel of Judas casts 'traitor' in new light."

Until recently this gnostic gospel was thought to have been lost and

was known only through Irenaeus' late second century condemnation

thereof in his Refutation of All Heresies, but a copy from the third

or fourth century that was found in Egypt a few decades ago was

purchased and restored. The translation of the fragmentary writing

was published on April 6.

The Gospel of Judas presents Judas in a positive light as the only

disciple who truly understood Jesus and who betrayed Him only because

he was asked to do so.

According to Irenaeus, it was produced by the Egyptian Cainite

Gnostics who claimed that Cain, Esau, the Sodomites, Korah, Judas,

and other villains of biblical history were actually enlightened

heroes who valiantly kept the gnosis or knowledge of the truth alive.

According to this cult, a god named Hystera created the world and

another deity called "Sophia" allegedly assisted the aforementioned

people (Refutation of All Heresies, book I, chapter 31,

http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf01.ix.ii.xxxii.html).

The Gnostic Jesus described in the Gospel of Judas is not Almighty

God or the Creator of the world, does not die for man's sin, and does

not rise bodily from the dead. It is no gospel at all.

Egypt was a hotbed of heresy and fanaticism in the early centuries

after Christ. Many other strange "gospels" originated there,

including the Gospel of Thomas that purports to give details of

Christ's childhood (such as giving life to a dried fish and causing

the death of one of his playmates).

Egypt also gave us the Sinaiticus and Vaticanus codexes and the

handful of similar New Testament manuscripts that contain an

Alexandrian type of text preferred by modern textual critics and the

translators of the modern Bible versions (Fundamental Baptist Information Service, Port Huron, MI 48061, April 8, 2006, fbns@wayoflife.org).