April 6, 2006
The Times [reports][1]:_An early Christian manuscript, including the only known text of what is known as the Gospel of Judas, has surfaced after 1,700 years. The text gives new insights into the relationship of Jesus and the disciple who betrayed him, scholars reported today. In this version, Jesus asked Judas, as a close friend, to sell him out..."The most revealing passages in the Judas manuscript begins, "The secret account of the revelation that Jesus spoke in conversation with Judas Iscariot during a week, three days before he celebrated Passover."The account goes on to relate that Jesus refers to the other disciples, telling Judas "you will exceed all of them. For you will sacrifice the man that clothes me." By that, scholars familiar with Gnostic thinking said, Jesus meant that by helping him get rid of his physical flesh, Judas will act to liberate the true spiritual self or divine being within Jesus._Fascinating. You can [see the text][2] at nationalgeographic.com.Back in the day, to kill off an idea, you killed the people who espoused it and or you literally destroyed the text that contained the ideas. Nowhere to read it, or no one to hear it from, and the idea died.Apparently, there's been a reprieve with regard to the death sentence against the ideas contained in the Gospel of Judas. [1]: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/06/science/06cnd-judas.html?ei=5094&en=d58e9f87384d906d&hp=&ex=1144382400&partner=homepage&pagewanted=all [2]: http://www9.nationalgeographic.com/lostgospel/document.html
Comments
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Joel (Joel Mathis) says…
Am I the only one who thinks Gospel of Judas would be an excellent name for a heavy metal album?
I know I'm not the only one who thinks Dave Ryan is trying to stir up trouble here...
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davidryan (David Ryan) says…
Strictly popologically speaking, Joel. No trouble stirring here.
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El_Borak (Bill Hoyt) says…
Nazareth had a song called "Please Don't Judas Me" on Hair of the Dog. Great song, great album.
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lazz (anonymous) says…
Thirty Pieces of Silver could be the opener.
P'haps the show could be at an outdoor venue --- say, The Garden of Gethsemenie? I hear they have terrific acoustics there ...
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thetomdotdot (anonymous) says…
Holy Land!!!!! Ya'll are going to hell.
Anybody mentions Judas Priest, I'm taking a nap.
I mean it.
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El_Borak (Bill Hoyt) says…
...and why is it that PQ and YD are the only people in the world who use the word 'popologically'?
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Joel (Joel Mathis) says…
Bill: Because it's made-up. Not real.
(Now Quinno's comin' for me....)
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El_Borak (Bill Hoyt) says…
Well, sure, but as cool as it sounds, I'm surprised it hasn't spread further. Maybe it needs a campaign and a champion like James Taranto's 'kerfuffle' campaign.
Well, if that wasn't a hijacked thread...
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Joel (Joel Mathis) says…
I'm not using "popological" until people start using "trynasty" more.
http://www.lawrence.com/blogs/mathis/...
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mitzibel (Misty Nuckolls) says…
I would use "popologically" more if it were easier to type while drunk. . . .
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thetomdotdot (anonymous) says…
I believe Judas was involved in a little trynastic popology his own bad self.
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lazz (anonymous) says…
Thirty Pieces of Silver just confirmed for Waka ... sweet ...
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El_Borak (Bill Hoyt) says…
Maybe they could cover Frankie Laine's "The Hanging Tree"...
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lazz (anonymous) says…
did I just hear a lightning bolt strike somewhere on the high plains??
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ladylaw (Terry Bush) says…
http://www.tertullian.org/rpearse/man...
According to the owner, Dr. Mario Roberty, the manuscripts are papyrus and consist of:
- a Gnostic codex in Sahidic dialect containing:
the 'Gospel of Judas'
the "First Apocalypse of James"
the "Epistle of Peter to Philip"
- the 'Book of Exodus' in Greek
- 'Letters of Paul' in Sahidic dialect and a
- 'Mathematical Treatise' in Greek.
An excerpt from the above site:
This is the extract placed online at the New York Times site.
the gospel of judas
Translated by Rodolphe Kasser, Marvin Meyer, and Gregor Wurst, in collaboration with François Gaudard
introduction: incipit
The secret account of the revelation that Jesus spoke in conversation with Judas Iscariot during a week three days before he celebrated Passover.
the earthly ministry of jesus
When Jesus appeared on earth, he performed miracles and great wonders for the salvation of humanity. And since some [walked] in the way of righteousness while others walked in their transgressions, the twelve disciples were called.
He began to speak with them about the mysteries beyond the world and what would take place at the end. Often he did not appear to his disciples as himself, but he was found among them as a child.
SCENE 1: Jesus dialogues with his disciples: The prayer of thanksgiving or the eucharist
One day he was with his disciples in Judea, and he found them gathered together and seated in pious observance. When he [approached] his disciples, [34] gathered together and seated and offering a prayer of thanksgiving over the bread, [he] laughed.
The disciples said to [him], "Master, why are you laughing at [our] prayer of thanksgiving? We have done what is right."
He answered and said to them, "I am not laughing at you. are not doing this because of your own will but because it is through this that your god [will be] praised."
They said, "Master, you are [:] the son of our god."
Jesus said to them, "How do you know me? Truly [I] say to you, no generation of the people that are among you will know me."
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El_Borak (Bill Hoyt) says…
Wow, Ladylaw, you really killed the buzz ;)
One of the interesting things about the manuscript (besides its contents, which are themselves interesting) is how the press portrays it.
The NYT says, "The text gives new insights into the relationship of Jesus and the disciple who betrayed him, scholars reported today."
CNN says, "Ancient text offers revelations about Judas."
But it really does nothing of the sort. The copy itself is 4th century, but based on a 3rd (estimated) or 2nd (probable) century original. So make a comparison today...if someone today produced a biography that showed John Wilkes Booth and Abe Lincoln in a relationship that was completely unique and in many ways the opposite of what prior histories had shown, how much faith would historians put in it? Would they say, "new text offers revelations about Booth" or that it "gives new insights in to the relationship between Booth and Lincoln?" Probably not; they'd probably say that this new book offers a unique interpretation, but no historian would rely on it.
The Gospel of Judas (like the Gospel of Thomas) is an interpretation, but is in all likelihood no more historical than the various infancy narratives or Marian biographies that were then floating about. That's one of the main reasons for 'canonization' of the accepted existing Gospels - it was no more than a gathering and review of the regular texts to differentiate them from the others that multiplied like rabbits in the 2nd and 3rd centuries as Christianity became the primary religion of the empire.
For the NYT to say, "the discoveries have proved deeply troubling for many believers," is a little misleading, unless by 'many' they mean 'a few,' because the vast majority of believers have never heard of them (thought they ought to have...historical ignorance is not something to be proud of). But the vast majority of those who take the Bible "as the literal word of God" (NYT) really have no more interest in Judas or Thomas than they have in the Book of Mormon or Mary Baker Eddy's "Health and Science."
What we have is an interesting sideline in the evolution of Christianity, but it's not an historical document that's going to cause any 'believer' to re-think his approach to the gospels.
Except for "The Jesus Seminar," perhaps, but they have an agenda of their own.
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ladylaw (Terry Bush) says…
Sorry about the buzz kill...but you know me, I like FACTS. From what the news folks were saying this AM on the TV shows, that the document says that Jesus asked Judas to turn him in, my reaction has so far been "So what". Right up there with my reaction to whether or not Jesus had a wife.
I don't know about other cradle Christians, but some of the details of Jesus's life - while interesting in an historical sense - aren't going to make one iota of a difference or impact upon the meaning of his life or the main messages he gave/taught. While such ideas or documents are fascinating in terms of their history, origin, and even content, I think most people will eventually be able to put the information into context. I realize that even back 2000 years ago, writers didn't have all the facts, just what they learned, or saw, or thought or knew.
Fiction isn't a new invention. Nor is hyperbole or sensationalism. If the average person is not alarmed within 2 minutes of being told the bottom line, of any story, it probably really isn't the huge deal that those who are telling the story (the press?) want it to be!
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kidmystic (anonymous) says…
It's a little more systematic than all that. Not to put a stereotype on us, but the lawrence.com crowd are often those that champion the foolishness in patterning your life after a 2,000 year old collection of stories that some guys made up.
Actually, one of the best arguments for validity of scripture is the fact that the origins of the books of the NT can be traced to the same time period (around 200 years--amazing in literature). That, and to be canonized there had to be several copies that all stuck pretty much to the same story. While this isn't proof of a miracle, it is a pretty scientific way of picking scripture.
The problem with pieces like the recently released is that they have either been discovered to be written at much later dates than the canonized books, or they don't match up, or, more importantly, only one copy is discovered. Call it killing the debate if you want, but it's actually Christians being logical. If you just started throwing in The Gospel of Thomas, Gospel of Judas, Writings by Wayne Dyer, a Yellowdog blog about God into the good book, then biblical validity would be even harder to stand behind.
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lazz (anonymous) says…
I agree, this is not a historical document, and neither are the canonical writings. They are documents of faith.
Which is where I find the fascination with this new book, and the rest of the "gnostic," supressed writings that have come forward in the past half century ----- they are literal, physical artifacts of faith from a people who were brutally supressed, often violently, because they believed these things. They guarded these codexes at the price of their lives; when you see one torn and burned, the tearing and burning probably didn't happen by accident; a believer perished trying to prevent that from happening. These codexes tell us nothing about Judas Iscariot, but they tell us so much about the blossoming faith that molded violently into our modern version of the Christ story.
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kidmystic (anonymous) says…
PS-and for a band name...Canononical Logic (Christian Prog-Rock) featuring Biblehead on guitar and on lead vocals...Axel Rosery.
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davidryan (David Ryan) says…
"These codexes tell us nothing about Judas Iscariot, but they tell us so much about the blossoming faith that molded violently into our modern version of the Christ story."
Good point, Lazz. The canon is the canon because competing faiths -- and those who held them -- were materially erased. We still do that: burning Beatles albums in the 60's, modernist literature in Germany of the 30's. Had a general global erasure occured, we'd have no idea that Sgt. Peppers ever existed. If one were found in 1,700 years, someone could very well say "There's only one copy because it wasn't very good."
It's not a stretch to suppose that a canon can produce-and reproduce-mistruths and misperceptions.
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El_Borak (Bill Hoyt) says…
"That, and to be canonized there had to be several copies that all stuck pretty much to the same story. While this isn't proof of a miracle, it is a pretty scientific way of picking scripture."
It's actually easier than that. The process of canonization asked 2 questions: "does this document have apostolic authority?" and "has it been used in the churches since they started?"
Books like the Didache, which were used from the earliest days but which were not believed to have apostolic authority never became part of the accepted canon. There are a few like the Gospel of Peter which may have authority but were not usedl, so they never became canonical. Books like Paul's letters were immediately and universally accepted, while books like Jude and 2Peter took forever to finally gain acceptance. Books like Judas or Thomas, having neither authority nor widespread use, were not even considered.
Yes, there are a lot of copies; 5000 NT manuscripts and fragments in Greek alone, another 5000 in Latin, and several thousand in other diverse languages, including Coptic. When one compares the widespread acceptance of those documents (which is both a cause and an effect of their canonization) to the single or low-copy manuscripts of Thomas or Judas, all found in one place, the difference is obvious. The gnostics were little more than a sideshow even then. The real problems within Christianity came from struggles like with Arius... and the Arians used the same books as the Orthodox.
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kidmystic (anonymous) says…
But like I said, this is statistics and we're playing the numbers. If an amazingly huge revolt against the fab-four would have occured, it is possible that in 1,700 years only one copy of Sgt. Pepper would have existed--not an impossibility. But as it stands, there is a much greater chance that in 1,700 years there will still be many copies of Sgt. Peppers, and perhaps only one copy of The Gentry's Keep On Dancing.
Since we don't have all of the info on the Judas text yet (Nat'l Geo will be dolling that out in the weeks to come) i'll go with a very similar find in the Gospel of Thomas. Even the best looks at the text (see Pagels, The Gospel of Thomas, Princeton University) admit to the particular copy we have being writen years later than the cononized texts. Like you said, doesn't prove that the original wasn't written earlier, or that it is or isn't true, just that it doens't match up with the canon. I agree, it should never be burned or hidden (What Scripture Would Jesus Burn?--maybe a good bumper sticker) but we wouldn't teach a new version of Plato in our schools if it was found recently, ran contrary to all of his writing, and is dated to have been written hundreds of years after the earliest copies of his works that we have.
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kidmystic (anonymous) says…
ps-damn, if i would have waited 5 seconds, Borak pretty much summed it up.
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rednekbuddha (Kelly Powell) says…
It could explain a lot of things though....I mean, if you hung out with a dude that could defy all physical laws and knew you down to the core of your soul...How much balls would it take to rat on them? i do not know about you but I would have a hard time defying a mid level mafia captain much less the avatar of the universal creator.
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rednekbuddha (Kelly Powell) says…
at the end of the newly discovered book they talk about paul and simon coloring and hiding eggs.
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lazz (anonymous) says…
Unusual argument you're making there, kidmystic ... something along the lines of, It's not accepted Christianity, so it can't be accepted teachings of the prophet and savior Jesus Christ? Did I get that about right? Seems very logical, but the Gnostics and these recently revealed texts aren't illuminating subtle variants of what we now know as Christianity and accept as the Jesus story ... they hammered away at this thing from completely different views. This wasn't a dispute over wordings or whether Judas Iscariat was a traitor or an accomplice ... this was a matter of fundamental differences in views about who Jesus was, what he taught, how to achieve salvation, and even the fundamental nature of belief vs. knowledge (hence, 'Gnostic'). Christianity as we come to know it prevailed and wiped those people out. They didn't hide their books, they killed those people and otherwise harshly marginalized and exterminated an already marginalized movement ... The holy books we're now finding weren't "hidden" by the Christians, they were hidden by believers, knowers, who were in fear of their lives. You are sanitizing it, as Christianity has been fond of doing for 2,000 years now ...
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kidmystic (anonymous) says…
In a sense, yes, that is the argument. Teachings of Jesus are attributted to those who would have known him (Apostles) or served under the big 12, ahem, 11. The Gospel of Judas dates to AD 187 at the absolute earliest. Again, not making an argument for truth or fiction, just saying that it makes sense that the farther away you get from a source, and the less numbers you have to back it up, and the more it deviats from the originial, the more you have to question. Again, get away from the Bible and think of it in terms of translation of beloved secular books. Say we find a copy of Macbeth written in 1806 that begins with the 3 Amigos instead of3 women, and Macbeth has a gay cowboy friend who visits him in the summer for a few weeks and they go fishing. Literary blasphamy. Now apply that to a religion that people have committed their lives to and are willing to die for, the stakes get raised to the point of (right or WRONG) destroying what is perceived as heresey. The Gnostics (yes, knowledge) were marginalized, b/c they were a small band of believers who believed they had recieved special knowledge about Christ apart from what was popular. While it seems like early Christians were just being snooty, I think it's understandable. Again, if Jesus lived, what we're calling the original texts would have had a direct line to him, and here comes these fly by night prophits and their new knowledge?
Also this evil christianity thing is played out. Is it true, sure, at times. Is it also true that the men and women who started it started as marginalized, crucified, fed to the lions, hiding for their lives, etc. I just think it's interesting how the Gnostics are automatically accepted and felt sorry for. I think it's less for who they were, and more simply b/c Christianity didn't like them--and it's hip to say any enemy of christianity is a friend of mine.
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kidmystic (anonymous) says…
ps-To rednekbuddha,
It's a popular and logical theory among scholars that Judas wasn't ratting out Jesus. From what we know of the area that Judas hailed from (the beliefs of the people there), and knowing what we do of what the Hebrew people expected from a Messiah (a warrior who would bring salvation by physically removing them out from under the thumb of Roman oppression) Judas, instead of trying to collect some extra cash, was trying to start the revolution. Beliving tht Jesus was the man and had the capability of overthrowing the gov't, he was trying to stir things up.
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El_Borak (Bill Hoyt) says…
"You are sanitizing it, as Christianity has been fond of doing for 2,000 years now ..."
I think that's a little unfair, at least. So let's take a trip back to to about 300ad, when all this was happening. Did the pagan Romans kill the Christian ones? You bet. Did the Christian Romans kill the pagan ones? You bet. What do they have in common? That they were religious? No, that they were Romans. Same with the Greeks. Why was Socrates put to death? Heresy.
The Romans had a long and glorious tradition of using the sword to keep the empire together at all costs, and the republic before that (though under the Republic, at least at times citizens were exempt form capital punishment). During the empire's changeover from pagan to Christian, all you got was a new religion...but exactly the same people were running the show. Just like Americans who become Christians are still Americans to their bones, so are Romans.
Yes, killing heretics is to be condemned; the only penalty the Church is granted is expulsion. Yes, it was in many cases simply a cynical application of power politics. Yes, it was foolish to mix church and state in that way, an error which lasted a millennium and from which Christianity still suffers. And yes, it had never been any other way. So let's not pretend this is something unique to Christianity...
But for the most part, the 'marginalization' was no more than what evolutionist biologists do today to creationist ones (and, IMO, for the same reason). You have a prevailing philosophy and a small group that has ideas that the majority finds not only wrong but dangerous. Using the American courts is not different than using ecclesiastical ones in that respect. The result is that the power of government is used to ensure some ideas are taught as truth and some ideas are never heard from again.
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clayhill70 (anonymous) says…
'' it has served us well,
this myth of christ."
Pope Leo X
16th century
He was also the same pope who excommunicated Martin Luther
for heresy in 1521. As children we are brainwashed not to question the motives of our leaders, whether church or state.
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El_Borak (Bill Hoyt) says…
"It has served us well..."
Nice quote, but I notice it has no source, so allow me to provide it:
"At banqueting he [Leo X] delighted greatly in wine and musike: but had no care of preaching the Gospell, nay was rather a cruell persecutour of those that began then, as Luther and other to reveale the light thereof: for on a time when a cardinall Bembus did move a question out of the Gospell, the Pope gave him a very contemptuouse aunswere saiying: All ages can testifie enough howe profitable that fable of Christe hath ben to us and our companie..."
The above quote is from the John Bale's (1495-1563) parody play "The Pageant of Popes," a satirical look at the Catholic hierarchy through the eyes of an ex-Carmelite priest under the protection of Henry VIII, from whence it made its way into any number of anti-Catholic screeds and from there eventually into the blogosphere.
Now while personally I have no doubt that Leo X was something of a skunk, the quote itself is in all likelihood bogus (read: scholarship via the telephone game). Of course I could be wrong and would be happy to change my tune if you could provide a better source contemporary to Leo X.
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ladylaw (Terry Bush) says…
Ah ElB, there you go, ruining the lovely rumors and aspersions with those pesky contextual facts .... Bottom line, those who believe cannot prove the existance of God (by any name called) any more then those who do not believe can prove the non-existance. It does no good to call names and point out flaws; every human being has them. It does no good to question the accuracy of historical recordings; they are all written by the victors and incomplete. I believe as I was taught (some would say brain washed and I won't fight it) and it has served me in good stead for the most part. I do not need or try to attack the ground upon which others base their lives. But I do have to wonder why so many feel compelled to attack my grounding.
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lazz (anonymous) says…
kid and el borak, you make good arguments, and I did not intend to paint all of christianity with the brush of domination and erradication. My intent is to point out that the extinction of these codexes and their adherents wasn't simply a matter of careful consideration by canonical councils ... and these gnostics were not merely a small band of heretics who blossomed and then quickly faded ... they were still formidable as late as the 13th Century, when Pope Innocent unleashed the Albigensian Crusade -- "Outside the Church there is No Salvation" -- and the ensuing massacres across Europe pehaps cost as many as a million lives. Most infamously, of course, a military commander at the seige of Beziers, France, told his befuddled soldiers, "Kill them All ... God Will Know his own," and, thanks to the orders of fire and sword, 20,000, perhaps 100,000, died ... heretics, Catholics, gnostics, Cathars ... Seems quite obvious the Church granted penalties far beyond mere expulsion ...
I don't mean to argue (hiply?) that an enemy of Christianity is a friend of mine. I consider myself a Christian. I simply want to point out that these codexes, and the beliefs and believers they helped create, did not merely go gently into the long goodnight ... they were shredded and burned, and many of those who considered these books sacred were similarly dispatched.
For those reasons alone, they deserve our consideration and respect. We should give consideration to what they meant to those who believed in them, and we should also give consideration to why it is those people were shunned from Western Civilization. To do any less gives credence to the methods used to exterminate them.
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El_Borak (Bill Hoyt) says…
"I simply want to point out that these codexes... were shredded and burned, and many of those who considered these books sacred were similarly dispatched."
Gotcha, and I agree.
"Seems quite obvious the Church granted penalties far beyond mere expulsion ..."
I didn't say "the church granted," but "the church IS granted." Big difference. Any time the church steps outside the realm of the voluntary it is standing on unholy ground. It is not granted by Jesus or Paul or Peter (or even Judas that I've seen so far ;) any authority to impose discipline on anyone a) outside the church, or b) unwilling to accept it. And that discipline is limited to shunning/expulsion (Mt 18:17, 1Cor 5).
That the church purposely subsumed the Roman pagan religion, even retaining its titles, like 'pontiff,' and then took over its political authority was a mistake that led to all manner of evil for centuries, but it was an evil that already existed before they arrived. They picked up the ring and wielded it, rather than taking it to Mount Doom, but they did not create it.
You're certianly not going to find me defending much of Christianity's historical behavior; it has been, for much of its history, simply atrocious. But that history is far more complicated than just 'Christianity makes monsters.' All of human history is a parade of monsters, and few and far between have been those who have stood successfully against the machines of death those monsters operate.
Strait is the gate and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it. There's no place that statement of Christ is illustrated better than in the acts of those who have called themselves by his name, yet that's mostly because they kept better records than anyone else.
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El_Borak (Bill Hoyt) says…
re: "Christianity makes monsters"
Lazz, let me specifically say that I know you're not one who says that; that's just a distillation of a lot I've read on the issues we're discussing.
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lazz (anonymous) says…
All very well said, Bill. As always, youdaman.
Vy interesting chat, Bill and KidM.
Danke
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clayhill70 (anonymous) says…
EI_Borak
greatsite.com/timeline-english-bible-history/thomas-lincre.html
Ladylaw
I'm sorry to have offended you. Brainwashed was unfair. :(
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El_Borak (Bill Hoyt) says…
"greatsite.com/timeline-english-bible-history/thomas-lincre.html"
That's not a contemporary source; it's simply a re-statement of the allegation. A source is a written document from the time period in which the statement was recorded.
The Pope may be 'famous' for saying it, but I have never seen a source, either from his hand or a contemporary writer other than Bale's play, in which he actually said it.
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