You may have heard of the "Gospel of Judas," which hit the press this weekend.

It
purports to reveal the "secret" that Judas was Jesus' best friend, that Jesus asked Judas to
betray him to the Romans. It wasn't as widely reported that the "gospel" also teaches that
Jesus wanted to escape the horrors of bodily existence and such stuff that's typical of the
Gnostics. They believed in a secret knowledge of how people could escape the prisons of
their material bodies and return to the spiritual realm from which they came. They also
believed that Jesus pre-existed with the Father prior to incarnation, rising from the dead,
doing miracles, etc. In some texts he is so supernatural that he keeps popping in an out of
places like a ghost

A quotation that appears in many of the accounts is from Elaine Pagels, a professor of
religion at Princeton who specializes in studies of the Gnostics. She said, in sensational
Dan Brown type exaggeration, "These discoveries are exploding the myth of a monolithic
religion, and demonstrating how diverse - and fascinating - the early Christian movement
really was."

Of course that there was diversity in the early church is hardly new knowledge to anyone
that's done anything in church history. Neither Gnostic religion, nor the "Gospel of Judas"
are new. The key passages and its teachings are well represented in the church fathers.
The only new thing is that a copy of the document was found three decades ago. Because
of all the money involved and the political stuff around antiquities, it's only now being
published.

The news accounts are filled with stuff like, "As the findings have trickled down to
churches and universities, they have produced a new generation of Christians who now
regard the Bible not as the literal word of God, but as a product of historical and political
forces that determined which texts should be included in the canon, and which edited out.
For that reason, the discoveries have proved deeply troubling for many believers.
The Gospel of Judas portrays Judas Iscariot not as a betrayer of Jesus, but as his most
favored disciple and willing collaborator."

In fact, the actual text of the document is pretty close to the biblical account. My friend,
Michael Heiser, at Logos Systems, puts it this way: "Jesus more or less tells Judas what
he's going to do (hand Jesus over). This is not cast as a betrayal, but as an act that furthers
the will of the Father. The NT has the latter idea for sure (Judas did what he did by
predestination), but ADDS the idea of the betrayal. And so this new gospel just doesn't
include the betrayal idea. It focuses on the other aspect so nothing new, just something
removed."

All this hoopla is based on appalling ignorance and willful misrepresentation in our
conspiracy oriented post-modern world. With Da Vinci Code coming to the theaters next
month, along with the normal Easter barrage of anti-Bible, anti-historical Jesus stuff, this
is not surprising.

Actually one of the best antidote to the Da Vinci Code nonsense is often the Gnostic
gospels -- Brown gets them as wrong as he does most everything else. Take a look at
them, and you'll see material on the resurrection and the supernatural nature of Jesus (not
to mention some unflattering portrayals of women) in the texts Brown and Pagels
represent as "texts you can trust." They do a lot to undermine the ignorant confidence in
Brown and his sources.

Our alum, Craig Evans, one of the inner crew at work on the Gospel of Judas. You can
see a short article on him and his research at http://www.herald.ns.ca/Search/495321.html

There's a pretty good summary of the issues around the Gospel of Judas in
http://christiancadre.blogspot.com/2006_04_01_christiancadre_archive.html

You can see actual pictures, translation, and accounts at

http://www.tertullian.org/rpearse/manuscripts/gospel_of_judas/

Other comments or excellent resources that you know of?

Gerry (gbreshears@WesternSeminary.edu)