The gospel of Judas?

Originally posted on April 07, 2006 – by Andre Piet

With much media attention, the text of “the gospel of Judas” was made public in Washington these days. “An authentic document according to scholars,” so the news reports claimed. However, that is sheer nonsense, for the codex dates from around 320 AD, and the text is generally believed to go back to approximately 120 AD. This means that the document was not written by Judas, or in other words, is an authentic forgery. It is a pseudepigraph, i.e., written under a false name, and when it comes down to it, pure fraud.

In that sense, it relates to the Gospel accounts of the New Testament as newspaper print to pure silk. The writings of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John provide first-hand information, since they were recorded by eyewitnesses. Harmonious in relation to each other, however much the viewpoints and perspectives may differ. The NT is a record of facts written down by eyewitnesses, while the “gospel of Judas” is fiction from a later generation.

The “gospel of Judas” falls into the same category of “myths” as the Nag Hammadi writings (including the gospels of Mary Magdalene and Thomas), which are currently so popular – not least due to the blockbuster “The Da Vinci Code” by Dan Brown.

People all too eagerly drink in the stories of unmistakable forgeries, while they have an apparent aversion to the truth (2 Tim 4:4). It is true that the figure of Judas has, throughout the centuries, been portrayed much darker than he really was. That is, after all, also the message in the newspaper headlines… and not entirely without reason.

Judas is said to have been a thief because he supposedly took from the money bag, according to many translations. Yet Scripture itself does not state this. The suggestion rather is that Judas, as treasurer, withheld money from the poor. Likewise, it has wrongly entered the translations that it would have been better for Judas if he had not been born. Behind this lies the idea that Judas is a damned soul – and for that purpose, of course, he cannot be painted black enough.

It is well known that Judas is said to have betrayed Jesus, while the original text of the Bible says that Judas delivered Jesus over. His apparent motive was to compel Jesus finally to reveal Himself as the Messiah. When this plan failed, he, in despair, took his own life.

Over the past season, I have, on several occasions, drawn attention on the Goedbericht site to various of these corrections. But make no mistake—we certainly do not need “the gospel of Judas” for such corrections. For that writing only burdens us with stories that sever the Good Message from solid historical facts, and in which the resurrection completely disappears from view, because the death is portrayed as the “spiritual liberation.”

And who was it again, who first tried to convince humanity of that?

Delen: