Posted on 12/19/2005 7:19:55 AM PST by laney
The heresy-fighting bishop Irenaeus of Lyon, France, mentioned the Gospel of Judas about 180 AD, linking the writing to a Gnostic sect. Some two centuries later, Epiphanius, bishop of Cyprus, criticized the Gospel of Judas for treating the betrayer of Jesus as commendable, one who "performed a good work for our salvation."
Until recent years, no copy of the text was generally known to exist. It was not among, for instance, the 46 different apocryphal texts of the Nag Hammadi Library discovered 60 years ago this month in Egypt. Other fragmentary texts, such as the Gospel of Mary, were discovered well before that.
But in 2004, Rodolphe Kasser of the University of Geneva announced in Paris that by the end of 2005 he would be publishing translations of the Coptic-language version of the Gospel of Judas. As it turned out, the owner was a Swiss foundation, and the torn and tattered papyrus text had been hawked to potential buyers in North America and Europe for decades after it was found at Muhazafat Al Minya in Middle Egypt.
The "Judas" saga was confirmed in detail last month at the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature in Philadelphia. Retired Claremont Graduate University professor James Robinson, general editor of the English edition of the Nag Hammadi Library, said he was first contacted in 1983 about negotiations to buy certain texts, including the Gospel of Judas. Many years later, he saw blurry photographs of part of the text.
Robinson said that early in November he learned that Kasser and several European, Canadian and U.S. scholars had signed agreements with the National Geographic Society to assist with a documentary film and a National Geographic article for an Easter 2006 release and a succession of three books.
Robinson was critical of the secrecy and inaccessibility surrounding the document—a recurring academic problem that delayed for decades the publishing of translations of some Dead Sea Scrolls and many Nag Hammadi codices. In his talk, Robinson called the practice "skullduggery"—with a glance at fellow panelist Marvin Meyer of Chapman University, a longtime colleague in the field and one of the contracted authors.
Meyer refused to describe the text's content, but he essentially confirmed the basic publishing arrangements to Robinson and to the Century at the Philadelphia meeting.
In amended remarks to his speech, Robinson said Meyer told him that he was sworn to secrecy—not by the document's owner but by the National Geographic Society, a procedure Meyer said was justified by the organization's large financial investment.
A spokeswoman for the National Geographic headquarters in Washington declined to comment. But Meyer said in a brief interview, "It will all be out for everyone to see by the spring." He added without elaboration, "It will be good. It will be good."
Hardly anything is known about the document's contents "other than a few personages" it names, said Robinson, identifying them as the mythological figure Allogenes (literally, "the stranger") known from some Nag Hammadi texts, and Satan, Jesus and Judas.
Another scholar, Charles Hedrick, who recently retired from Missouri State University, saw photographs of six damaged pages from the gospel in 2001. Hedrick agreed with Robinson that the original Gospel of Judas was probably written in Greek in the second century AD. Scholars also agree that the scribal hand used in the Coptic translation would date that text to the fourth or fifth century.
"I don't think it will unsettle the church," Hedrick said in an interview. "I mean we are not talking history here. We know very little about Judas from the New Testament, and some people have even challenged whether Judas was a historical person."
The Coptic texts, owned by the Maecenas Foundation, consist of 62 pages and also contain "The First Apocalypse of James" and "The Letter of Peter to Philip"—two texts also found at Nag Hammadi. How many of the 62 pages contain the Gospel of Judas has not been disclosed.
Hedrick said the last six pages of the Judas document describe a heavenly scene in which Allogenes is being tested and tried by Satan, followed by an earthly scene in which Jesus is being watched closely by scribes. At one point Judas is told, "Although you are evil at this place, you are a disciple of Jesus." The last line of the text says, according to Hedrick: "And he [Judas] took money and delivered him [Jesus] over."
So, Hedrick said, "it appears that Judas is working at the behest of God when he betrays Jesus as part of the divine plan." When translations of the Gospel of Judas are released with accompanying analyses, Hedrick expects that "there will be a lot of sensationalism, but it will dribble out, leaving only the scholars interested."
Yet, in academic and religious circles, the text may stir excitement for years, according to a scholar from the University of Ottawa. "It is a major discovery not only for Coptic, Gnostic or apocryphal studies, but also for ancient Judaism and early Christianity," said Pierluigi Piovanelli in an e-mail to colleagues in 2004 when the first plans to publish were announced.
Some scholarly discussions will focus on whether the document was produced by a branch of the Sethian Gnostics called Cainites by church leaders. The Cainites were said to have glorified Cain and other disgraced figures in the Bible because, according to Gnostic viewpoints, they were doing God's work.
Church discussions conceivably could revolve around the extent to which New Testament Gospels present events in Jesus' life and passion as ordained from the start. Judas Iscariot, depicted minimally by the Gospel of Mark, receives elaboration in Matthew, Luke and John. The latter Gospel says Satan entered Judas at the Last Supper just before Jesus told the disciple, "Do quickly what you are going to do."
For Robinson, the significance of the Gospel of Judas has to do not with first-century history but with second-century mythology. Still, he offered these half-serious reflections in his closing remarks last month: "Where would Christianity be, if there had been no Judas, and Jesus—instead of dying for our sins on the cross—had died of old age?" he asked. "So: Thank God for Judas? Even the most broadminded among us would call that heresy!"
How is Judas' betrayal for silver different from Peter's denial to save his own skin?
"What it says is that the human will is corrupted, loving evil instead of God and always acts according to the bent of it's affections."
And always would without a paradigm that would reach and convict the soul, regenerating hearts and minds.
Suicide is the final act of hopelessness, despair and a loss of courage. Who knows what finally happened to Judas. His was one of history's saddest stories.
That God loves Judas is a fundamental in Christianity. Only God could love Him. He's easy for us to despise....thus the Judas goat. That is not a bad thing, I think, if we remember your words about him. He was a good lesson for us.
Man naturally runs to unrighteous things UNTIL the Son sets us free.
I don't believe anyone has free-will...we just think we do. As you said, it was foretold. If God really has a plan for us, then I believe, everything we do is part of His plan. I don't see where our choice would come into play.
I look at it more like, If I was all knowing and all powerful and could see into the future.
I would have seen the Dallas Cowboys suck against the Redskins.... I am in the future and I am in the past and I am in the now....
Just because I've seen the future and can say... the cowboys defense will sucketh on this day.... doesn't' effect the players. Even if I know they will suck, the Cowboys chose to suck.
Now if I was evil, I'd tell the Cowboys all the Redskin plays, have all the Redskin players show up at game time with dysentery and puking and my beloved Cowboys would win... and I could do that for the whole season.
We'd be undefeated and win the Super Bowl.
It would be nice but boring..like a fixed game.
The great thing is allowing the cowboys to struggle, to overcome adversity, to find it within themselves to use the gifts that have been given these fine young athletes and to excel by making their own choices. That way the victory is so much sweeter and comes from the players who I've "created" and not by my manipulation.....
or something like that....I just love football comparisons.
;-)
GRPL ping...
see my post 47
Since God knew the outcome of his choice...how is this a choice for Judas? He could not choose otherwise, could he? God cannot be wrong, can He?
Wasn't your sin, part of God's plan?
How would the cowboys be able to choose whether to suck or not, if God cannot be wrong, and knew they would suck on that day. They had to suck..besides, all the other stuff that God knows will happen, as a result of their suckiness on that day.
That has already been answered. You might consider reading the thread before you ask questions.
Post #13.
To: Mind-numbed Robot
yes he had a choice...God knew what choice he was going to make.
that's the diff between predestination and foreknowledge...
of course that's just my opinion...and I could be wrong.
13 posted on 12/19/2005 7:31:22 AM PST by Dick Vomer
This is the answer for me, at least. I'm sure not going to discuss with someone who didn't bother to read the thread, so please don't respond to me. Thank you and Merry Christmas.
One must keep this passage in mind! Gnostic gospels were not history, or even mythological, but were complete fictions; their only relevance to the truth is they were vehicles for their author's opinions. The "catholic" books of the bible were called catholic because they represented objective, universal truth. Gnosticism was the belief that subjective truth could be obtained in altered spiritual states, or through occultic practives like numerology.
That's a pretty poor way to get out of an axplanation. I read it, but it's not an an answer. It explains nothing.
Hmm.
Wow! If the Cowboys had the Redskins' playbook, why make the game so messy? :-)
However, the analogy is not bad, IMHO, as I see the scritures as God giving us the enemy's playbook. And as Pogo said, "We have met the enemy and he is us."
Isn't faith by nature subjective? Isn't prayer a belief in the super natural?
There was a recent best selling book, the title of which I can't recall at the moment, on this very subject. The trick is discerning God's plan and the requirement is to want to and to try.
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