Well, yesterday was the official “unleashing” of the Gospel of Judas manuscripts, and I admit to being substantially excited about it. Even though it’s a gnostic text, it gives us even further insight into the church of the first five centuries. What I find really amusing about this little find is the news headlines in the mainstream media. As I was perusing the news, I came across several headlines that read something like “Scholars Doubt Authenticity of Judas Gospel” and I was somewhat shocked. I’m thinking, “Whoa, that’s premature. It’s already been authenticated, dated by carbon-testing, ink, style and content, by multiple scholars in a variety of fields – how can someone doubt the authenticity of it?”
Reading on, however, I quickly discovered that what these scholars were supposedly doubting was the authorship of the gospel, in that it wasn’t written by Judas Iscariot. Oh, gee… really?! I sometimes forget how ignorant the mainstream media is of biblical scholarship. No, strike that: they’re pretty much ignorant of all scholarship, and filter it only for the tasty nugget of gristle that can be thrown to the masses to gnaw on over dinner, or around the water cooler. They can’t really be blamed for that ignorance, mind you. Given the number of news networks out there now, it’s no longer a matter of informing the public – it’s wooing, luring, and tossing a leash on the public so that they’ll be fixed squarely on your programming.
Outside of that, the Gospel of Judas is definitely an amazing find, especially since we already knew it existed, but was lost to us. The early church father Iranaeus, disciple of Polycarp (traditionally, anyway) and bishop of Lugdunum (now Lyons, France) spoke of the text in his work Against Heresies [120-202 AD]. In chapter 31 of that work, Iranaeus condemns a gnostic group called the “Cainites” who seemed to be unique in the sense that they found the good-side of many of the biblical “bad-boys.” From a gnostic perspective, that makes perfect sense. The Gnostics usually held to some form of “dualism” – the idea that matter/flesh is inherently wicked, while spirit is inherently good. This form of dualism led many gnostics to believe that it wasn’t the true, spiritual God who created the universe, because a good god wouldn’t create evil matter. Instead they made the creator to be a lesser, malevolent god who they labelled “Jehovah.”
While there were many gnostic groups with widely varied beliefs, all of them subscribed to the idea that salvation was to be found in the secret knowledge, the gnosis, of the true, spiritual god, and the spiritual nature of mankind. Within this dualistic context, we can easily see why Judas or Cain might be considered good-guys. Anyone who rebels against the evil creator-god, Jehovah, is not a villain, but a hero in the eyes of a gnostic. Iranaeus tells us a little more in writing:
Others again declare that Cain derived his being from the Power above, and acknowledge that Esau, Korah, the Sodomites, and all such persons, are related to themselves. On this account, they add, they have been assailed by the Creator, yet no one of them has suffered injury. For Sophia was in the habit of carrying off that which belonged to her from them to herself. They declare that Judas the traitor was thoroughly acquainted with these things, and that he alone, knowing the truth as no others did, accomplished the mystery of the betrayal; by him all things, both earthly and heavenly, were thus thrown into confusion. They produce a fictitious history of this kind, which they style the Gospel of Judas. (Schaff, Philip. The Ante-Nicene Fathers.)
This text, and the others in the codex, should prove to be a fascinating study and will certainly spark a substantial amount of debate. There’s a link below to a summary of the announcement panel held yesterday at National Geographic headquarters, and the funniest part was the last thee folks on the panel. First, you have Donald Senior, a relatively conservative Roman Catholic priest, who says that, while an interesting text, it bears no immediate relevance to the canonized texts of the New Testament. To his left, we have Craig Evans, a professor at my school, and a dear brother from my own local church fellowship at New Minas Baptist. He took his usual, moderate view, seeing the text as potentially providing some new insights in our understanding of the gospel accounts, but not impacting those accounts in any sensational way. So, we have a conservative, then a moderate, then… Ah, of course. As we continue down the table, we find Elaine Pagels seated at the far left – how appropriate. Dr. Pagels took her typical gnostic Christian position, holding up the text as a further proof that gnosticism is the foundation of primitive, historical Christianity. We can definitely look forward to another volley of polemics being fired back and forth over the next few years. Ah well, it’s better that they debate an ancient manuscript rather than a silly work of fiction like The Da Vinci Code. Here’s some links to the official National Geographic stuff…
In other news, and nothing to do with Judas, here’s a cute little “flash tract” you might enjoy. Pass it along!
), but God has been very good in allowing me to do fairly well. I won’t be publishing a “Pete’s Canadian Translation, Eh” anytime soon, but I have a better understanding of God’s word than I did before.
