The Gospel of Judas
The National Geographic Society has fueled a new controversy with the publication of a translation of the Gospel of Judas last month. To say the ancient document has just been "discovered" is a stretch. We've known about it for almost 2,000 years. In the year 180, Irenaeus denounced it as "fictional." But shortly thereafter it disappeared from the scene, its contents forgotten until a translation of a translation of it was found in a cave in the Egyptian desert in the 1970s.
The long-lost work has created a furor over its claim that Judas was Jesus' only true disciple and that he turned Jesus over to the Romans, not out of betrayal, but according to a plot schemed by the two of them.
Christians should not be overly concerned about the Gospel of Judas. First of all, the document is clearly pseudepigraphal (written under a false name). Written in third person, it describes events Judas would have never had time to record, having hanged himself immediately after giving Christ his notorious kiss (Mt. 27:3-5).
The reason the work was lost is because the early church stamped it as false and tried to cast it on the trash heap of religious heresy. Irenaeus' views on it were,
[The authors] claim that the betrayer Judas was well informed of all these things, and that he, knowing the truth as none other, brought about the mystery of the betrayal. . . they produced a spurious account of this sort, which they call the Gospel of Judas (Adv. Haer. I.31.1).
The controversy is deceptive, really, for the ancient fragment reveals very little about anything. Here's an excerpt: "'[Truly] I say to you, [...] angel [...] power will be able to see that [...] these to whom [...] holy generations [...]' After Jesus said this, he departed." Enlightening, isn't it? In an interview with Newsweek scholar James M. Robinson said,
It tells us nothing about the historical Jesus, nothing about the historical Judas. It only tells what, 100 years later, Gnostics were doing with the story they found in the canonical Gospels. I think purchasers are going to throw the book down in disgust.
So why has this contested, disreputed document caught the public's eye? Because it resonates with postmodern philosophy, which, whether we know it or not, drives conventional thinking. Gnostism rejected the authority of the apostles and claimed the experience of gnosis (knowledge) gave individuals their own authority. This matches a common attitude found in the present that values experience and feeling over truth, spirituality over religion and doctrine. The excitement over the Gospel of Judas is nothing but a symptom of our times.
Be watching for more of the same. Eastern mysticism, the rejection of reason, alternatives to traditional thought, and a distaste for religion are the challenges facing the church today.
