National Geographic is creating a little stir with a recent article, Lost Gospel Revealed; Says Jesus Asked Judas to Betray Him — it’s being picked up by a bunch of news outlets and they’re running with the story. The Gospel of Judas has been published; views and some translations from the codex are available at National Geographic’s Lost Gospel Site. The story is in the May issue, but it looks like the news is out just in time for Holy Week.
Update: more thoughts on this are contributed by Michael Spenser and by Kester Brewin.
well, Andrew Lloyd Webber was way out ahead on this one. Always thot that Judas not Jesus was the brilliant bit in Superstar – Judas blaming Jesus / God for his ‘crime’ [‘You have murdered me, murdered me. . .]
Anyway, one of the interesting bits of the story pointed out by Clarenc Jordan and maybe others – the words for kiss are quite different – the first kiss is the ceremonial greeting kiss on the cheeks – that’s what Judas agrees will be the sign. But when he approaches Jesus it is a different word – a word that implies passionate/repeated kissing – Judas falling on Jesus neck and kissing him repeatedly, tearfully perhaps – different image, eh? more poignant.
The “reason” given in the NG article about Jesus’ alleged request of Judas is that Jesus wanted to be “free of his human body”, and preferred to have a friend (Judas) be the cause of that rather than an enemy.
“Free of His human body” suggests to me that this text was written by an early Gnostic writer who had bought into the dualism that was a prominent idea of that era.
Scot McKnight has a great thread going on this one too. Worth checking out.
Peace,
Jamie
how can anyone see any validity in the Judas gospel (regarding the role of Judas) when it is contradicted by the vast majority of ancient texts (including the New Testament). its interesting, but not any more credible as the divinci code. but the world (hopefully not the Church) ate up the divinci code so im sure this will get a lot of attention.
Nick,
I agree that the story has little credibility as actual history. However, we should not be too quick to dismiss it. It’s content, and even more so the wide interest in it, speak volumes about peoples feelings towards the Church. Very telling…
Peace,
Jamie