What About "The Gospel of Judas?"

The National Geographic Society's recent publication of a translation of  "The Gospel of Judas" provoked world-wide interest and controversy. Conflicting opinions about its importance and authenticity as well as the sensationalism that accompanied it prompt us to ask: "What about the Gospel of Judas?"

"The Gospel of Judas" is part of a collection of ancient writings discovered in Egypt at Nag Hammadi in 1945.  Local peasants found 13 leather bound books (codices) in a sealed jar.  The books contained more than 50 separate articles (treatises called tractates), all of them 3rd or 4th century Coptic translations of treatises originally written in Greek.  All but three of the Nag Hammadi treatises are Gnostic documents.

The Gnostics were a heretical sect already at the time of the apostles.  (St. Paul wrote his letter to the Colossians in part to expose and refute the anti-Christian philosophy of Cerinthus, a Gnostic apostle.} Like other sects, the Gnostics promulgated their beliefs through their writings. "The Gospel of Judas" is just one of many such texts. 

The suggestion that "The Gospel of Judas" may be a missing book of the Bible is completely without warrant and totally irresponsible.  In 180 A.D. an early church father, Bishop Irenaeus of Lyon exposed "The Gospel of Judas" as heresy in his book "Against Heresies," a refutation of Gnosticism.

The Gnostic Judas tract is a proponent of Greek dualistic philosophy. Dualism insists that matter (the physical body) is evil and that spirit (the human mind) is good.  (It was this same body/mind dualism that led the Greek philosophers in Athens to ridicule St. Paul when he proclaimed the resurrection of the body in Acts 17:16-34).  According to this scheme of things, Judas would be doing Jesus a favor by betraying him.  Jesus' subsequent death would free his good spirit from the evil prison of his body.  That makes Judas a heroic figure rather than a villain.  But it also distorts what Matthew, Mark, Luke and John tells us about Judas, and about the death of Jesus as the atoning sacrifice for the sins of the world.

Newsweek's article (4/17/06, page 48) on "The Gospel of Judas" calls it "a long-lost Christian text."  Calling it a "Christian text" is tantamount (similar) to calling "Alice in Wonderland" a scientific treatise because it was written by a renowned scientist.  In fact, as Irenaeus noted in the 2nd century, "The Gospel of Judas" is anti-Christian, not unsimilar to the sentiment that prevails in much of Western civilization in the 21st century.  In all likelihood, there was nothing coincidental about the fact that the National Geographic Society's TV special together with its publication of the fragmented text of "The Gospel of Judas" coincided with the Christian observance of Holy Week and Easter.

As the old aphorism goes, "This too shall pass."

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