The Gospel of Judas

[dreamer_easy]

Obviously the Gospel of Judas has a huge oo-er factor - history's greatest villain really a hero! Secret teachings of Jesus revealed! etc. Its actual significance is that it gives scholars insight into the early development of Christianity. "A long-buried side of Christianity is re-emerging," says the National Geographic.

Scholars have known for centuries that the document once existed, and were extremely excited to rediscover it. National Geographic's May cover story focusses on how the papyrus was rescued and restored, while The New York Review of Books' article (8 June) gives more insight into the document itself.

Briefly, the Gospel tells the story of how Jesus took Judas aside and secretly gave Judas the job of betraying him; Jesus goes on to reveal a new cosmology to Judas, about which more in a moment. The NYT review suggests that the document might have been written by a splinter group of Christians who were under attack from the established church, and so identified with Judas, the rejected Apostle who they turned into a hero. The aim of the Gospel may have been to explain where evil comes from - not just Judas' evil act, paradoxically part of a divine plan, but any evil in a world ruled by an all-powerful, good God.

NGM notes that there were all sorts of controversies as the new religion took shape, with factions arguing over whether Christians should follow Jewish law, over whether Christ was divine, and so forth. The NYT review suggests the Judas Gospel is partly an attack on the promotion of martyrdom by Christian leaders, a controversial topic amongst early Christians.

Now, the NYT reviewer cautions us that "Gnosticism" is "a construction of modern scholars" - the authors of documents such as the Gospel of Mary and the Gospel of Judas probably just thought of themselves as Christians. By lumping together various texts as "Gnostic", the reviewer points out, the differences between them forgotten (much as the Founding Fathers are blurred together) and stuff gets read in.

Nonetheless, here are some of the "basic tenets" of Gnosticism as outlined in the book. The world is hopelessly evil, created not by the real God but by a lesser evil being. Some (but not all) human beings contain a "divine spark" and can be saved; salvation requires special spiritual knowledge.

When I read this outline, I knew at once there was nothing here for me. The Gnostics were mystics - communicating directly with God, without intercedents such as priests - and honoured the female (the Judas Gospel mentions their goddess, Barbelo) but there their resemblance to most modern Pagans and to my own beliefs stops. I and other Pagans celebrate the physical world - the "ground of all being" as Starhawk calls it - and honour nature and our bodies. The "divine spark" is everywhere in nature, not just in the chosen few.

OTOH, the elitist idea that the truth is a secret, and that you need someone to whisper it to you, has long been a part of occultism. The explosion of Wicca and Paganism into the mainstream has been a mixed blessing, and has annoyed hell out of some long-term practitioners, but it has thrown open doors which were once firmly closed against hoi polloi. Like Buddhism or indeed Christianity, the basic concepts and practices of Wicca are simple and straightforward and anyone can grasp them.

I think the Gospel of Judas has sparked ire from some Christians not because its narrative directly endangers their faith, but because of the disturbing reminder that the gospels - all of them, canon or "Gnostic" - are human productions, and that there was a time when the tenets of Christian faith were still being debated by human beings. Had certain factions held sway or certain votes gone a different way, modern Christians could be worshipping in a very different way.

Comments

[antikythera.livejournal.com]

Grr, I can't copy and paste from your layout to quote stuff.

I've always found the idea of canon vs. apocrypha to be a bit laughable. All these writings on the same religion exist, but some council of Great Poohbahs arbitrarily decided which of them should be considered 'true' and which should not.

What makes someone closer to God than anyone else and more qualified to filter that material? I guess if there are enough people who want someone else to do all the thinking about the difficult stuff for them, and there's someone who likes to do that kind of thinking (and a little charisma helps too), suddenly you've got an organized religion. Spirituality, like everything else in a society that falls under the anthropological definition of 'civilised', is just another thing that a few people specialise in and everyone else consumes.

[thegameiam.livejournal.com]

I don't think I've encountered that approach before: I would think that it would apply more to priest-directed religions than to lay-directed ones. Am I understanding that correctly?

[antikythera.livejournal.com]

Pretty much, yeah. If it's priest-directed, and people are supposed to think about the holy writings only with the help of a so-called expert, I call that an organized religion. If it's lay-directed, and people are free to interpret the teachings on their own and practice however they wish, that's not as organized.

Yes, it's fuzzy, because if people share the same label for their faith, that is itself a form of 'organization'. And then there's the question of where you draw the line between priests (modern people who tell you how to interact with the spiritual world) and prophets (ancient people whose writings are the basis for your faith). Do you need to have a modern priest telling you how to read the story of Jesus as written by his fishing buddies?

For this reason I have trouble describing paganism as a 'religion'; there are plenty of people who call themselves pagans but who have made up their own systems of belief and ways of communing with the spiritual world.

[thegameiam.livejournal.com]

Makes sense - perhaps modern neoPaganism is one of the extremes on the scale of organized vs. not:

Catholicism and Mormonism on one hand are extremely organized, with a rigid hierarchy and a single authority at the top; Judaism (Orthodox anyway) is what I call a "disorganized Religion" with a relatively loose association of individual leaders and congregations who use the same texts and sources, and generational consensus determines what teachings are preserved; Modern neoPaganism is far more individual - I have yet to meet the modern Pagan who subscribes to pretty much any (human) authority. Perhaps you're right, and that's actually outside the label "religion" at all, and more in the realm of "loose affiliation of spiritually-like-minded people"

[antikythera.livejournal.com]

I have yet to meet the modern Pagan who subscribes to pretty much any (human) authority.

Yeah. They might base their practices strongly on the recommendations of a particular person, but a modern spiritual thinker like Gerald Gardner isn't really seen as being 'closer' to the spiritual world than anyone else (in contrast to an ancient prophet like Moses or Mohammed).

[neotoma.livejournal.com]

Some (but not all) human beings contain a "divine spark" and can be saved;

That is what drives me nuts about Gnosticism and some current Protestant denominations. The idea that there are 'elect', and the rest of us aren't worth bothering with.

[sheramil.livejournal.com]

That is what drives me nuts about Gnosticism and some current Protestant denominations. The idea that there are 'elect', and the rest of us aren't worth bothering with.

hey, anyone can join the ranks of the Parfait. just send $30 to:

J.R."Bob" Dobbs,
P.O. Box 181417, Cleveland Hts, OH 44118
--
(http://photobucket.com)

[thegameiam.livejournal.com]

What gets to me is the idea that any of this is new, as far as threatening Christian beliefs goes. I mean, both The Last Temptation of Christ, and Jesus Christ Superstar paint Judas as a heroic figure, and while those aren't exactly canonical literature, I'll guarantee that they'll have a heck of a lot more influence on people than any scholarly tome about Gnosticism (c.f The DaVinci Code)...

The basic Gnostic approach owes far more to Zoroastrianism than it does to Christianity or Judaism (and in fact expanded into the Manichaeian doctrines). Personally, I find it pretty distasteful, but hey, different strokes, right?

[jvowles.livejournal.com]

Well if that were true, we'd have missed out on the Crusades, the Inquisition, and all sorts of other Christian infighting. It may sound like a good thing, but it may not be.

It means no funny movies like DOGMA and LIFE OF BRIAN and HOLY GRAIL, and no great series like Terry Jones' CRUSADES. It means no thought-provoking, controversial works like LAST TEMPTATION or PASSION OF THE CHRIST, or series like THE SECOND COMING.

But it also means you can't have most of the Robin Hood legends, so while that *does* remove PRINCE OF THIEVES, it also removes ROBIN OF SHERWOOD. So, not worth it really.

The things that have most threatened Christian beliefs are other christians, the ridiculous idea that faith must never be questioned (did we forget about good ol' doubting Thomas?), the silly notion that anyone can be infallible, and the idea that there's only one way to connect to God. (Surely god's a better planner than to build a system that damns to eternal torment the billions of people who happen to be born on the wrong speck of land or at the wrong time.)

[thegameiam.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure I follow you - are you agreeing with me that the idea of Judas as a heroic figure is not new, or not?

Gnosis as a phenomenon/approach is clearly not an integral Christian doctrine (c'mon, the Christian churches supressed it for hundreds of years with varying success) - that is, you can be a fully faithful, practicing, believing Christian, and have no truck with Gnosis.

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

*a bit confused* If what were true?

(Didn't Jesus whack Thomas upside the head?)

[vertigozooropa.livejournal.com]

This whole thread is missing the point.

The Gospel of Judas is a "Gnostic Gospel" or an "Apocryphal Gospel," not because some priests made a unilateral choice about what knowledge to impart, and what not to impart. They've been rejected because just short of two millennia worth of scholars have researched them and decided which ones should be real.

The First Council of Nicaea, if I am not mistaken, was the first church meeting to solidly determine which gospels and epistles should be called "scripture," but it was not a crapshoot or a conspiracy, as Dan Brown would have you believe. It was almost an afterthought, to nail down what Christians had already believed.

Afterwards, the choices of the Council have been revisited, but never changed. For nearly two thousand years, independent scholars have read and re-read all known "source materials" for the Bible, and determined which ones make sense in context to each other.

To that end, The Gospel of Judas is false, because it contradicts other books of the Bible.

The Bible does not contradict itself. Anyone who has told you otherwise was misinformed. This is how we decide upon what books belong in the Bible. The Infancy Gospel of Thomas, for instance, portrays a young Jesus as performing a "murder miracle," telling a boy to dry up, which, of course, the boy does.

One could suggest that there is a conspiracy to cover up the true character of Jesus, but that would fail to take into account something our society seems to have forgotten in the wake of The X-Files: facts are established because they are more likely, and conspiracies tend to be far-fetched. The character of Jesus, and the tone of the Bible in general, is so deeply-established and accepted that a conspiracy to subvery the "truth" into what we currently believe would be complicated to a degree never before dreamed of in the human experience (save for the world of fiction). It would tantamount to suggesting that leaves are green because the Catholic Church paints them that way.

As for the concept of "organized religion," let us not forget that Christianity was a rogue faction, and "Christian" was a pejorative term coined by the Romans. The most effective and vibrant believers in Christianity have always been the ones who believe even though it puts their lives in danger (as seen in the Middle East and Africa of today). The Roman Empire outlawed Christianity, and executed Christians in public. When the faith became too large to simply destroy, the Roman emperor Constantine concocted a plan to end the strife: combine Christianity with sun-worship, and make it the official religion of the empire.

Christians worshipped on the sabbath, and Constantine moved that to the Day of the Sun. Christians celebrated the birth and death of their savior, and pagans celebrated a winter festival and a fertility festival (for the goddess Eostre). And so it goes.

It was legislated that all Roman citizens must convert. From that point on, Christianity had its wings clipped. The believers went on believing, but the urgency was gone.

Frankly, nothing has changed. There are still solid believers, and there are still a much greater numbers of people paying lip service to a religion they do not quite understand.

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

They've been rejected because just short of two millennia worth of scholars have researched them and decided which ones should be real.

This isn't true; the Gospel of Judas has been missing for almost two millenia.

More later.

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

Further to this, I want to make a number of points:

If you've come here to bash Catholicism, or any denomination of Christianity, or any religion, leave now.

I haven't read or seen Da Vinci Code and have zero interest in it. It's irrelevant to my posting and this thread.

All the "Gnostic" gospels have only reappeared very recently; scholars have only had half a century to analyse them, not two thousand years.

The kind of scholarship we have today is totally different to the scholarship available to early Christians. I recently read with interest that the sayings of Mohammed were carefully judged, not by scholarly means, but by the reputation of the witnesses who claimed they were correct. Without carbon dating or textual analysis, what else could they do?

The Bible does not contradict itself. Anyone who has told you otherwise was misinformed.

Interestingly, the NY Review states that the "The Gospel of John... readjust[s] the timing of the crucifixion, so that it takes place not on the day after Passover, but on the day of the Passover meal itself..."

continued from previous post (I'm long-winded)

[vertigozooropa.livejournal.com]

I won't profess to know much about paganism, and its specific relationship to the word, "religion," but I will say that Christianity was never meant to be an observed religion. It was only ever supposed to be a way for every man, woman, and child to have a relationship with God. All the rules attributed to it are roughly equivalent to not stealing your buddy's stereo when he lets you crash on his couch: you don't screw over the people you love, and God would prefer we follow a few guidelines.

That being said, sin is sin, and every since the death of Christ, all sins have been forgiven. Yes, even the sins you've committed, and have yet to commit. The doctrine of heaven is such that you can go there if you enter into a relationship with God through Christ Jesus.

That's it. All the rest has been tacked on.

We are a "disorganized religion" if we are a religion at all.

As for The Gospel of Judas, The Da Vinci Code, The Last Temptation of Christ, The Life of Brian, and all the rest, they are not a threat to Christianity. They are merely brain-chaff for those who choose to believe in them. The truth is out there, and it is plain to see. University professors, to this day, stringently examine all possibilities, to determine if maybe those other books might have some worth as religious texts, and not, if I might say, "Bible fanfic."

The majority of legitimate scholars (though I can't speak for majorities of scholars, per se) do not believe in Leigh and Baigent. Holy Blood, Holy Grail is generally regarded as having been discredited years ago. They only sell it now because of Dan Brown, and seekers of the sensational.

This whole topic, I think, stems from boredom. People don't want to believe the boring old Bible, so they look for a more interesting version. Maybe Jesus got married. Maybe Judas and Jesus fixed the game. Maybe Mary Magdalene was the most important disciple, and the Roman Catholic Church covered it up because they though sexism might be fun. This is not the result of truth-seekers looking for answers. If a sincere seeker of truth wanted the answers, he or she would look to the most reputable research first, long before looking to Leigh, Baigent, Dan Brown, or The Gospel of Judas.

As an afterthought, I should note that Mary Magdalene was not a prostitute, nor was she anything of the sort. We do not know anything about her, besides the few verses in which she appears. Her story is not told, and the story of the adulteress, commonly attributed to Mary, does not mention her by name. That was something a pope made up, and we all seem to have stuck with it.

Finally, remember the words of Jesus:
"I have spoken openly to the world," Jesus replied. "I always taught in synagogues or at the temple, where all the Jews come together. I said nothing in secret." John 18:20

You can believe the Gospel of John, or you can believe the Gospel of Judas. It's your choice.

Re: continued from previous post (I'm long-winded)

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

University professors, to this day, stringently examine all possibilities, to determine if maybe those other books might have some worth as religious texts, and not, if I might say, "Bible fanfic."

Actually, no. As both the NY Review and NGM make clear, this is not a question of choosing whether or not the Gospel of Judas is historically or theologically correct. What scholars are interested in are the insights it gives us into early Christians and their conflicts.

You'd be very welcome to read what I've posted and what commenters here have posted, and respond to those remarks. Otherwise, please leave. Canned responses to the controvery are unwelcome here.

[cryptile.livejournal.com]

Briefly, the Gospel tells the story of how Jesus took Judas aside and secretly gave Judas the job of betraying him; Jesus goes on to reveal a new cosmology to Judas, about which more in a moment. The NYT review suggests that the document might have been written by a splinter group of Christians who were under attack from the established church, and so identified with Judas, the rejected Apostle who they turned into a hero.

It's the Gospel According to Snape!

Levity aside, I think your last point is essentially dead-on. Trying to reconcile what I knew of the history of Christianity with the idea that what I was practicing was somehow the correct version of it helped the atheism to take hold. It will be interesting to see if the Judas Gospel gets as much flak as that Da Vinci Code thing.

[antikythera.livejournal.com]

It's the Gospel According to Snape!

I was totally going to say that.

Seriously, this is why I think Snape will turn out to have been in cahoots with Dumbledore over this whole thing all along. And also why I think Dumbledore... with the phoenix symbolism and all, I think he's... yeah, I don't know if everyone here has read it yet.

*tries to shoo fandom out of serious discussion*

*fails, probably*

St Severus of the Grimace

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

Eventually, everything comes back to Harry Potter. Nothing can escape it, not even light.

St Severus of the Grimace

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

Everyone should rent Pulp Fiction instead. A surprisingly devout film.

Re: St Severus of the Grimace

[ashamel.livejournal.com]

I've been telling you that for years.

Well, sort of :-)

Re: St Severus of the Grimace

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

You were right all along!

Re: St Severus of the Grimace

[ashamel.livejournal.com]

Meanwhile, you might be interested in this article from a writer on House, if you haven't seen it:

http://tightropegirl.livejournal.com/10920.html