Gospel of Judas

The Gospel of Judas has been making waves in the media the last weeks and many have been wondering what it is all about. A good description of this so called Gospel of Judas can be found here in an article by Collin Hansen an associate editor of Christianity Today.

I want to make a couple of points that I think are pertinent when it comes to the issue of the Gospel of Judas as well as the best selling DaVinci Code book and upcoming movie.

The first point is that followers of Christ and the church have to deal with such things. Christianity is not a religion that asks followers to bury their heads in the sand and willingly drink the kool-aid. We are to study and offer a reasoned defense. Both the Gospel of Judas and the DaVinci Code, while interesting and good reads as fiction, are not Christian in their outlook or content. Instead of burning books or boycotting movie theaters or book stores, followers of Christ do better to use these opportunities to engage in a dialogue with not yet followers of Christ. By doing this we redeem culture. We plunder the Egyptians as it is said.

Second, when it comes to the Gospel of Judas we must not drink the kool-aid poured out for us by the secular media whose aim is largely to discredit Christianity in any way it can (notice when they want a quote from a Christian leader they always go straight to those paragons of mainstream Christian thought Gerry Falwell and Pat Robertson and goad them to stick their foot in their mouth). The media pundits (now religious scholars all) have done their best to portray the translation and release of the Gospel of Judas as some earth shattering discovery that somehow calls into question the veracity and reliability of the canonical Gospels. However, the Gospel of Judas is not the first book to not make it into what we call the Christian canon (the books that we accept as scripture that we have in our bible). For example, other Gospels such as the Gospel of James, The Infancy Gospel of Thomas and other extra-canonical books such as the Acts of Andrew or the Acts of Peter and Paul also did not make it into the canon. Why? Because of political pressure- no. Most books that did not make it into the canon were written much later than the books we have in our bible now, were not written by eyewitnesses, contained heretical teachings that portrayed Jesus as a magician or soothsayer, or did not agree with the overwhelming evidence presented by other period literature. The Gospel of Judas, not a Christian text but a Gnostic text, is both late in composition, not written by an eyewitness, contains heretical teaching, and does not agree with the other period literature like the four biblical Gospels.

Now all this does not sell newspapers or lure viewers and cannot be explained in :30 second sound bites. But it does lead me to my third point. That is, each year we are subjected both at Christmas and Easter to the “drive by” media’s renewed attention on Christianity. During Christmas you can find cover stories on the major news magazines wondering about the birth of Christ and whether it occurred as the Gospels say it does or whether Mary was raped by a Roman soldier. I go too far but you get the point. At Easter we have documentaries and 20/20 and Dateline specials about the events leading up to Jesus’ death and resurrection that call into question centuries of Christian teaching. Be on the look out next Christmas. We do well to examine the motives of such efforts.

In the end I invite you to discover for yourself and form your own opinions. Let those opinions be formed by an understanding of scripture, the teaching of 2000 years of church tradition, your own experience and your own reason. Use the opportunity to enter into discussions with persons you might not usually have such discussions with to the end that they might come to know the Christ who was betrayed by Judas for thirty pieces of silver. By the way, if Judas was Jesus’ friend and helper why did he commit suicide?

Here are some links to get you on your way in discovering about the Gospel of Judas.