Thursday, April 27, 2006
The Gospel of Judas? Are You Kidding?
Is the Gospel of Judas a real challenge to the Christian faith? Or, perhaps the better question, how do
I get National Geographic to do a special on my book?
I have been getting asked by a lot of people, “So what do you think about this new gospel?” Well, not much to tell you the truth. While National Geographic did a great job of marketing this little book, for those in the religious studies arena, this is about as big a story as that fact that there is good skiing in Vail.
A few background bits:
• It was written about the year 170…that is a century and a half after the crucifixion.
• It is written about a century after the four Gospels that the Christian Bible contains.
• The great early church theologian Irenaeus wrote about in his tract, Against Heresies in the year 180.
• It purports to tell us Judas’ side of things, that he was the faithful one.
• It was likely produced by a group of Gnostic Christians called the Cainites who had a thing for the “outcasts” of the Bible – beginning with Cain.
• It does provide a good look at 2nd century mysticism, but not much on the 1st century life of Jesus.
• It portrays Judas as the only one who got the real “gospel.”
This “Gospel” is simply bilge. It has historical anachronisms all over the place. As Simon Gathercole, a New Testament expert from Aberdeen University, said: “It is certainly an ancient text, but not ancient enough to tell us anything new. It contains themes which are alien to the first-century world of Jesus and Judas, but which became popular later. An analogy would be finding a speech said to have been written by Queen Victoria, in which she talked about her CDs.”
It would be like me writing “the true story of Gettysburg” in the year 2006 where I detail that the real reasons for the Confederate defeat were that General Lee has run out of his supply of Prozac and that the Union had plenty of ammunition for their M16s.
This isn’t even the best of the Gnostic Gospels from that era. The Gospel of Thomas is far more interesting. There are at least 20 partial or full “other Gospels” out there running around. Elaine Pagels in the 1980s wrote her little book The Gnostic Gospels and it got a big yawn because, historically speaking, if you want to attack historical orthodox Christianity, using sources that are 2nd and 3rd century are not exactly good sources to use. The further away you get from the actual events of history, the more they become coated by what people want them to be, not what they actually were. Poor Elaine Pagels needed National Geographic to do a documentary on her work. She may have sold more copies.
The Gospel of Judas is, from all accounts, an interesting story. So was The Da Vinci Code, which I will be posting about more in the days leading up to the movie. But as for a source about the events of crucifixion and Jesus’ ministry…not so good.
If you are concerned about whether this will damage the Christian faith, don’t be. If you want a really good book on Judas, try The Gospel According to Judas by Fuller Theological Seminary professor (and one of my former professors) Ray Anderson. Its just about as historically reliable 
