THE GOSPEL OF JUDAS

Hello,

It has been a while since my last entry, but the Gospel of Judas provides an great opportunity for disucssion. The recently revealed Gospel of Judas is an exciting discovery that sheds more light on the turbluent world of early Christianity. Like other texts discovered at Nag Hammadi in the 1940's, this appears to have a Gnostic origin dating sometime after the synoptic gospels, Mark, Matthew, and Luke were authored.

I just finished teaching a Metaphysical Interpretation of the Bible Class when the new Gospel was announced, so my reading of many of the Gnostic texts and the Gospel of Thomas were recent. Like many of the others, Judas seems to be a device to gain adherents to a particular point of view. Many of the scholars who have weighed in via the National Geographic presentation seem to believe that the narrative portion of all of the gospels were largely invented to persuade a target audience of a point of view.

The Q Document and the Gospel of Thomas are the only ones thought to have been written contemporary to, or just after the time of Jesus. Neither of these has any narrative to speak of - no birth, crucifixion or resurrection stories, no miracles. Instead, they contain statements and small vignettes that contain teachings of Jesus, many of which are reproduced (with some editing) in the synoptic gospels and the Gospel of John in the New Testament.

It is doubtful that any writings will be discovered which remove the need for interpretation and faith with regard to the story of Jesus. There is "evidence" to support a number of views in what has been published, and nearly everything has a questionable history, in terms of authorship, intention, changes in copying and translation, etc.

I found Elaine Pagel's book BEYOND BELIEF to be and excellent source regarding the process of selection of materials for the version of the Bible first certified in the 4th Century. Some of this is represented in the National Geographic special about Judas. The amount of fascination with this discovery is pretty amazing - it is good to see so many people focused on spiritual topics, and it is also interesting to see the interaction of scholars, scientists, clergy, the faithful, and skeptics as this story unfolds.

What do you think?

Love and Light, Rev. Lockard