Judas And The Gospel Of Jesus

N.T. Wright, an ancient historian, biblical scholar, and bishop, offers a Christian response to the discovery (and the sensation surrounding that discovery) of the Gospel of Judas.

For 1,600 years its message lay hidden. When the bound papyrus pages of this lost gospel finally reached scholars who could unlock its meaning, they were astounded. Here was a gospel that had not been seen since the early days of Christianity, and which few experts had even thought existed–a gospel told from the perspective of Judas Iscariot, history’s ultimate traitor. And far from being a villain, the Judas that emerges in its pages is a hero. In this radical reinterpretation, Jesus asks Judas to betray him. In contrast to the New Testament Gospels, Judas Iscariot is presented as a role model for all those who wish to be disciples of Jesus and is the one apostle who truly understands Jesus. Discovered by farmers in the 1970s in Middle Egypt, the codex containing the gospel was bought and sold by antiquities traders, secreted away, and carried across three continents, all the while suffering damage that reduced much of it to fragments. In 2001, it finally found its way into the hands of a team of experts who would painstakingly reassemble and restore it. The Gospel of Judas has been translated from its original Coptic to clear prose, and is accompanied by commentary that explains its fascinating history in the context of the early Church, offering a whole new way of understanding the message of Jesus Christ.

A radical reinterpretation of the relationship of Judas and Jesus • Reexamines the role and the purpose the key figure of Judas played in the crucifixion story • Reveals how Judas was “betrayed” by Jesus, and how, taken to the limits of his humanity, he lost everything he most cherished on the path to his true self The familiar story of Judas, betrayer of Jesus, is striking because of its incomprehensibility. Why would one of Christ’s disciples and companions of the heart deliver him up to his enemies and a barbarous, ignominious, and certain death for thirty pieces of silver? Jean-Yves Leloup’s careful investigation of the gospels, various apocryphal texts, and most importantly the Coptic codex known as the Gospel of Judas, leads him to conclude that there is more to the familiar story of Judas than a simple demonstration, viewed through one man, of humanity’s inherent failings. The betrayal of Jesus to the Romans was Jesus’s idea, explains Leloup. Jesus persuaded Judas to play the role of “evil” in humankind by telling him that this enactment was crucial to God’s plan and would set Judas by Jesus’s side for eternity: “There where I am,” spoke Jesus to Judas, “is where I wish you, too, to be.” But to get there, Judas--a metaphorical representation of the darker side present in all human beings and the “shadow” counterpart to his Messiah dying on the cross-- must first shed all his human qualities. His failings of greed, deceit, and cowardice--and even his faith and hope--are washed away in the despair that engulfs him. A parallel moment occurs for Jesus on the cross, when he comes to know the despair of separation from God. The moment Judas “loses” his life and all that gave it meaning--his God, his law, his justice, his Messiah--is the very moment he finds that which cannot be discarded--life eternal. Thus, in the moment of his ultimate extremity, Judas receives Jesus’s true message and his intended gift.

The biblical scholar recounts the events surrounding the discovery and handling of the Gospel of Judas, and provides an overview of its content, in which Judas is portrayed as a faithful disciple.

The Gospel According to Judas by Benjamin Iscariot is the result of an intense collaboration between a storyteller and a scholar: Jeffrey Archer and Francis J. Moloney. Their brilliant work—bold and simple—is a compelling story for twenty-first-century readers, while maintaining an authenticity that would be credible to a first-century Christian or Jew. "The very name of ‘Judas' raises among Christians an instinctive reaction of criticism and condemnation...The betrayal of Judas remains...a mystery." —Pope Benedict XVI, October 2006 The Gospel According to Judas by Benjamin Iscariot sheds new light on the mystery of Judas—including his motives for the betrayal and what happened to him after the crucifixion—by retelling the story of Jesus through the eyes of Judas, using the canonical texts as its basic point of reference. Ostensibly written by Judas's son, Benjamin, and following the narrative style of the Gospels, this re-creation is provocative, compelling, and controversial.

The instant New York Times bestseller interpreting the controversial long-lost gospel The recently unearthed Gospel of Judas is a source of fascination for biblical scholars and lay Christians alike. Now two leading experts on the Gnostic gospels tackle the important questions posed by its discovery, including: How could any Christian imagine Judas to be Jesus' favorite? And what kind of vision of God does the author offer? Working from Karen L. King's brilliant new translation, Elaine Pagels and King provide the context necessary for considering its meaning. Reading Judas plunges into the heart of Christianity itself and will stand as the definitive look at the gospel for years to come.

Judas Iscariot has been demonized as the quintessential traitor, the disciple who betrayed his master for the infamous thirty pieces of silver. But the recent sensational discovery and publication of the long lost Gospel of Judas, with its remarkable portrayal of Judas Iscariot as the disciple closest to Jesus, raises serious new questions. Was Judas the only member of the Twelve who truly understood Jesus? Did Jesus secretly collaborate with Judas to set in motion the series of events that would redeem all of humankind? In search of answers, Marvin Meyer, one of the world's leading experts on the Gospel of Judas presents a collection of the earliest accounts of Judas, which together paint a fuller portrait of this most enigmatic disciple. This book presents the essential texts that deal with the figure of Judas, including New Testament writings, Gnostic documents, and other early and later Christian literature. These are the earliest known testimonies about Judas and include selections from the gospels of Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John, the Acts of the Apostles, and relevant passages from Paul. The centerpiece of the book is the Gospel of Judas, followed by excerpts from three other Gnostic texts—the Dialogue of the Savior, the Concept of Our Great Power, and the "Round Dance of the Cross"—which may shed new light on the figure of Judas. A series of additional writings on Judas produced over the centuries provide glimpses of the vilification of Judas and the emergence of anti-Semitic themes. Meyer offers evidence of traitors before Judas—the Genesis story of Joseph's brothers who sold him into slavery, the duplicitous friend of the poet in Psalm 41, and Melanthius the goatherd in Homer's Odyssey—all of which raise the question of whether the story of Judas Iscariot could be simply a piece of religious fiction derived from earlier stories. Judas provides a rich collection of original sources that tell the story of Christianity's most infamous figure, offering the fullest understanding of Judas Iscariot's undeniable importance in the climax of Jesus's life.

The Gospel of Judas: On a Night with Judas Iscariot presents a fresh translation of the Gospel of Judas, with introduction, commentary, and notes. Originally published with considerable international fanfare in 2006, the Gospel of Judas has prompted a vibrant discussion among scholars and other interested readers about the meaning of the text and the place of Judas Iscariot in the story of Jesus and the history of the church. Meyer, a member of the original research team assembled by the National Geographic Society to edit, translate, and publish the Gospel of Judas and the remaining texts in what is now called Codex Tchacos, here offers an up-to-date and thoroughly accessible translation of the Gospel of Judas, expanded with new fragments of the text and informed by the latest scholarship. He adds reminiscences of the work on the Coptic text when it first was coming to light in 2005 and 2006. This book also includes reflections on the extensive literature, beyond the Gospel of Judas, on the figure of Judas Iscariot, with suggestions for a literary interpretation of Judas--an interpretation that may have a dramatic impact upon our understanding of the role of Judas Iscariot in the story of Jesus's passion.