Judas

I just read the gospel of Judas. Crazy and admirable ****.

Any thoughts on Christians who ACTUALLY know the bible and the history and context of the gospels? Please keep this civil. ;)

//EDIT I say civil because I did bring this up on another forum. But there is many more christians and philosophers on this board. And I find the gosbel of Judas Iscariot FASCINATING. A couple of months ago and even weeks ago google was pretty silent on anything other than the accounts of the 4. But now there is plenty of buzz.

I have the book. I just started reading it though. I haven't even gotten through the actual manuscript of the Gospel of Judas, never mind all of the commentary that follows it.

My own feeling is that they are all books written by people. History is written by the victors, so the point of view established in the christian bible is simply the writings that met with majority approval at the Council of Nicea.

IMO, Constantine had an agenda in convening the Council to begin with and the attendees had personal and political agendas that centered primarily around their own wealth and power. So, the books that most supported their existing views and bolstered their power were the books that made the cut.

I can't find a source to reference, but if I recall correctly, differen sects of christianity even disagree about the books that make up the bible. The catholic bible has different books than the lutheran bible which has different books than the protestant bible, etc.

But, there were many other books available, with points of view that differed widely, that were left out. Fast forward 1700 years or so and it is considered by many to be heretical and blasphemous to suggest that any book that wasn't voted into the bible is a fake or somehow incorrect and can't possibly be the 'word of god', never mind an accurate memoir recounting the life of the person that wrote it.

I prefer to read all I can and make my own decisions, keeping in mind that each author can only write from their own point of view and that they each may have had an agenda to push in writing what they did.

I agree totally Tony. In fact I find them all fascinating. Especially this one. It astonishingly proclaims that Jesus told Judas to betray him. Its too bad almost 15 percent of the book was missing at the time it was found. Because many of the conversations between Judas and Jesus are incomplete. It took almost 3 years to translate in it's poor condition.

Even though the book was proclaimed heresy for it's gnostic teachings by Irenaeus, they are the words of early Christians as handed to them through culture before being written down in this case Greek. That is before Irenaeus, before the church before the bible and before the Council of Nicea. It was Irenaus from what I found that excluded any gnostic teachings, not as heresy like I stated earlier, but as fiction. There wasn't a hard line church as of yet that could claim it heresy.

But to me looking back it's the Gnostic's who portray Christ more as what I would think of him to be in reality. One of the most moving gospels that fall into the non canonical realm is not only the Gospel of Judas but those of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the gospel of Thomas. And then there are all the writings in the Apocrypha.

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I can't find a source to reference, but if I recall correctly, different sects of christianity even disagree about the books that make up the bible. The catholic bible has different books than the lutheran bible which has different books than the protestant bible, etc.

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It would take a while but yes historical accounts of splits are documented. Take your council for example. They were split on Jesus' relationship with the father, issued clarification and modified the word. The great Martin Luther is another example. And let me tell ya, the Mormons see Christ in a WHOLE different way. In fact he visited them here in the USA and hung out for a while after his Crucifiction. Proably had some Merlot and crackers.

Be careful you heretics or I will set the Spanish Inquisition on you :lildevil:

As far as I am aware, none of the books were actually written by the people they are attributed to. They were written some time later by followers and friends. As such, they are bound to be partisan, and I do not mean that as any form of criticism, merely as an observation.

As Tony mentioned, the Synod of Nicaea was where the modern Bible was determined. A lot of the activities were perfectly innocuous as they were "de-duplications", and the basic rule seems to have been that the "most complete account wins". A lot of "fragments" were excluded as a result of this process.

I have not seen this "Gospel of Judas" yet, and I probably face excommunication for even being interested? However, I do have a copy of the "Gospel of Barnabas", which has been around (in modern times) for much longer.

It was totally proscribed by the Catholic Church, and they thought that it had been destroyed......... but that is not as easy as it seems, even in days when all books were hand written.

In Barnabas' Gospel, Jesus was not crucified, it was Judas who took the rap for him :eek:

Just a few thoughts? ;)

For those who might be remotely interested, I am a Roman Catholic............... but I have never had an answer for those friends who have asked me if I am a "Sunni Roman Catholic, or a Shia Roman Catholic"

I also have a number of Hindu, Bhuddist and Jewish friends............. but isn't religion supposed to be about friendship ??????????????

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I do have a copy of the "Gospel of Barnabas", which has been around (in modern times) for much longer.

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Yes much longer... considering you might be interested to know the Gospel of Judas has JUST been translated. It was only released months ago. And we call it the Gospel of Judas because... well that's the title. :D It's in Coptic and translated the title is The Gospel of Judas. The people who found it just about FREAKED as you can imagine.

It carbon dates to 300. And an interesting twist to go along with your alternative ending to Jesus. In this gospel it is hinted that Judas was stoned to death by the other disciples. Not only that, but Jesus appears to the disciples as a child in a few passages. Not sure if it's a literal account or metaphorical account. And along with that, not sure the meaning of the stoning. Because it doesn't say he was stoned, but that he went to Jesus with a vision or dream in which the other disciples stone him. Another is the act of segregation. He took Judas aside and spoke to him of the kingdom of heaven.

Something very hard for some. In no other conical Gospel does he do this? In some he takes a few aside but never a single one. But I argue, if Jesus did expect him to sacrifice his body to the Romans and endure a painful life afterwards, wouldn't he show Judas his true path? Or wouldn't it be just if he did? Jesus told Judas that in betraying him he would endure an entire lifetime of pain (summing up). And since the early Gnostic's believed the body to be a prison it seems logical that Jesus (to them) would appear like this and perhaps plan his own fate?

Didn't know a roman catholic existed in England? :p

BTW I hope everything is settled down over there next month when I am setting in a pub. Hope I get through Heathrow and back without too much hassle. :)

Blasphemy and bullshit! Betrayal is not something looked upon lightly by God. I bet you would stick your head in fire if I told you that you could see hell. The Gnoststic people were interesting and do offer an alternative perspective. Take it with a grain of salt.

"in Barnabas' Gospel, Jesus was not crucified, it was Judas who took the rap for him."
Slap yourself.

Religion is supposed to be about God, before all other things. If you put God first everything else will fall into place.

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Religion is supposed to be about God, before all other things. If you put God first everything else will fall into place.

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That is completely incorrect. "Theology" is about God(s). "Religion" is about Man's relationship with his God(s). Pagans and idolaters do have a "religion" you know ;)

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"in Barnabas' Gospel, Jesus was not crucified, it was Judas who took the rap for him." Slap yourself.

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Why? I did not write it, nor am I so stupid and arrogant as to deny that someone else did.................some 1800 years ago.

What RoadClosed and myself find interesting is that we now have two "alternative accounts" to those given in the three Synoptic Gospels and the Gospel of St. John.

I do not find this unusual given the historical context. Judas was a Zealot ...............this was a political organisation, and represented the Jewish resistance to Roman Imperial rule.

The mainstream Jews were awaiting a "messiah" or "saviour". They expected a political/military leader such as Joshua, who would overthrow the Roman occupation. Jesus was a holistic, theological and philosophical leader who preached pacifism ("render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's and to God that which is God's")

It was the Zealots who felt betrayed by Jesus.................

So, with Christianity rapidly gathering popular support, it is hardly surprising that the Zealot "spin doctors" of the day should start to come up with more politically favourable accounts?

I also find it interesting that the Essenes (a fringe Jewish sect) had no such problems. They were expecting two messiahs, one political and the other religious. This demonstrates that the concept of separating church and state is a lot older than some people think. :cool:

Remember your three gonostic gosples (judas, thomas, mary magdalin) where writien at least 200 years after the rest of the gospels, they where writen by a group that main stream christians had issues with from day one(well preday one, simon magus was a gonstic, they had issues with him while jesus was still alive). The gnostic stuff is an interesting herasy, but ot look at it as historicly acurate would be unfortunate.

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Originally Posted by tonybradley

I can't find a source to reference, but if I recall correctly, differen sects of christianity even disagree about the books that make up the bible. The catholic bible has different books than the lutheran bible which has different books than the protestant bible, etc.

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Well, some editions of the bible include the Apocrypha, which is a controversial entry. It consists of 15 books, or parts of books, which are works outside the canon adopted in Palestine - that is, they form no part of the Hebrew scriptures, although the original language of some of them was Hebrew.

In Greek and Latin manuscripts of the Old Testament these books are dispersed throughout the Old Testament and this arrangement was traditionally followed by the Roman Catholic church. The practice of collecting them into a separate unit dates back no further than 1520 BCE.