the gospel of judas Options

[sadolakced acid]

what does this mean.

if it's really part of the bible, is it still the word of god?

does it mean the bible was intentionally changed?

accidentally changed?

altered, perhaps, so it no longer represents what the original bible was?

[*wind&fire*]

i heard it was written sect or christians that were wrong...

acutally it doesnt really change the bible a whole lot...all now it says is that judas was obeying Christ and "you(Judas) will exceed all of them(other disciples). For you will sacrifice the man that clothes me."

as for the people that write it ...they were just controversial... so it was covered up

Unlike the accounts in the New Testament Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, the anonymous author of the Gospel of Judas believed that Judas Iscariot alone among the 12 disciples understood the meaning of Jesus' teachings and acceded to his will. In the diversity of early Christian thought, a group known as Gnostics believed in a secret knowledge of how people could escape the prisons of their material bodies and return to the spiritual realm from which they came.

Elaine Pagels, a professor of religion at Princeton who specializes in studies of the Gnostics, said in a statement, "These discoveries are exploding the myth of a monolithic religion, and demonstrating how diverse — and fascinating — the early Christian movement really was."

The Gospel of Judas is only one of many texts discovered in the last 65 years, including the gospels of Thomas, Mary Magdalene and Philip, believed to be written by Gnostics.

The Gnostics' beliefs were often viewed by bishops and early church leaders as unorthodox, and they were frequently denounced as heretics. The discoveries of Gnostic texts have shaken up Biblical scholarship by revealing the diversity of beliefs and practices among early followers of Jesus.

quote taken from here

This post has been edited by Smoogrish: Apr 13 2006, 07:13 PM

[sadolakced acid]

so people with a version of the bible different from the one now were dissenters, heretics, and wrong.

that's convenient.

[*wind&fire*]

well it was along time ago... they probably really didnt really know what was right... not unless they were Jesus

[sadolakced acid]

so how come the ones who wrote the gospel of judas were the ones who were wrong and the ones who wrote, say, the gospel of mathew, were the ones who were right?

[*I Shot JFK*]

so how come the ones who wrote the gospel of judas were the ones who were wrong and the ones who wrote, say, the gospel of mathew, were the ones who were right?

because it is just OH so inconvenient to have to change the ethos, or even a minor of ones beliefs for something as trivial as the potential truth

[*kryogenix*]

From Zenit:

The National Geographic Society has announced its intentions to publish an English translation of an ancient text called "The Gospel of Judas" later this month.

The 31-page manuscript, written in Coptic, purportedly surfaced in Geneva in 1983 and has only been translated now.

ZENIT asked Legionary Father Thomas D. Williams, dean of theology at the Regina Apostolorum university in Rome, to comment on the relevance of the discovery.

Q: What is the "Gospel of Judas"?

Father Williams: Though the manuscript still must be authenticated, it likely represents a fourth- or fifth-century text, and is a copy of an earlier document produced by a Gnostic sect called the Cainites.

The document paints Judas Iscariot in a positive light, and describes him as obeying a divine ordinance in handing over Jesus to the authorities for the salvation of the world.

It may well be a copy of the "Gospel of Judas" referred to by St. Irenaeus of Lyons in his work "Against the Heresies," written around A.D. 180.

Q: If authentic, what challenge would this document pose to traditional Christian belief? Will it "shake Christianity to its foundations" as some press releases have suggested?

Father Williams: Certainly not. The Gnostic gospels, of which there are many besides this one, are not Christian documents per se, since they proceed from a syncretistic sect that incorporated elements from different religions, including Christianity.

From the moment of their appearance, the Christian community rejected these documents because of their incompatibility with the Christian faith.

The "Gospel of Judas" would be a document of this sort, which could have great historical value, since it contributes to our knowledge of the Gnostic movement, but it poses no direct challenge to Christianity.

Q: Is it true that the Church has tried to cover up this text and other apocryphal texts?

Father Williams: These are myths circulated by Dan Brown and other conspiracy theorists.

You can go to any Catholic bookstore and pick up a copy of the Gnostic gospels. Christians may not believe them to be true, but there is no attempt to hide them.

Q: But doesn't an early document of this sort rival orthodox Christian sources, such as the four canonical Gospels?

Father Williams: Remember that Gnosticism arose in the middle of the second century, and the "Gospel of Judas," if authentic, probably dates back to the mid- to late second century.

To put a historical perspective on things, that would be like you or me writing a text now on the American Civil War and having that text later used as a primary historical source on the war. The text could not have been written by eyewitnesses, the way at least two of the canonical Gospels were.

[hi-C]

Unlike the accounts in the New Testament Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, the anonymous author of the Gospel of Judas believed that Judas Iscariot alone among the 12 disciples understood the meaning of Jesus' teachings and acceded to his will. In the diversity of early Christian thought, a group known as Gnostics believed in a secret knowledge of how people could escape the prisons of their material bodies and return to the spiritual realm from which they came.

Elaine Pagels, a professor of religion at Princeton who specializes in studies of the Gnostics, said in a statement, "These discoveries are exploding the myth of a monolithic religion, and demonstrating how diverse — and fascinating — the early Christian movement really was."

The Gospel of Judas is only one of many texts discovered in the last 65 years, including the gospels of Thomas, Mary Magdalene and Philip, believed to be written by Gnostics.

The Gnostics' beliefs were often viewed by bishops and early church leaders as unorthodox, and they were frequently denounced as heretics. The discoveries of Gnostic texts have shaken up Biblical scholarship by revealing the diversity of beliefs and practices among early followers of Jesus.

It sounds like Judas is the Biblical equivalent to Dr. Kevorkian.

- - -

The Gospel of Judas isn't going to change anything. He's been villanized for over 2000 years.

[scenekidsgo__raw...]

I don't think The Gospel of Judas is really effective to the current Bible.
And it could be "fake", like the Gospel of Mary Magdalene.

[sadolakced acid]

so anything not in the bible, but claims to have been, is fake, or for some other reason invalid?

very conveniet.

our school had a bible as literature class. we got rid of it, however, because students started putting "as the direct word of god, this is flawless" as an answer for everything.