Judas Iscariot
Literature Review:
When in April 2006 the Gospel of Judas was presented to the world in a provisional Coptic text and a first translation into English on the website of the National Geographic Society, the first comments on this apocryphon were highly ambiguous. On the one hand scholars immediately recognized it as a Gnostic text comparable to the writings found in Nag Hammadi, and considered that this might well be the Gospel of Judas referred to by Irenaeus. More specifically, its connection with Sethian texts was soon established, and for these reasons the newly found document was dated to the early or mid second century. On the other hand, however, it was also suggested that this document contained historically reliable traditions on Judas‟s alleged treason and Jesus‟ death, and that through this Gospel our views of these historical persons would have to be radically modified.
The Gospel of Judas is the most recently discovered Gospel to be published, and is arguably the most important and intriguing Christian text to appear since the discovery of the Nag Hammadi Library in 1945. Details of the discovery and the mishandling of the manuscript by antiquities dealers are provided in the exhaustive account of Herb Krosney. The manuscript containing the Gospel preserves three other gnostic works as well: the “Letter of Peter to Philip,” known in a slightly different version from the findings at Nag Hammadi; the “(First) Apocalypse of James,” also known from Nag Hammadi; and a treatise entitled the “Book of Allogenes,” unrelated to the Nag Hammadi treatise also called “Allogenes” (= the Stranger). All four texts are in Coptic, but they are clearly translations of Greek originals. The manuscript was discovered by peasants rummaging through a burial cave in the Al Minya province of Egypt in 1978; but its existence was not known to the scholarly world at large until the Swiss Coptologist Rudolf Kasser announced its discovery and pending publication at the Eighth International Conference of Coptic Studies in Paris, in July 2004
https://ehrmanblog.org/what-is-the-gospel-of-judas-about
O ver the years the sands of Egypt have surrendered countless treasures and archaeological wonders, and now they have yielded another spectacular find: the Gospel of Judas, recently discovered and published here for the first time. The very title of the text, the Gospel of Judas— Judas Iscariot—is shocking. In the New Testament gospels and most of the Christian tradition, Judas Iscariot is portrayed as the quintessential traitor, the betrayer of Jesus who turns his master in to the Roman authorities, and there is little in his character that could connect him with the gospel, or “good news,” of Jesus. In the Gospel of Luke it is said that Satan enters
into Judas and drives him to his despicable deed, and in the Gospel of John, Jesus addresses the twelve disciples and says that one of them, Judas, is a devil. The end of Judas, according to the New Testament, is as ignominious as his actions. He takes blood money from the authorities for his betrayal of Jesus, and either he hangs himself (as in Matthew) or his belly is ripped open and he dies in a ghastly fashion (as in Acts). In Christian art, Judas typically is shown doing what has earned him a place in infamy, betraying Jesus with a kiss—the Judas kiss. Yet even in the New Testament, there is something captivating about Judas Iscariot. The account of Judas betraying Jesus remains a story of great power and poignancy: Jesus is betrayed by one of his closest friends. In the New Testament gospels, Judas is part of the inner circle of disciples of Jesus, and according to the Gospel of John, Judas functions as the treasurer of the group and is entrusted with whatever funds Jesus and the disciples might have had. Further, at the Last Supper, didn’t Jesus himself tell Judas to do what he had to do, and say to do it quickly? Wasn’t all this part of the divine plan—that Jesus should die for the sins of people and rise from the dead on the third day? Without Judas and his kiss, would the Crucifixion and Resurrection ever have taken place?
In the Gospel of Judas, Judas Iscariot turns out to be Jesus’ beloved disciple and dear friend. Additionally, the mysteries he learns from Jesus are steeped in Jewish gnostic lore, and the teacher of these mysteries, Jesus, is the master, the rabbi. The Christian Gospel of Judas is at peace with a Jewish view—an alternative Jewish view, to be sure—of gnostic thought, and Jewish gnostic thought has been baptized as Christian gnostic thought. In this book, Jesus echoes the Platonic conviction that every person has his or her own star and that the fate of people is connected to their stars. Judas, Jesus says, also has his star. Near the conclusion of the text, just before Judas is transfigured and enlightened in a luminous cloud, Jesus asks Judas to look up at the heavens and see the stars and the display of light. There are many stars in the sky, but the star of Judas is special. As Jesus tells Judas, “The star that leads the way is your star.”
Judas? The Gospel of Judas is the most remarkable of four ancient texts bound together in antiquity and discovered in the late 1970s in Egypt. Having been stowed away in a Swiss bank vault for decades, they were only recently rediscovered and subjected to critical study. People have marveled at the existence of the Judas Gospel, for it presents Judas Iscariot not only as Jesus’s betrayer but as his enlightened, favored disciple. This Gospel of Judas is written in the language of Coptic, that is, a late form of Egyptian using Greek letters, but it seems to have been originally composed in Greek. In fact, a church father of the second century CE, Irenaeus of Lyons, mentions a Gospel of Judas that was read by his theological opponents. So historians believe the Gospel of Judas goes back to the second century, even though the version just discovered is a fourth- or fifth century copy. By contrast, the canonical gospels of Mark, Matthew, Luke-Acts, and John come from the late- first and early-second centuries. It is unlikely that the Gospel of Judas contains a separate or more authentic picture of Judas than the canonical story. The text itself is quite brief, opening on Jesus among his disciples. Jesus enrages the disciples by criticizing their piety but then takes Judas Iscariot aside as favored disciple. He predicts Judas’s vilification by the others and proceeds to reveal to him secrets about the creation, the universe, and the Temple of Jerusalem. At the end of the text, fulfilling the canonical story of betrayal, Judas takes money and hands Jesus over to Temple scribes.
The Gospel of Judas makes mention of Seth, well known from the biblical book of Genesis, and concludes that human beings with the knowledge of God belong to the generation of Seth. This particular form of gnostic thought is often described by scholars as Sethian. In the story told in the Book of Genesis, Seth, third son of 6 TH E GOSPE L O F JUDA S Adam and Eve, was born after the tragic violence in the dysfunctional first family, which left Abel dead and Cain banished. Seth, it is suggested, represents a new beginning for humanity. To belong to the generation of Seth, then, according to the Gospel of Judas and similar Sethian books, is to be part of enlightened humanity. That is the good news of salvation in Sethian texts like the Gospel of Judas. In the central part of this gospel, Jesus teaches Judas the mysteries of the universe. In the Gospel of Judas, as in other gnostic gospels, Jesus is primarily a teacher and revealer of wisdom and knowledge, not a savior who dies for the sins of the world. For gnostics, the fundamental problem in human life is not sin but ignorance, and the best way to address this problem is not th
through faith but through knowledge. In the Gospel of Judas, Jesus imparts to Judas—and to the readers of the gospel—the knowledge that can eradicate ignorance and lead to an awareness of oneself and God. This revelatory section of the Gospel of Judas, however, may present challenges to modern readers. The challenges arise chiefly because the point of view of the Sethian gnostic revelation differs substantially from the philosophy, theology, and cosmology that we have inherited within the Euro-American tradition. Rome and orthodox Christianity eventually won the day, and
Jesus tells Judas that in the beginning there was an infinite, utterly transcendent deity, and through a complex series of emanations and creations, the heavens became filled with divine light and glory. This infinite deity is so exalted that no finite term can adequately describe the deity; even the word God, it is intimated, is insufficient and inappropriate for the deity. The world below, however,
is the domain of a lower ruler, a creator god named Nebro (“Rebel”) or Yaldabaoth, who is malevolent and mean-spirited—hence the problems in our world, and hence the need to listen to words of wisdom and become aware of the divine light within. For these believers, the most profound mystery of the universe is that within some human beings is the spirit of the divine. Although we live in a flawed world that too often is the domain of darkness and death, we can transcend darkness and embrace life. We are better than this world, Jesus explains to Judas, for we belong to the world of the divine. If Jesus is the son of the divine, so also are all of us children of the divine. All we need to do is live out of that knowledge of the divine, and we shall be enlightened.
https://roosevelt.ucsd.edu/_files/mmw/mmw12/AHistoriansViewoftheGospelofJudas.pdf
References:
https://roosevelt.ucsd.edu/_files/mmw/mmw12/AHistoriansViewoftheGospelofJudas.pdf