Christian Conservative Christian "Independent"

I'm an evangelical Christian, member of the CPC, but presently & unjustly exiled to wander the political wilderness.
All opinions expressed here are solely my own.

Friday, April 07, 2006

Regarding "The Gospel of Judas"

I don't need to say anything more than what PomoChristian has already said.

It's a fake. Junk. And people question the veracity of the traditional Gospels? This thing has FAR less textual support than the Gospels, by about 200,000+ full or partial manuscripts!!!

Here's the quote from National Geographic themselves:
The only known surviving copy of the gospel was found in a codex, or ancient book, that dates back to the third or fourth century A.D.
RIGHT... the ONLY KNOWN SURVIVING COPY.

Hardly enough "proof" to cast doubt on the authentic Gospels, right? LOOKS LIKE IT'S GOOD ENOUGH FOR NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC! I've heard people say for years that National Geographic is anti-Christian... I guess they've just given us even more proof!

posted by Christian Conservative @ 2:50 p.m.  

32 Comments:

  • At Fri Apr 07, 03:25:00 p.m. EDT, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Add one more piece of make believe to the pile.

     

  • At Fri Apr 07, 03:57:00 p.m. EDT, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    It's just another of the gnostic gospels, nothing to get worked up about but interesting for getting a look at what the Cainite Gnostics (IIRC) might have used as part of their Scripture. I don't think it is intended to be assumed that Judas wrote it though.

     

  • At Fri Apr 07, 04:04:00 p.m. EDT, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    To be honest, its not a fake, and its not 'junk'. What the National Geographic guys and the media are doing with it is bad(CTV's banner along the bottom this morning 'new research challenges traditional Christian beliefs'), but the document is not 'junk'.

    I'm a historian, and as a historian, I'm very interested in ancient documents, all of which are valuable, and its existence has not been faked, and shouldn't be considered worthless.

    It is a window into the gnostic heresies of the 3rd century (which grew from the late 1st century). It shows us how they viewed the body as bad (Jesus' death is portayed as a release from the evil body), and their persistent belief in elite secret knowledge (Judas knew but no one else), and it shows that they are aware that their views are not in line with the other disciples (hence only Judas being given the knowledge). This is very interesting stuff, as is most historical research into gnosticism.

    The problem is that there is a market out there for anti-jesus pseudo-history. Its very sexy and people are buying it (DaVinci Code, Holy Blood Holy Grail, etc...).

    The basic problem is theologians playing historian. As a Christian I certainly have an interest in theology (though I make no claims to being a professional theologian, just and amateur one), I am however a historian by training.

    Most of the so-called 'historical' research into Jesus these days is anything but. Its theology trying to gain credibility for itself by packaging itself as history.

     

  • At Fri Apr 07, 04:48:00 p.m. EDT, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    National Geographic has touted several "missing links" over the years, most recently that "feathered lizard" in China which turned out to be a hoax. They are in such a rush to discredit creationism that they make fools of themselves time and again.

     

  • At Fri Apr 07, 05:12:00 p.m. EDT, Blogger Danté said…

    Ignore Jdave, he's on a comment spree today. I guess he's never heard of Abdul Rahman. Whatever you do, don't drink the water in his town.

    In any event, I'll simply repeat what I said on another blog today about this matter: National Geographic is not a scholarly publication. It doesn't vet and publish papers by researchers like, oh, The American Journal of Zoology for example. National Geographic is more or less a science-themed photographic magazine for laypeople. They've been fooled before by fakes (i.e. the "Jesus" ossuary and fake Chinese fossils), and they'll be fooled again. Guaranteed. Take everything in this story with a grain of salt.

     

  • At Fri Apr 07, 05:13:00 p.m. EDT, Blogger Christian said…

    The earliest copy of any of the Gospels (John) dates from 125 AD, so the fact that this new find is dated to the third century doesn't make it any less credible than the rest.

    There are NO documents surviving from either the lifetime of Jesus or any of the apostles.

    I don't see why everyone is making such a big deal about this. It's no less contradictory than the rest of the Bible. The New Testament texts were put together over the century or two following the death of Jesus, should it seem so strange that not everything made the cut?

    The vast, vast majority of the copies of the Gospels are from a much later period, once they had become the de facto text.

    As the last post mentioned, it isn't all that controversial anyway. So what if Jesus asked Judas to betray him? Doesn't it all still fit in with God's plan? Seems to make Judas a more interesting, and human character to me.

     

  • At Fri Apr 07, 05:41:00 p.m. EDT, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    "Your persecution routine is getting old too. Allow me to explain something to you: YOU"RE NOT OPPRESSED. Neither are Christians in Canada. I know you aspire to martyrdom, but you live in the GTA, and you're an IT analyst. And you go to church. Where's the oppression? Where's the persecution? Get beaten up or bombed for being Catholic. Get thrown in jail for practising Falun Gong, jeez man, do something to justify this complex you've given yourself, because for now, all you've got is the fact that not everybody believes in Christ. That's what your whole paranoia is based on."

    What he said.

    Andrew, I can relate because back in my fundamentalist days I felt the martyr complex too. But you do live in Ontario, and you are not likely to actually be persecuted in your lifetime.

    And I doubt that many people are going to take the manuscript literally as those Christians who consider themselves orthodox will reject it, the neo-gnostics don't generally take Scripture literally anyway, and the rest of the world will probably just ignore it other than historians who have found a valuable resource for studying early gnostic literature.

     

  • At Fri Apr 07, 05:43:00 p.m. EDT, Blogger Blake Kennedy said…

    I don't know where you got your 200,000 manuscript version when there's only about 5,000 manuscript copies/frags of the NT...

     

  • At Fri Apr 07, 06:37:00 p.m. EDT, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    The manuscript is interesting to the extent that, if Jesus participated in the betrayal by collaborating with Judas, then Jesus was, in effect, committing suicide, an act that doesn't seem to be condoned by the Bible. Otherwise, the manuscript seems to be on a par with the manuscripts that were selected to go into the Bible.

     

  • At Fri Apr 07, 07:33:00 p.m. EDT, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    The problem isn't the historical date of the document but rather the accuracy of the history in the document. A work of fiction remains a work of fiction no matter how old it is. A work of propoganda designed to further an abherant belief is no less propoganda simply because it is of a certain age. The gnostics and their beliefs are well known and documented. It is up to us to know about the false beliefs of the gnostics and defend the TRUTH accordingly. I somehow think that the only reason that such documents get any press at all is because the press does not believe the TRUTH and acts to discredit what it does not believe.

     

  • At Fri Apr 07, 08:56:00 p.m. EDT, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    The problem is not the "Gospel" of Judas. The problem is not even with National Geographic. The problem is with the headlines in the news. I read what the experts were saying on the National Geographic site. I also read the contents of about a dozen newspaper articles, they all call this codex a Coptic or Gnostic document. It is only the headlines that suggest otherwise. Just editors tying to up the readership I guess.

    It also shows how the public likes dirt. Any dirt. Sad.

     

  • At Fri Apr 07, 09:23:00 p.m. EDT, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    I think its funny that many of the same people who question the credibility of the books of the New Testament do so because they were not written early enough (for their preference) and the oldest survivg copies aren't old enough. But up pops the "gospel" of Judas, a document which was written later, and the only copy is 200 (or so) years more recent (than NT books) and its promoted as a reliable alternate source of the story of Christ.

    Also the only reason scholars have to believe that it was written earlier (than 300AD) is that the gospel of Judas is mentioned by Ireneaus a first century Chritian historian. And even then he mentioned it only to denounce it as heresy!

     

  • At Fri Apr 07, 09:27:00 p.m. EDT, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    >The earliest copy of any of the
    >Gospels (John) dates from 125 AD, so
    >the fact that this new find is dated
    >to the third century doesn't make it
    >any less credible than the rest.

    Actually, the most ancient version is AD 93, which is only about 60 years after Jesus' death, not 260 for this document.

    And yes, if you read my original article you would find that being from the third century, and egyptian DOES indeed make it less reliable and less credible. The further away from an event, either chronologically or geographically, the more unreliable the text. Remember that, because its a basic principle of historical scholarship, and if you want to know why, click through to my original article referenced in the blog entry.

    >There are NO documents surviving from
    >either the lifetime of Jesus or any of
    >the apostles.

    Actually, thats just not true. There are dozens of manuscripts dating from 10-20 years after Jesus' death. The vatican archives, for example, has a copy of the Book of Romans, by the apostle Paul, which may indeed be the original copy. It dates from somewhere around AD 50-60, which makes it a reasonably good possibility of being the original copy. There are fragments of other books dating to similar ages, some a little later. There are fragments or entire books of the entire new testament within 60 years of Jesus' death.

    >I don't know where you got your
    >200,000 manuscript version when
    >there's only about 5,000 manuscript
    >copies/frags of the NT...

    Actually there's 25108 manuscripts. Did I mention I'm a historian? This happens to be one of my areas of interest.

    >The vast, vast majority of the copies
    >of the Gospels are from a much later
    >period, once they had become the de
    >facto text.

    We have entire copies, or fragments dating within 60 years. Those fragments are internally consistent with later copies dating from later periods. That tends to support the idea that the text didn't suffer much deviation in between.

     

  • At Sat Apr 08, 12:12:00 a.m. EDT, Blogger Christian Conservative said…

    Thanks for clarifying the number of scripts Pomo. And I only meant to say it was "junk" in the context of Biblical truth... not in historical value.

    JGriffn, you hit the nail on the head... THAT'S my main problem, the way the media hypes on it. OF COURSE I'm going to be annoyed when the secular media attacks my faith... which is what they are doing jDave, though they're doing it to subtly for most to notice.

    I'm just asking you to start observing, even over the next few years, and keep track of how many stories you hear that attack the Bible, Jesus Christ, creation or Christianity... and then keep track of how many attack other faiths or ways of life. I'm almost willing to bet that you'll see a surprising trend, and you'll then agree with me.

    And I say that I'm "almost" willing to put money on it simply because I don't gamble. ;-)

     

  • At Sat Apr 08, 09:15:00 a.m. EDT, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    "I'm just asking you to start observing, even over the next few years, and keep track of how many stories you hear that attack the Bible, Jesus Christ, creation or Christianity... and then keep track of how many attack other faiths or ways of life."

    Just as long as you remember that attacks on one version of Christianity (or interpretation of Scripture) is not an attack on Christianity itself. Remember, traditional conservative and "orthodox" Christianity is not the only version of Christianity, and might not even be the true version of Christianity. There are lots of us Christians out there who believe differently than you do (and many of us used to believe as you do then we changed our minds after examining the evidence).

    And attacking "creationism" (particularly "Young Earth Creationism") is not attacking Christianity at all. Many Christians believe in evolution.

     

  • At Sat Apr 08, 09:17:00 a.m. EDT, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    "OF COURSE I'm going to be annoyed when the secular media attacks my faith..."

    But that means it's only fair for the secular crowd to be upset when you attack their secularism. They have just as much right to be secular and denounce your philosophy as you do to be a conservative Christian and denounce their philosophy.

     

  • At Sat Apr 08, 10:31:00 a.m. EDT, Blogger Christian said…

    "Actually, the most ancient version is AD 93, which is only about 60 years after Jesus' death,"

    I assume you are referring to Manchester P52? This fragment is generally considered the earliest known fragment of the Gospels, and it certainly has not been dated to 93 A.D., so I have no idea where you have come up with that number. Most palaeographers have assigned it a date of composition sometime in the first half of the second century A.D. (i.e. split the difference, around 125 A.D.)

    I’m not sure where you found your date of 93 A.D., perhaps the wonderfully reliable Wikipedia? Here is a link to the actual library which houses the fragment.

    http://rylibweb.man.ac.uk/data1/dg/text/fragment.htm

    Almost all the early biblical fragments have been in found in Eygpt, including Manchester P52, because its climate is ideal for papyrus preservation. Coming from Egypt does not necessarily made any of these documents more suspect.

    “Actually, thats just not true. There are dozens of manuscripts dating from 10-20 years after Jesus' death. The vatican archives, for example, has a copy of the Book of Romans, by the apostle Paul, which may indeed be the original copy. It dates from somewhere around AD 50-60,….”

    Hardly so exact, fragment P46 of the Chester Beatty Library, which is the earliest known copy of Paul’s letters to the Romans, and in fact could be the earliest New Testament document period, has only been recently re-dated to the later first century. The library itself rejects that early date and puts its composition much later. I don’t know what you are referring to at the Vatican Archives. Perhaps, you could be so kind as to enlighten the rest of us with a shelf number?

    “There are fragments or entire books of the entire new testament within 60 years of Jesus' death.”

    What are you talking about? Are you really just making this stuff up? Only maybe P46, could fit this criteria. Next time you want to throw numbers around, back them up with some references.

    “Did I mention I'm a historian? This happens to be one of my areas of interest.”

    Promo Christian, you are not the only historian. I am working on my PhD right now in Medieval History. I am trained in palaeography and diplomatics.

    Furthermore, I make no claims regarding the so-called Gospel of Judah. It likely is a Gnostic text, not that in my opinion this makes it any less credible. Reading any of the Gospels as “Truth” is a matter of faith, not history. Since I am not a person of faith I tend to view all of these documents with a skeptical eye.

     

  • At Sat Apr 08, 10:55:00 a.m. EDT, Blogger Christian said…

    This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

     

  • At Sat Apr 08, 10:57:00 a.m. EDT, Blogger Christian said…

    PomoChristian, sorry for misspelling your name above, I was typing too fast. :)

     

  • At Sat Apr 08, 04:11:00 p.m. EDT, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    This morning I heard on the TV that the "gospel of Judas" has arrived on the scene because of some old fragments they have put together of some old manuscript. It claims that Judas did not betray Jesus but that Jesus and Judas were co-conspirators in engineering Jesus death as this was Jesus Messianic desire. It will be broadcast this Sunday as a special as a prelude to Christianity's passion-week.

    Now if the Main Stream Media did this kind of thing on the life of the prophet Mohamed of Islam what do you think would happen in the light of the recent uproar over the cartoons. But the MSM all are cowed into silence so they pick on the Christ of Christians and try to do what they can to bring about doubt because they cannot and will not do it to Mohamed. Jesus is an easy target. Mohamed of Islam has cowed the MSM into silence while Jesus turns the other cheek and encourages his followers to do the same. So it is in the world of today.

    Nothing has changed in 2000 years, the crowds are still yelling take him down and destroy him! But we his people know who he is and what the came to do!

    So live on Jesus in our hearts and minds forever

     

  • At Sat Apr 08, 06:46:00 p.m. EDT, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    "This morning I heard on the TV that the "gospel of Judas" has arrived on the scene because of some old fragments they have put together of some old manuscript. It claims that Judas did not betray Jesus but that Jesus and Judas were co-conspirators in engineering Jesus death as this was Jesus Messianic desire."

    Just one small detail... it was Jesus' plan to be executed, even within orthodox theology. :) Not that I believe that Jesus likely conspired with Judas, but people are making too big a deal out of this whole thing.

    "Nothing has changed in 2000 years, the crowds are still yelling take him down and destroy him!"

    Very few people actually have a problem with Jesus. The problem that some of us have are the people that started a religion in His name, a religion I don't believe that He would endorse at all as I don't believe He came to start a religion but rather to free us from religion.

     

  • At Sat Apr 08, 09:08:00 p.m. EDT, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    As I said, the MSM are cowed into submission by what happened in reaction to the publishing of the cartoons about Mohamed but they the (MSM) know that no such out-break will happen if they attack Jesus. Since the MSM can't risk attacking Islam they will always look for a substitute target.

     

  • At Sat Apr 08, 09:15:00 p.m. EDT, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Except that nobody attacked Jesus in this case.

     

  • At Sat Apr 08, 09:56:00 p.m. EDT, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    It's all about perception. You have yours and I have mine.
    Amen and so be it.

     

  • At Sat Apr 08, 10:04:00 p.m. EDT, Blogger Christian Conservative said…

    These things may not be directly attacking Christ, however Drew, I think you will agree, that they are being used (or at least as is being covered by the MSM) to cast a shadow of a doubt on the Word of God, upon which our belief in Christ is based.

    No matter how you may interpret scripture, (I know you and I differ on that) if doubt is cast upon its veracity, you can no longer use it in a discussion as your source/proof text. Can we not at least agree on that?

    And if indeed this new "gospel" (small case "g") casts doubt upon the present canon of God's Holy Word, then it becomes easier to shake the faith of the weak, or to prevent seekers from accepting the Lord Jesus Christ as "the Truth".

    They're attacking Him by attacking His Word... can't you see that?

     

  • At Sat Apr 08, 10:09:00 p.m. EDT, Blogger Christian Conservative said…

    And Mary, you are quite correct... if such were said of Mohamed a week before Ramadan, there would be riots on the streets here too.

    And if you don't believe me, just ask Ezra Levant of the Western Standard. And while you're at his site, maybe think about donating to help him with his legal bills, due to the extreme overreaction of one follower of Islam.

     

  • At Sun Apr 09, 04:00:00 a.m. EDT, Blogger Blake Kennedy said…

    Andrew:

    That's an argument of distraction. What is not at issue is how Muslims should respond to x, y or z, but how Christians should respond to the "Gospel of Judas".

    Anybody who has done any meaningful reading on issues viz. the canon knows of a plethora of such documents, how the church came to definine canon, etc and consequently doesn't get all worked up about such things.

     

  • At Sun Apr 09, 07:00:00 a.m. EDT, Blogger Joanne (True Blue) said…

    Very interesting discussion here. I'm no expert but I think this whole thing is an effort to discredit the Bible, as Mary and others have noted. Use junk science to cast a shadow of doubt, and then you can argue that Christianity is a sham. Then you supposedly have justification to promote a left wing agenda in the political forum. Then it is open season against virtually any kind of moral value in society.

     

  • At Sun Apr 09, 09:29:00 a.m. EDT, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Amen Sister!
    Well said.

     

  • At Sun Apr 09, 09:38:00 a.m. EDT, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    "And if indeed this new "gospel" (small case "g") casts doubt upon the present canon of God's Holy Word, then it becomes easier to shake the faith of the weak, or to prevent seekers from accepting the Lord Jesus Christ as "the Truth"."

    And how is it likely to cast any more doubt than the gospel of Thomas or Apocalypse of Peter or any other number of non-canonical Scriptures?

    Anyway, God's in control of who gets saved when, so if He's not all that concerned over it then neither am I, and I sincerely doubt that He's all that concerned over it.

     

  • At Sun Apr 09, 12:25:00 p.m. EDT, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Here's a good article by a gnostic:

    The Gospel of Judas: A Threat to the Mainstream Church?

     

  • At Sun Apr 23, 05:19:00 p.m. EDT, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    Luke22-1-8

    Now the Feast of Unleavened Bread called the Passover, was approaching and the chief priests, and the teachers of the law were looking for some way to get rid of Jesus, for they were afraid of the people. THEN SATAN ENTERED JUDAS CALLED ISCARIOT, one of the Twelve. And Judas went to the chief priests and the officers of the temple guard and discussed with them how he might betray Jesus. They were delighted and agreed to give him money. He consented and watched for an opportunity to hand Jesus over to them, when no crowd was present.


    Satan got a firm grip on Judas well before the Passover, and it was he who enticed Judas into betraying Jesus.
    End of story.

     

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