A Swiss foundation and National Geographic magazine are planning to publish translations of the The Gospel of Judas, an ancient Coptic text found in Egypt during the 1970s which may portray Judas as closer to a hero than a heel.
It appears that Judas was working at the behest of God when he betrays Jesus as part of the divine plan. Had Jesus not been crucified, he would not have been subsequently resurrected to save humanity.
The translator of the Gospel of Judas is Rodolphe Kasser of the University of Geneva, the world' s leading Coptic scholar.
The original document, a papyrus, dates from the 4th century and was made available for sale to collectors in the United States and Europe for many decades after its discovery in Egypt' s Al-Minya region. It was recently identified as part of the prestigious collection of the Maecenas Foundation in Basle, Switzerland. Controversy also surrounds the origins of the text, with some scholars arguing that it was not written by Judas, but to be more likely the creation of a group of his followers.
The translation is set to be released after Easter.
To be continued...
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__________________ "Men curse the Communist Party, but eventually it may release them. If hell were endless, then God would be worse than our Secret Police."--Pastor Valentin
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Okay, well, here is what I found in an article today (April 7, 2006)
By RANDOLPH E SCHMID
National Geographic magazine yesterday unveiled an ancient manuscript that may shed new light on the relationship between Jesus and Judas, the disciple who betrayed him.
The papyrus manuscript was probably written around 300 AD in Coptic script, and was a copy of an earlier Greek manuscript.
It was discovered in the desert in Egypt in the 1970s and has now been authenticated by carbon dating, and studied and translated by biblical scholars, National Geographic announced.
Unlike the four gospels in the Bible, this text indicates that Judas betrayed Jesus at Jesus's request. The text begins "the secret account of the revelation that Jesus spoke in conversation with Judas Iscariot".
The key passage comes when Jesus tells Judas that "you will exceed all of them. For you will sacrifice the man that clothed my body."
This indicates that Judas would help liberate the spiritual self by helping Jesus get rid of his physical flesh, the scholars said.
The manuscript was first mentioned in a treatise around 180AD by a bishop, Irenaeus of Lyon, in what is now France.
The bishop denounced the manuscript as differing from mainstream Christianity and said it produced a fictitious story.
There were several gospels in circulation at the time in addition to the four in the Bible.
When those gospels were denounced, it was thought that believers hid them away.
The Gospel of Judas was kept by a group called the Gnostics, who believed that the way to salvation was through secret knowledge given by Jesus to his inner circle.
National Geographic said the author of the Gospel of Judas believed that Judas Iscariot alone understood the true significance of Jesus's teachings.
Now isn't that an interesting twist....Of course it would be left out if it didn't comply with what the church wanted EVEN if it was Judas that knew Jesus personally.
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Another update -
The voice of Judas
Churches are braced for the explosive publication of Lost Gospel, which could threaten the basis of Christian teaching, write Ian Gallagher and Sharon Churcher
April 8, 2006 Edition 1
By Ian Gallagher and Sharon Churcher
The Gospel of Judas - said to be one of the greatest archaeological discoveries of modern times - is about to be published amid explosive controversy, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.
Scholars have translated 26 pages of a crumbling ancient text that purports to tell the story of Jesus's last days from the perspective of Judas Iscariot, a man reviled for almost 2 000 years.
Sensationally, the manuscript portrays him not as a villain but as a hero and Christ's favoured disciple. And it claims to repeat conversations between the two men and shows that in betraying Christ, Judas was fulfilling a divine mission.
The Mail on Sunday has interviewed experts involved in the project and has established that, according to the Gospel, Christ instructed Judas to betray him with the words: "You will become the apostle cursed by all the others.
"Judas, you will sacrifice this body of man which clothes me."
In another hugely significant section of the manuscript, Jesus tells Judas: "You will become the13th, and you will be cursed by the other generation - and you will come to rule over them."
The papyrus document dates back to the 4th Century, but is believed to be a translation of a Greek text written in AD 187. Most Biblical gospels are thought to have been written between 50 and 80 years after Christ's crucifixion.
Some sources have indicated that as well as conversations between Christ and Judas, the Gospel also contains another "surprise" which will be revealed when the full contents of the manuscript are unveiled in Washington on April 6.
Some sections of the Church fear it will challenge many of Christianity's most deeply held beliefs. It has already been labelled "dangerous" by one Vatican scholar.
Written in Coptic, the ancient language of the Egyptian Christians, the document was apparently discovered in a crumbling limestone tomb in Egypt in the late 70s.
Since then it has passed through the hands of various antique dealers - many of whom were unaware of its true significance - and for 16 years lay disintegrating in a bank vault on Long Island, New York. Tests have shown its authenticity as an ancient text is beyond doubt.
But controversy will focus on the reliability of the account it presents. Some experts see the artefact as an attempt by an early Christian sect to revise the reputation of Judas. A Swiss arts foundation acquired the document in 2002.
Since then it has engaged a team of experts to translate and piece together the badly damaged papyrus.
The foundation struck a deal with National Geographic magazine to publish the translations. But the decision to do so just before the holiest week in the Christian calendar has prompted accusations of deliberate sensationalism.
The unveiling of the text - and the publication at the same time of a book telling the story of the quest for the lost Gospel - comes just a month before the release of the film version of The Da Vinci Code, the worldwide bestselling book which makes unfounded claims about Christ's life.
National Geographic also plans to screen a two-hour film about the Gospel on its satellite TV channel tomorrow. The words attributed to Jesus in the manuscript overturn the traditional view that Judas was driven by deliberate evil when he identified Jesus to Roman soldiers in the Garden of Gethsemane in return for 30 pieces of silver.
Although National Geographic has made strenuous efforts to kept the manuscript a closely guarded secret, some copies and photographs of it have circulated among theologians and art dealers. Some translated photographs of the document even made it on to a website.
One part of the leaked text says: "And they went to Judas and told him: 'Although you are bad at this place, you are Jesus's true disciple. And he answered them as they wanted him to. And Judas received the money. And he surrendered him. This is the end of the Gospel of Judas'.
Elsewhere, Jesus says to the man whose name would become synonymous with treachery: "Step away from the others and I shall tell you the mysteries of the kingdom. It is possible for you to reach it, but you will grieve a great deal."
While academics have rushed to judge the document, the mainstream Christian churches appear to be nervously awaiting its unveiling and have so far been extremely reluctant to commit their feelings publicly or discuss how the manuscript may affect their teaching.
The Mail on Sunday was recently told by the Vatican that it was preparing a statement on the manuscript, only to be informed 24 hours later that no one could comment.
The Catholic Church in Britain also declined to discuss it. In January it was reported that a leading Vatican scholar, Monsignor Walter Brandmuller, head of the Pontifical Committee for Historical Science, was behind a campaign to rehabilitate Judas.
Intriguingly, however, he has since denounced the Gospel as "a product of religious fantasy which he insists will not get any support from believers".
There is no campaign, no movement for the rehabilitation of the traitor of Jesus, he said. A high-ranking Church of England figure who is familiar with the project told The Mail on Sunday: "Saying that Judas was a hero is not a generally accepted chain of thought, and to many in the Church it will be seen as heretical because it is ascribing to God an active role in the death of Christ, making God out to be a murderer."
But he said: "If National Geographic present this as an authentic historical document, the Protestant Church will have no problems with it.
"It is an important discovery since it is the first chance we will have to read a full copy of the original Gnostic manuscript, which until now we have only known about from mentions of it in early Christian writings.
"But if they are planning to peddle it as an exciting new truth about Judas and to hype it as a new gospel, that will upset not only a lot of theologians but a lot of laymen and I think there will be a lot of cancelled subscriptions to National Geographic."
Vatican theologian Giovanni D'Ercole has said it was "dangerous to re-evaluate Judas and muddy the Gospel accounts by reference to apocryphal writings. This can only create confusion in believers".
Respected biblical scholar James Robinson accused National Geographic of rushing out an incomplete text and giving it a misleading "sensationalist" spin.
Robinson, who has written his own book about the Judas Gospel, said: "National Geographic acquired these rights after the Swiss owners of the manuscript realised they could not sell the actual object because it had been illegally smuggled out of Egypt.
"National Geographic took the bait because they saw an opportunity to cause a sensation by coming out right around Easter and right before The Da Vinci Code movie with something that the prepublicity implies is a new gospel from the New Testament, when in fact it is a copy of a book originally written well over 100 years after the death of Christ."
The document was found in the mid to late 70s by Egyptian peasants - fellahin - in a cavern near the banks of the Nile at al-Minya where it had lain for centuries.
They sold it on to a middleman in Cairo, who could not read the script but realised it was valuable and sold it to an Egyptian antiquities dealer. In the early 80s the manuscripts were stolen and ended up in Switzerland before finding their way back to Egypt.
All the while they were deteriorating. The documents then journeyed to America where the Egyptian antiquities dealer tried unsuccessfully to sell them. Despairing, he put them in a bank vault on Long Island, where they continued to deteriorate, and returned home.
They were rescued 16 years later by a Swiss antiquities expert, Frieda Nussberger, who tried to sell them to Ohio-based art dealer Bruce Ferrini for a reported $2,5-million. At the same time their existence was finally made public.
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...
Art and antiquities dealer Michel van Rijn announced on his website that the purported long-lost Gospel of Judas Iscariot, "not seen for at least 1 800 years", was being peddled around two or maybe three continents. Van Rijn says of the Gospel's claims that Judas was a disciple of God: "Forget The Da Vinci Code. This is the real deal."
As an opponent of the illicit art trade, however, he says the purpose of the Internet posting was to make the manuscript unsellable. Because of its smuggled origins, he contends it can be owned only by Egypt.
In 2001, Ferrini sent American document expert Dr Charles Hedrick photographs of three leaves - six pages - of the Gospel. Hedrick says it was his understanding that the manuscript was in Ferrini's "temporary possession".
It is understood Ferrini then formed a partnership with Nussberger and Swiss lawyer Mario Roberty, whose Maecenas Foundation clinched the Geographic deal.
"Then there was a falling-out and Ferrini got the short end of the stick," Hedrick told The Mail on Sunday.
Roberty says the reason they have been so secretive about the forthcoming spectacular is that after word of the manuscript leaked to Christian fundamentalists, they picketed Nussberger's home and daubed slogans on its walls.
He also admitted that the manuscript is incomplete and badly damaged.
"It's an enormous job. It's absolutely in a mess.
"You must imagine it is split, or broken. There is the upper part of the pages which, thank God, are numbered. Then there is the lower part - about two-thirds of each page - which had been badly manipulated before we got the manuscript ... it has become very obvious that somebody tried to mess it up in order to be able to sell some fragments.
"When you start dealing with Judas, you have to accept whatever comes."
National Geographic responded to criticism of the release, saying: "It's ironic that this line of questioning apparently comes from James Robinson, who has, over the years, tried unsuccessfully to acquire this codex himself and is publishing his own book next month, despite having no direct access to the materials.
"National Geographic has done its due diligence [investigations to establish the documents' validity] and is working with an international team of experts on this arte- fact to save the manuscript before it turns to dust and is lost forever.
"Everyone involved believes the materials should be given to Egypt, and the Maecenas Foundation for Ancient Art has formally pledged to do so, to which the Egyptian government has responded positively.
"We'll be sharing the results of that work with the public within a few weeks and look forward to letting scholars and the public assess the manuscript's significance, once they have had a chance to see it."
Despite his infamous place in history, little is known about Judas Iscariot beyond the fact that he was one of the 12 apostles and came from Judea.
The Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John tell how Judas later returned the 30 pieces of silver - his "blood money" - and hanged himself or, according to the Act of the Apostles, "fell headlong and burst open so that all his entrails burst out".
In the traditional Gospel accounts, Jesus reveals to the disciples at the Last Supper one of them will betray him but does not say who.
He adds: "Woe to that man by whom The Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been better for that man if he had not been born."
But according to St Matthew he also said: "Friend, do what you are here to do" and added that the "prophecies of the Scriptures must be fulfilled".
Clearly--now more than ever--this makes evident who is ultimately responsible for Jesus' death: not his fellow Jews, not Judas, not even the Romans, but Jesus himself.
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nothing new here... the four everyday gospels don't call Judas a traitor... at the last supper, Christ says "one of you here will betray me..." he then goes on to add "before the cock crows, Peter, you will betray me..." So in Christ's view at least, Peter was the traitor, the one who would deny Christ... so that leaves Judas as very obviously the instrument of the lord.... a radio play broadcast in (I believe) the fifties on the BBC also portrayed Judas as the hero of the piece....
Hold on a sec, let's not immediately jump into these conclusions. For one, the gospel of Judas was written 1700 years ago, which is 300 years after Jesus's death. That's why it's been rejected.
Don't be so quick into believing this gospel. I say it's a fraud more likely.
It would make sense though. Jesus apparantly had to die. God had planned it. It would be his symbolic way of taking away sin (instead of doing the the far more sensible thing of removing it without all the pain and death.) Ergo someone had to betray Jesus. Jesus knew Judas would betray him. God knew it. And it had to happen.
Makes one wonder why Judas was treated so badly then. He was an prime part in getting Gods' dirty work done. If it was for him Jesus might have lived, and the plan would have been ruined...
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From even the greatest of horrors irony is seldom absent.
Back in Catholic school, I was always taught that Judas was bad. He was a traitor, and deserved to rot in hell....But I often asked myself- "If God is all knowing, then why would he allow such an evil man to be one of his Disciples? Why would he allow Judas the opportunity to betray him?"
This, in my own personal mind, makes sense....It might be a fraud, hell it might even be just a joke, but I can't help but agree with it....The four canonical Gospels don't call Judas a traitor, and Jesus at the last supper was ambiguous...Could be a scandal that needs to be swept under the rug in the Church's mind.
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Pfff, I think the gospels of Thomas and Mary Magdoline are much more contraversial.
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Looking at you.
That copy was made 1700 years ago, the gospel of Judas was talked about in another document from 150 after Jesus's death. No one knows when it was first written.
so every gospel not in the bible is automatically a fraud cause constantine's little council arbitrarily decided to accept a few as the real deal and ethnically cleanse the opposition?
__________________ Land of the free, home of the brave...
Do you think we will ever be saved?
In this land of dreams find myself sober...
Wonder when will it'll all be over...
Living in a void when the void grows colder...
Wonder when it'll all be over?
Will you be laughing when it's over?
KMC Community Forums
Mar 13th, 2006 06:49 PM
or was that Jesus.......
