Dreampanther
April 07 2006 - Lost for almost 1 700 years, a manuscript entitled Gospel of Judas is putting a new spin on the case of the biblical bad guy, maintaining that Jesus actually asked disciple Judas to betray him.
The third- or fourth-century ancient Coptic manuscript - authenticated, translated and displayed on Thursday at National Geographic headquarters here - paints a different picture of Judas and Jesus.
The only known surviving copy of the Gospel of Judas, contained in a papyrus manuscript known as a codex, maintains, as the Bible does not, that Jesus requested that Judas "betray" him by handing him to authorities for execution, something it says pained Judas greatly.
National Geographic said the key passage in the Gospel of Judas text comes when Jesus tells Judas "... you will exceed all of them. For you will sacrifice the man that clothes me."
The text indicates that Judas, by helping Jesus get rid of his physical flesh, will help liberate the true spiritual self or divine being within, National Geographic said in a statement.
"The codex has been authenticated as a genuine work of ancient Christian apocryphal literature on five fronts: radiocarbon dating, ink analysis, multispectral imaging, contextual evidence and paleographic evidence," said Terry Garcia, executive vice-president for Mission Programmes for the National Geographic Society.
Discuss?
The third- or fourth-century ancient Coptic manuscript - authenticated, translated and displayed on Thursday at National Geographic headquarters here - paints a different picture of Judas and Jesus.
The only known surviving copy of the Gospel of Judas, contained in a papyrus manuscript known as a codex, maintains, as the Bible does not, that Jesus requested that Judas "betray" him by handing him to authorities for execution, something it says pained Judas greatly.
National Geographic said the key passage in the Gospel of Judas text comes when Jesus tells Judas "... you will exceed all of them. For you will sacrifice the man that clothes me."
The text indicates that Judas, by helping Jesus get rid of his physical flesh, will help liberate the true spiritual self or divine being within, National Geographic said in a statement.
"The codex has been authenticated as a genuine work of ancient Christian apocryphal literature on five fronts: radiocarbon dating, ink analysis, multispectral imaging, contextual evidence and paleographic evidence," said Terry Garcia, executive vice-president for Mission Programmes for the National Geographic Society.
Discuss?