Gospel of Judas
In the spring of 2006, many newspapers featured headlines declaring: “A New Gospel Has Been Found—the Gospel of Judas.” National Geographic Magazine did its May 2006 cover article on this newly found work, the Gospel of Judas. In it’s feature article, the magazine declared: “The Gospel of Judas gives a different view of the relationship between Jesus and Judas, offering new insights into the disciple who betrayed Jesus.”
One website said this about this newly discovered manuscript: “The reappearance of the Gospel of Judas will rank among the greatest finds from Christian antiquity and is without doubt the most important archaeological discovery of the past 60 years. What will make this gospel famous—or infamous, perhaps—is that it portrays Judas quite differently from anything we previously knew. Here he is not the evil, corrupt, devil-inspired follower of Jesus who betrayed his master; he is instead Jesus' closest intimate and friend, the one who understood Jesus better than anyone else, who turned Jesus over to the authorities because Jesus wanted him to do so. This gospel has a completely different understanding of God, the world, Christ, salvation, human existence—not to mention of Judas himself—than came to be embodied in the Christian creeds and canon. It will open up new vistas for understanding Jesus and the religious movement he founded."
Really?
To begin with, early church scholars have known about the so-called Gospel of Judas for well over eighteen hundred years. That’s because Irenaeus, an early Christian overseer or bishop, wrote a history of all of the heresies around in his day. In his work, written c. 170 - 180, he tells us about a Gnostic group known as the Cainites. He says this about them:
Others again declare that Cain derived his being from the Power above, and acknowledge that Esau, Korah, the Sodomites, and all such persons, are related to themselves. On this account, they add, they have been assailed by the Creator. They declare that Judas the traitor was thoroughly acquainted with these things, and that he alone, knowing the truth as no others did, accomplished the mystery of the betrayal; by him all things, both earthly and heavenly, were thus thrown into confusion. They produce a fictitious history of this kind, which they call the Gospel of Judas.
Now, until recently, we had no copy of this so-called Gospel of Judas, but we knew of its existence and we knew that it was not a first century writing. Rather, it is one of the many fake gospels that the Gnostics were churning out in the 2nd century.
The discovery of a manuscript containing the Gnostic Gospel of Judas is hardly a newsworthy event—except perhaps to persons who study Gnosticism. To call it “the most important archaeological discovery of the past 60 years” is not only intellectually dishonest—but absolutely absurd.
After telling us about the Gospel of Judas, Irenaeus went on to say about the Cainites and the Gnostics in general: “They have now been fully exposed; and simply to exhibit their sentiments, is to obtain a victory over them. For it will not take many words to overturn their system of doctrine, once it has been made public to all”—which is the very thing he did in his lengthy treatise.
And what he said still stands true. Merely to display what the Gnostics taught, and the Cainites in particular, is enough to overturn them. I dare say that the scholars who have brought forth this Gospel of Judas with such fanfare don’t believe a word of it themselves.