With Easter Sunday fast approaching I thought I'd talk about something religious for a change. I don't know how many of you have seen this already (it's been all over the news) but an ancient text containing the Gospel of Judas has been translated. You can read up a little more on the page I've linked to (or do a google search), but the highlights are that Jesus supposedly taught Judas about mysteries of the universe, and that he supposedly asked Judas to be the one to betray him.
According to one scholar (whose name eludes me, and I'm too lazy to look up again), this makes sense with the passage in the King James version of the bible where Jesus turns to Judas and says "that thou doest, do quickly." Sounds like instructions to carry out some predetermined course of action, no?
I don't know exactly what this means to modern religions (if anything), but it is certainly an interesting view. We all know that there are two sides to every story, and in the case of the history contained in the Bible, there are twelve. Each of Jesus' disciples recorded their version of events, but only some of those made it into the widely accepted King James version. These were decided by church authorities who stood all the scrolls up on their ends, left them over night, and came back the next morning to see which were still standing (because that can only happen by divine intervention).
My guess is that this "new" manuscript won't have any effect on what people believe (just like the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Mary, which are still largely unknown), but it's certainly interesting to think about. And the timing couldn't have been better.
2 comments:
I read something by Talmage (?) or McConkie who said something about Judas believing that if he betrayed Jesus to the Pharisees/Sadducees that it would usher in the Millenial reign...I have always wondered if Judas was as bad as everyone makes him out to be. On a similar note, I have often wondered if Jesus also instructed Peter to deny him thrice and Peter was just carrying out the orders, but it tore him apart to do so, therefore he wept bitterly when the cock crowed.
Another thing to realize is that the Gospel of Judas was not written by Judas, but likely written sometime in the century after Christ died/resurrected by someone who had firsthand information about this, or who had heard rumors about it, or who had concocted a conspiracy theory about the betrayal. There were more reasons for including/excluding books in the Bible than the one mentioned, and maybe it was well-known at that time that this gospel was written by someone like Tom Clancy or Dean Koontz. :) Anyway, I think it will be interesting to read and to expand one's worldview a bit...
I read something about that today as well. Something about Judas betraying Jesus because he thought it would force his hand to overthrow the government and that when it didn't work that way, and they tortured and killed Jesus that he couldn't handle it so killed himself. Something along those lines.
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