The Gospel According to Judas?

A crumbling leather-bound book found in the Egyptian desert 30 years ago came crashing into the news last week. The ancient book contained 13 pages front and back of a story lost for 1700 years. The story is that of The Gospel of Judas. The revelation of the text by The National Geographic Society was touted by some as challenging everything we know about the day of Jesus’ crucifixion, which more than a billion people are commemorating today.

That there was a Gospel of Judas is not news. We knew of its existence since soon after its publication from the Christian writers Irenaeus, Theodoret and Epiphanius. And through their writing against The Gospel of Judas we already knew something of its contents and why it was never considered as part of the Bible. The so-called Gospel was written much later by members of the group known as Gnostics, not by Judas in the week before the crucifixion as the text purports.

But the discovery of the actual 26-pages of Coptic text is news and will allow us all to find out more about this ancient Gnostic document. The text has been authenticated as an ancient one, though all this means as that we are seeing the actual Gospel of Judas we knew to exist because Irenaeus and others warned against it. The authentication can not touch on whether Judas actually wrote the original copy before he died.

The gist of the text is a defense of Judas’ betrayal of Jesus. This defense is based on an otherwise unknown conversation between Judas and Jesus in which Jesus asks Judas to “betray” him.

This secret conversation fits well within a Gnostic faith. Gnostics were a sect that received in “gnosis” (which is Greek for “knowledge”) handed down secretly from disciple to student. Only those “in the know” so to speak would get the real details on the faith, not unlike Scientology today.

To be sure, there would have been many Gnostic Christians who considered themselves to be faithful to Jesus, by way of these secret teachings. But the Christian Church has always taught that these people were deceived either knowingly, in the case of those who created this heresy, or unknowingly, in the case of being taught by others who were similarly deceived.

It’s not surprising that a Gnostic form of Christianity was popular. The astounding sales of The DaVinci Code show that we still enjoy the idea of a good secret known only to the few, passed along from generation to generation mostly by word of mouth.

So where does this archeological find bring us this Good Friday? The Gospel of Judas does not deny or fit in with the known fact of Judas’ suicide on the day of Jesus’ crucifixion. If Judas knew Jesus wanted the betrayal, then why commit suicide?

The papyrus pages are a great find and will help scholars better understand Gnostic teachings, which came more than a century after Jesus death and resurrection. The new find however does not reveal anything new about the historic person Judas Iscariot and his betrayal of his teacher Jesus.

So this Good Friday as last, when we think of Judas, we think of an opportunity missed. It is most likely that Judas betrayed Jesus neither because his teacher privately asked him to do so, nor simply for 30 coins. A third explanation is most likely.

Judas is called “Iscariot” in the Gospels. This is not a last name. Most scholars agree that the “name” identifies Judas as having been part of the Sicarii. Sicarii means “dagger men” and these early terrorists would in the cover of a crowded street, knife a person and keep walking. They were religious zealots who wanted to overthrow Rome by force.

If this interpretation of Iscariot is correct, it highlights the more likely explanation for Judas actions. The disciple wanted to force Jesus into the role of the revolutionary. Then when handing Jesus over to the Sanhedrin led not to revolution, but Jesus’ death on a cross, Judas could not deal with the consequences of what he set in motion and took his own life. This interpretation best fits the facts we know.

The real sadness of Good Friday is this suicide of Judas. For Judas betrayal is mirrored by the three times that Peter denied he knew Jesus that night. And beyond that, the other disciples all fled. As Mark’s Gospel says of the disciples that night, “They all deserted him, and fled.”

Jesus’ forgiveness was there for Judas as it was for the other disciples and even those who crucified him. But Judas was so trapped into his own ideas of military overthrow and revolution that he could not fully grasp the power of love Jesus lived and taught. Jesus was victorious over those who persecuted him and his followers, but his victory came not with hatred and violence, but with love. It is this, rather than the false teachings of The Gospel of Judas that we are to remember this Friday we call Good.

            (The Rev. Frank Logue is pastor of King of Peace Episcopal Church in Kingsland.)

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