Last night I ended up turning on the National Geographic Channel, intrigued by the title of the program they were airing, a program about The Gospel of Judas. You read that right: a gospel according to Judas Iscariot. Apparently there is such a thing, condemned as heresy by early Orthodox Christian church leaders, most notably by Irenaeus, and suppressed. A papyrus codex was discovered in Egypt in the 1970s, and after circulating the antiquities market for some time, nearly being irreparably damaged, it finally reached the appropriate experts in 2001. The restoration is now complete, and the text has been translated from its original Coptic into a gospel that has more in common with the Gnostic gospels than with the gospels of the New Testament.
Also of note was the contrast between the way Judas is portrayed in the Gospel of Judas compared to the way he is portrayed in the canonical gospels. In the New Testment Judas is increasingly villainized from one gospel to the next, from a fairly benign description in Mark to an evil and adversarial description in John. This contrasts even more greatly in the Gospel of Judas, where he is portrayed as the only one who completely understands Jesus. Indeed, even Judas' demise differs between the canonical gospels, when it is mentioned at all. In one gospel he hangs himself, and in another he falls to his death. It's a head scratcher.
As a child I recall disliking Judas, probably because in Sunday School they portrayed him as a villain and as a traitor. Now that I'm older I'm a little more sympathetic. After having read more of the gospels on my own (canonical and non-canonical), and even after listening to Jesus Christ Superstar, I've come to the conclusion that someone had to betray Jesus for things to happen as they did. There's no point to Christianity if Christ isn't crucified and resurrected. If someone has to betray Christ, why not Judas? I think the greatest item of contention that marked the Gospel of Judas as heretical is the the notion that Jesus asked Judas to betray him. It's a necessary evil, as we might call it today, but I can see how it would seem blasphemous to the early Church fathers.
Mood: Intrigued
Music: Jethro Tull: "Bungle in the Jungle"
2 comments:
I've been struggling with the concept of Judas, too, for quite a while. Mostly because if we rely on the crucifixtion death of Christ to get to the resurrection (the cornerstone of the Christian faith), then how can the man who helped the whole thing transpire be seen as a wicked or condemned man?
The whole Gospel of Judas thing is interesting, because it shows that the Christian faith has struggled with this question for quite some time. Yet, I don't think that the idea that Judas was not wicked was the main reason why this gospel was declared heresy...it's more the gnostic features of it which has Jesus stating that he needed to shed the corrupt earthly shell that housed his true divine being on earth.
It's also funny that a friend of mine was listening to NPR last week and heard them talking about the Gospel of Judas, stating that this idea about Judas was nothing new to those familiar with the 70's Gospel of Jesus Christ Superstar. :-)
Besides you I'm not sure how many of my readers are familiar with the basic tenets of Gnosticism, much less the more complex ones that even I have a hard time wrapping my brain around. I'm sure it's more the Gnostic qualities that made the Gospel of Judas heretical than it was the fact that Judas may have been asked to betray Jesus. I remember reading that the early orthodox church wanted to distance themselves as far as possible from anything associated with the Gnostics, and anything that had Gnostic overtones was not considered for inclusion in the canon.
I guess it's no surprise that people such as you, me, and your friend have made these connections. I listen to "Jesus Christ Superstar" every Lenten season. My copy features the original London cast, with Ian Gillan as Jesus.
It's kind of funny... as I listen to it, it's cleary supposed to be about Jesus, but at times the main character actually appears to be Judas.
Post a Comment