Thomas D. Williams: Judas Unredeemed
[Father Williams is dean of the theology school at Rome's Regina Apostolorum University, and a Vatican analyst for NBC News and MSNBC.]
Modern men and women have always had a soft spot for Judas Iscariot. Unlike Dante Alighieri who in his "Inferno" consigned poor Judas to the lowest spot in hell, his head locked between Satan's jaws, our contemporaries are more likely to let him off with a slap on the wrist or, better yet, to exonerate him altogether.
It's enough to remember the 1973 play "Jesus Christ Superstar," and Judas's solo "Damned for All Time." In it Judas sings, "I have no thought at all about my own reward / I really didn't come here of my own accord." Four years later Taylor Caldwell published her novel "I, Judas," and attempted to humanize Judas, depicting him as the victim of a diabolical lie, rather than the perpetrator of divine betrayal.
The publication last Thursday of an English-language translation of an ancient text entitled "The Gospel of Judas" by the National Geographic Society will further stoke the fires of the pro-Judas movement. An initial scholarly assessment of the 31-page Coptic text lends credence to the authenticity of the document, which appears to date back to the third or fourth century A.D. The manuscript purportedly surfaced in Geneva in 1983 and has only now been translated, in happy coincidence with the release next month of the film version of Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code."
The text is almost surely a copy of an earlier document dating back to the mid to late second century and produced by a Gnostic sect called the Cainites. The document paints Judas Iscariot in a positive light as the only apostle who really understood what Jesus was after, and describes him as obeying a divine mandate in handing over Jesus to the authorities. It may well be a copy of the same "Gospel of Judas" referred to by Saint Irenaeus of Lyons in his work "Against the Heresies," written around 180 A.D.
Early press coverage predictably claimed that the document will "shake Christianity to its foundations" by offering a rival account to explain the betrayal of Jesus and his eventual death at the hands of the Romans. Early indications from Rome, however, suggest that the Vatican's response will be closer to a yawn than a howl.
If authentic, The Gospel of Judas certainly wasn't written by Judas or his contemporaries, but a good hundred years later. To put a historical perspective on things, it would rather be like me or you writing a text on the American Civil War. So while The Gospel of Judas could have real historical value for what it tells us about second-century Gnosticism, it will tell us virtually nothing new about the origins of Christianity.
The so-called "Gnostic Gospels" are not even Christian documents per se since they proceed from a syncretistic sect that predates Christianity. Gnosticism grew out of a multiplicity of belief systems that combined elements from Asian, Babylonian, Egyptian, Greek and Syrian pagan religions, and incorporated Christian and Jewish themes as well. From the moment of their appearance, these documents were rejected by the Christian community because of their incompatibility with the Christian faith.
Judas made a good poster boy for the Gnostic movement. One of the central tenets of Gnosticism concerns the origins of evil in the universe. Unlike Christians who believe that a good God created a good world, the Gnostics claimed that a flawed God created a flawed world. Thus Gnostics championed the rehabilitation of Old Testament figures like Cain, who killed his brother Abel, and Esau, the elder brother of Jacob, who sold his birthright for a plate of pottage. Judas fits perfectly into the Gnostic agenda of blaming God for the evil in the world....
Read entire article at WSJ
Modern men and women have always had a soft spot for Judas Iscariot. Unlike Dante Alighieri who in his "Inferno" consigned poor Judas to the lowest spot in hell, his head locked between Satan's jaws, our contemporaries are more likely to let him off with a slap on the wrist or, better yet, to exonerate him altogether.
It's enough to remember the 1973 play "Jesus Christ Superstar," and Judas's solo "Damned for All Time." In it Judas sings, "I have no thought at all about my own reward / I really didn't come here of my own accord." Four years later Taylor Caldwell published her novel "I, Judas," and attempted to humanize Judas, depicting him as the victim of a diabolical lie, rather than the perpetrator of divine betrayal.
The publication last Thursday of an English-language translation of an ancient text entitled "The Gospel of Judas" by the National Geographic Society will further stoke the fires of the pro-Judas movement. An initial scholarly assessment of the 31-page Coptic text lends credence to the authenticity of the document, which appears to date back to the third or fourth century A.D. The manuscript purportedly surfaced in Geneva in 1983 and has only now been translated, in happy coincidence with the release next month of the film version of Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code."
The text is almost surely a copy of an earlier document dating back to the mid to late second century and produced by a Gnostic sect called the Cainites. The document paints Judas Iscariot in a positive light as the only apostle who really understood what Jesus was after, and describes him as obeying a divine mandate in handing over Jesus to the authorities. It may well be a copy of the same "Gospel of Judas" referred to by Saint Irenaeus of Lyons in his work "Against the Heresies," written around 180 A.D.
Early press coverage predictably claimed that the document will "shake Christianity to its foundations" by offering a rival account to explain the betrayal of Jesus and his eventual death at the hands of the Romans. Early indications from Rome, however, suggest that the Vatican's response will be closer to a yawn than a howl.
If authentic, The Gospel of Judas certainly wasn't written by Judas or his contemporaries, but a good hundred years later. To put a historical perspective on things, it would rather be like me or you writing a text on the American Civil War. So while The Gospel of Judas could have real historical value for what it tells us about second-century Gnosticism, it will tell us virtually nothing new about the origins of Christianity.
The so-called "Gnostic Gospels" are not even Christian documents per se since they proceed from a syncretistic sect that predates Christianity. Gnosticism grew out of a multiplicity of belief systems that combined elements from Asian, Babylonian, Egyptian, Greek and Syrian pagan religions, and incorporated Christian and Jewish themes as well. From the moment of their appearance, these documents were rejected by the Christian community because of their incompatibility with the Christian faith.
Judas made a good poster boy for the Gnostic movement. One of the central tenets of Gnosticism concerns the origins of evil in the universe. Unlike Christians who believe that a good God created a good world, the Gnostics claimed that a flawed God created a flawed world. Thus Gnostics championed the rehabilitation of Old Testament figures like Cain, who killed his brother Abel, and Esau, the elder brother of Jacob, who sold his birthright for a plate of pottage. Judas fits perfectly into the Gnostic agenda of blaming God for the evil in the world....