Dirge

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...toryId=5327692
NPR : The Lost Gospel of Judas Iscariot?


This is a 300AD translation of a mentioned in 180AD document, and the Greek version perhaps even much older than that, since we don't know when that was written.

Julian

Here is some info that may help you: http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/gospeljudas.html
I am fairly certain that if you do a search of BC&H you will find more discussions on this topic. I seem to recall several.

Julian

mountainman

The Thirteenth Apostle

Additionally, the C14 report has the result of
the year 290 CE plus or minus 60 years. The
estimated date range is thus 230 - 350 CE.

The only other C14 citation is the gThomas from
the Nag Hammadi cache, dated 348 CE +/- 60 yrs.

Deconick posits it is a parody.
Deconick thinks the authors are from
an earlier century .... but still thinks
they are "christian" -- of the
"gnostic sethian" variety.


However, I think she is just following the
conjectures of mainstream postulates in
any earlier date other than the range of
the C14 report.

Parody rather implies a date after
the year 324/325 at which time
the New Testament literature
was declared associated with the
sanctioned cult of the Pontifex
Maximus.

If the text is a parody then the object
of its parody may well have been the
Constantine Bible, because under the
conventional mainstream history of the
evolution of christianity, it could not have
been in a position to be parodied until
it became visible as the state religion.

In saying this, I am not just relying on the
text of the gJudas, but the entire corpus
of "The Non canonical Acts and Gospels"
which are a veritable minefield of parody,
yet to be perceived and acknowledged.

Further, for any interested readers, see this
index of Non Constantinian Texts.

In fact, the terms canonical and non canonical
might one day be seen to shadow the categories
Constantinian and Non Constantinian.

All the Non Constantinian literature being generated
after perhaps 325 CE at which time the Constantinian
literature was spotlighted while the literature of the
extant traditions (of Porphyry, and Arius) burned.

The parodists were comprised, at least in part,
perhaps of the priests and therapeutae of the
now out-of-favor popular Healing god Asclepius.
Constantine in 324/325 CE destroyed a number
of temples to Asclepius, and ordered the public
execution of its head priests.

These head priests would have been the equivalent
of the head of the local public hospital (See the
history of Asclepius) just as Porphyry was the
head of the academics.

The parodists were shooting at Constantine.
It was serious political parody aimed at the NT.
The local eastern academics were not happy.

Perhaps they all filed out of the cities, and
followed Pachomius into a more remote seclusion?


Best wishes,



Pete Brown

Toto

The link in the OP is from 2006. It was also discussed in this thread. Where have you been?

Recent threads:

April Deconick reinterprets the Gospel of Judas

Elaine Pagels and Karen King on the Gospel of Judas

mountainman

I have been scanning the other non Constantinian
"Acts" of the various Apostles for parody the results
of which have yet to raise serious comment.

Surely someone out there laughed at Judas Thomas
(Acts of Thomas) method of transportation to India;
being sold into slavery by Jesus Christ for refusing to
obey the command of Jesus Christ.

I thought there were textual critics in this forum?
Am I then mistaken in perceiving this as polemic
against "the then (2nd/3rd/4th CE) christian texts"?


Best wishes,


Pete Brown

Toto

I think that the textual critics may have given up on you. You keep repeating the same misinterprestion about what Julian meant.

And I think you are equally mistaken in seing the apocrypha and the various acta as polemic against Christian texts. They are popular literature either filling in the gaps in the canonical texts, or riffing on them. But you haven't found anything that attacks Christianity.

mountainman

All I am doing is defending a different conjecture.
We dont have Julian's original 3 books "Against the Galilaeans".
We dont know what he said in THOSE THREE BOOKS.
We may presume, as my detractor's do, that the Blessed
Tax-Exempt Bishop Cyril faithfully preserved Julian.
We may presume otherwise, as I.
Noone can prove the other incorrect.
We dont have the evidence at the moment
to arbitrate the decision on which of these
two conjectures is the correct one. (Or indeed
another explanation may arise).

Here is what I will accept as a "creed of integrity".
I believe I can do no better than this ...

I can accept the involvement or otherwise
of Julian is "unproven" - but unproven
either way (ie: both positions).


Thanks for your candid opinion on the apochrypha Toto.
Obviously the image of Judas refusing to obey the command
of Jesus Christ, and as a result being sold as a common slave
in the market place to an Indian merchant, with a bill of sale,
in the name of Jesus Christ, the master, is not anti-christian.

And as for Julian attacking Christianity, outside his so-far
lost works "Against the Galilaeans", his preserved work in
The Caesars, what do you call this?

The polemic was with the Emperor Julian quite clearly.
It would be nonsense to assume that the polemics
did not also exist outside of Julian.

What do you think these "Songs of Arius" were?


Best wishes,


Pete Brown