PhilosopherJay

Last year, when the Gospel of Judas came out, the really important questions raised by the text were hidden under assurances that this text did not change anything. The trick of the institutional religious conservatives was to pretend that this text was a gnostic response to the prior gospels of the New Testament. However, a more objective look shows that the New Testament Judas tales are the later development and postdate the Gospel of Judas.

The same trick was used when the Jesus Seminar pointed out the importance of the gospel of Didymus Judas/Thomas. Don't examine the real evidence for which came first, but just proclaim rhetorically as loudly as possible that the NT gospels First century (without a shred of real evidence) and non-NT gospels Second century (without a shred of real evidence).

Elaine Pagels in an interview on PBS shortly after the publication of the Gospel of Judas said this:

This one is a narrative story about the arrest and the handing over of Jesus to the authorities. I mean, this completely agrees with the gospels of the New Testament on the basic historical fact, which is that Jesus was identified to the authorities by Judas Iscariot, who was one of his disciples. It also agrees with the other gospels that this was a spiritual mystery that involved the salvation of the world.
Where it disagrees is the motive, because Mark's gospel gives no motive. The other New Testament gospels either say Judas did it out of greed for money, or he did it because he was inspired by Satan. The surprise here is that the Gospel of Judas claims that he did it in order to enact a sacred mystery that Jesus told him to do.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/relig...judas_4-7.html [April 7, 2006]

Pagels says, "this completely agrees with the gospels of the New Testament on the basic historical fact, which is that Jesus was identified to the authorities by Judas Iscariot, who was one of his disciples." Pagel is correct about this particular historical fact, but she is silent about the many key historical facts where the document disagrees with and contradicts the New Testament Gospels.

For example, Judas says to Jesus, "You are from the immortal realm of Barbelo. And I am not worthy to utter the name of the one who has sent you.” Why would a Sethian who believed that Jesus was from Barbelo make this the first sentence by Judas who would have been a hated figure by all who followed the New Testament Gospels. If Judas was already a hated figure and known as the betrayer of the Jesus, why put this fundamentally important Sethian doctrine in the mouth of the most hated figure in Christianity? It would be somewhat like having Adolf Hitler endorse your product in a commercial.

We also have Judas saying, “In the vision I saw myself as the twelve disciples were stoning me." He is predicting his own death at the hands of the apostles. This is one of the few facts that we learn about Judas (besides his faith that Jesus came from the Goddess Barbelo) in the text and it is a fact that is not in the New Testament accounts. It is absolutely independent of the New Testament. So much for Pagels' distorted assertion of fundamental historical agreement between the texts. While she is correct to note that there is fundamental disagreement on motives between all the texts, she glosses over the important other basic disagreements concerning the life and actions of both Jesus and Judas.


Now, note the ending of the Gospel:

: JUDAS BETRAYS JESUS
[…] Their high priests murmured because [he] had gone into the guest room for his prayer. But some scribes were there watching carefully in order to arrest him during the prayer, for they were afraid of the people, since he was regarded by all as a prophet.
They approached Judas and said to him, “What are you doing here? You are Jesus’ disciple.”
Judas answered them as they wished. And he received some money and handed him over to them

This arrest scene has nothing to do with any of the four arrest scenes in the New Testament, all of which take place outdoors. Here Jesus is indoors. The high priests do not arrest him, but simply murmur against him. The scribes are the ones who want to arrest Jesus but are afraid of the people who regard him as a prophet. It is only when he is alone praying that they dare to arrest him.

This has nothing to do with any of the four New Testament arrest scenes. One would imagine that if the author had known about the NT arrest scenes, he would have tried to match his arrest scene in some slight way with these scenes, instead of coming up with a totally new arrest scene having nothing in common with any of the four.

Note that in this arrest scene, the whereabouts of Jesus is not in question, he is in a guest room praying, so when the text says that he handed Jesus over, what can it mean? It can only mean that he said something incriminating against him -- "Judas answered them as they wished" The handing over is purely figurative. The Scribes were already watching the room where Jesus was praying and about to make an arrest.

On the other hand, the four gospel are not simply satisfied with the idea that Judas betrayed Jesus with the things he said. They actually dramatize the betrayal and create a scene in which Judas literally leads the High Priests, Scribes and Elders to Jesus.

One can suggest that the Judas writer was depending on his writer/listener knowing that Jesus was arrested at Gethsemene, so he could speak figuratively about the arrest and not describe it. However, assuming that he didn't want to associate his tale with the NT gospel tales, why change the place of the arrest to a guest room?

The guest room appears to be a private place where the Scribes were able to arrest Jesus alone without attracting attention. In this version of the story, it seems that there is no opportunity for the disciples to flee. It is only Judas who betrays and we know that the the other apostles take their revenge on Judas for betraying Jesus. This suggests that the disciples were totally loyal to Jesus, including Judas who betrayed him only by following his word.

In every detail, this seems to be a much simpler and more primitive story than the New Testament gospels. In the gospel of Judas, all the other disciples remain nameless and are just part of "the Twelve." Judas is the only betrayer and he does it only because Jesus tells him to. It is only the Scribes, (not the High Priests, Scribes and Elders as in the NT gospels) who arrest him. The betrayal is simply suggested to be done by false testimony and not some dramatic confrontation scene. [Note, the absurdity and artificially of the NT arrest scene is acknowledged when Jesus asks why they didn't arrest him when he was preaching in public in the Temple"]

It is easy to see from the narrative structure that the Gospel of Judas predates any of the NT texts. To reverse this fact, one has to rely on the history of Eusebius. When we learn to discount the Fourth century history of Eusebius which has his imaginary characters like Bishop Irenaeus of Lyon, testifying that the NT gospels preceded the gnostic texts, does one get a radically different sense of the development of early Christianity.


Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

judge

John's gospel in addition to mentioning satan has Jesus telling John to betray him.


But aren't the oldest mss of John older than the oldest mss of the gospel of Judas?

PhilosopherJay

Hi Judge,

The carbon dating for the Gospel of Judas is from 220 to 340. http://uanews.org/node/12176.

Brent Nongbri, in “The Use and Abuse of P52: Papyrological Pitfalls in the Dating of the Fourth Gospel,” HTR 98 (2005): 23-48. dated the oldest John fragment, P52, from c. 90 to c. 220. Outside of P52, the oldest dated gospel manuscripts are from 200-250.

Being in Coptic, it is assumed that the Gospel of Judas was copied from a Greek original. It is impossible to say how old the Greek original was. In this case the manuscript evidence tells us very little about the composition date.

On my video shelf, I have a DVD of Charlie Chaplin's "The Immigrant" that was orgiinally made in 1916. The DVD's date is 2003. I also have Bob Fosse's "All That Jazz," made in 1979, which has a DVD date of 2003. Obviously, looking at the date of DVD manufacturer in this case would not help us to discover the date of original composition of the movies. In fact it would mislead us into the conclusion that that they were both made the same year. We have to look at cinematography and narrative clues to determine which was made first and once we do that, it becomes obvious that the Chaplin film is earlier.

In the same way manuscript evidence can mislead us if we do not have a firm date for the original creation of the text. In this case, the manuscript evidence is ambiguous and we have to use other clues to determine the date.

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

Magdlyn

The 4th gospel does disagree with the synoptics in many ways. If P Jay's theory about the Gospel of Judas is correct, it may be a thread of a tradition about Jesus that "John" knew but the synoptics did not.

Question: what is the Coptic for the term "guest room?" Is that a literal translation? It just seems a bit odd and reminds me of the controversy about what kind of space Jesus was born in.

PhilosopherJay

Hi Magdlyn,

Good point about John containing stuff the synoptics don't. Whenever it was written in relationship to the synoptics, there is nothing to say that it could not have used stories that were older and/or unknown to the synoptic writers. Here's the John material:

26 Jesus then answered, “That is the one for whom I shall dip the morsel and give it to him.” So when He had dipped the morsel, He took and gave it to Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot. 27 After the morsel, Satan then entered into him. Therefore Jesus said to him, “What you do, do quickly.” 28 Now no one of those reclining at the table knew for what purpose He had said this to him. 29 For some were supposing, because Judas had the money box, that Jesus was saying to him, “Buy the things we have need of for the feast”; or else, that he should give something to the poor. 30 So after receiving the morsel he went out immediately; and it was night.

As this time the term "Satan" would have refered to a spirit that was trying to stop Jesus from going through with his mission. He is merely an angel of the Lord who tests people. Thus when the text says that Satan entered Judas, it probably means simply that Judah had second thoughts about betraying Jesus. Since Jesus has just identified Judas as the traitor, there seems to be good reason for Judas to have second thoughts.
Jesus commands him to do the betrayal quickly. Judas immediately obeys Jesus and leaves. On this interpretation, it is interesting that Judas actually overcomes Satan in order to follow Jesus' command and do the betrayal.The point is that even Satan can't stop Judas from following Jesus' commands. The text now has to explain why the disciples did not stop Judas since Jesus has just identified him as the traitor. The text explains that they thought Jesus was telling him to do something else. This is the usual case of the disciples not getting it, but it also indicates the loyalty of the other disciples. This fits in nicely with the Gospel of Judas text.

As far as the "guest room" is concerned, I also wondered about this translation. It would make more sense if at this point Jesus had gone into the Holy of Holies inner room of the temple or some kind of private praying room in the Temple. That would explain why the Chief Priests were murmuring against him. It would also fit in with Jesus saying, "Day after day I was with you in the temple teaching, and you did not seize me." This would fit in with the Gospel of Judas idea that the scribes waited till he was alone to arrest him. The line doesn't fit in as well with the arrest scenario as it is now where he is in the garden of Gethemene with his disciples.

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay