scisyhp

Jesus asked Judas to betray him, what does that mean exactly? That satan hadn't made Judas betray him it was Jesus? What does that mean?

Diogenes the Cynic

It would mean that their Canonical Gospels are wrong, therefore GJudas must be a lying, vicious attack on the word of God. Never mind the fact that the Canical Gospels contradict each other all over the place.

scisyhp

So they're irked becouse it adds more contradictions? Do they relize that there are already hundreds?

Phlox Pyros

No. Christians are not "irked" about the Gospel of Judas, it just makes no difference to them because it was labeled heretical as far back as 180 A.D.. The New York Times, especially, but much of the media has made a big deal about this obviously gnostic text. If there is an uproar and Christians are "irked", it is because the media is once again telling Christians what they ought to believe.

Diogenes the Cynic

Most of them actually have no idea. Others resort to tortured, contrived defenses of "apparent" contradictions. Since they've already painted themselves into a corner whenever they want to allege the inerrancy or infallibility of the Canon, they have no choice no choice but to twist themselves into pretzels trying to harmonize it. Since GJudas is not Canon, they are free to dismiss it as "heretical," as apocrypha, as a "forgery, etc. -- and never mind that the NT contains a number of pseudoepigraphical (i.e. "forged") writings its own self.

I think it also irks them that the media, in its ignorance and hunger for a sensational story, is treating GJudas as though its some sort of genuine revelation of history without explaining much about the provenence and context of the book. Of course the media does the same thing with the Canonical Gospels, so...

Diogenes the Cynic

The media is abjectly, disgustingly deferential to the presumed historicity of the Canonical Gospels, so why should GJudas be treated any differently? Hurling the word "heretical" at it is meaningless since all that really means is "I don't believe it." From the Gnostic perspective, they were the orthodox ones and the Paulines were the heretics. Those are not terms with any meaningful empirical value.

I also haven't seen the media "trying to tell Christians what they should believe." It seems to me that the ones doing that are the Christians who have taken it upon themselves to decide what is "heretical" and what is not.

mit

I think that most Christians know very little about the history of their religion. I agree that the document is interesting of itself but would not make any difference to any knowledgeable Christian or Non-Christian (Like finding a new dinosaur fossil is interesting but does no make any difference to the fact of evolution).

However, I have talked to a few Christian friends and their lack of knowledge is surprising. They have a fuzzy notion that the gospels were written around 33AD by the apostles, and they were quite alarmed at this new gospel. I had to explain to them that there were already a number of other gospels and what made it into the Bible was decided in the fourth century. Finding a new text is interesting but not earth shattering.

I think that the Church went on the offensive here because they knew that most people had this simple notion of the Bible and could be alarmed at the news of a new Gospel.

The Bishop

It might be considered officially "heretical", but actually haven't there been Christian thinkers - right up to modern times - who did think that Judas was simply enacting God's plan? No Judas = no crucifixion = no Resurrection, which is the important thing.

A media kerfuffle and the mouthings of ignorant rentaquotes - presumably we're talking about Evangelical Baptists and the like? - are only to be expected. For some reason, in fiction it's always the Catholic Church which is depicted that way (ref: Dan Brown) whereas they're actually always more tempered in their responses to such stuff.

Jack the Bodiless

Yes, I dimly recall a thriller-type story (made into a film IIRC) in which the world was stunned by the discovery of a "Fifth Gospel" which contradicted the others.

...There are how many Gospels already? And, other than featuring some sort of preacher-guy named "Jesus" and some shared supporting characters, what do they all agree on?

Howay the Toon

I was highly amused by certain Christians dismissing the Gospel of Judas with no hint of irony on the grounds that:

It was written decades after the supposed events and

It was clearly written to promote the views of a particular sect.