Originally Posted by aa5874

... Your claim is mere speculation and without a shred of evidence. There is no mention of Jesus of Nazareth as human or a Gnostic teacher in the entire writings of all existing non-apologetic writings.
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Originally Posted by Littlejohn

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If you like to believe it, no one's stopping you! ..

In the second century of our era, were born more than 70 Gnostic sects: ALL revolving around the figure of Jesus of Nazareth! .. Everything was invented? .. And why invent the existence of so many Gnostic sects? ... This does not make sense ...

About Jesus spoke the rabbis of the first centuries (see the Talmud and other) and the Mandaeans of Mesopotamia. Why talk about Jesus if this character had never existed? ... To support the alleged 'inventions' of the church fathers of the time? ... All this does not make sense ...

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Originally Posted by aa5874

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Why did the Greeks and Roman INVENT so many Mythological Gods and mythological figures?--it does not make sense.
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Originally Posted by Roger Pearse

A quick summary:

Around 30-40 years ago a Coptic manuscript was discovered, under unknown circumstances, somewhere in Egypt. It contained a text calling itself the "gospel of Judas". After a colourful career it was published very recently.

The text itself contains ideas belonging to the heresy of the gnostics, who mixed ideas from pop-paganism with Christian teaching. The original text was in Greek, and perhaps belongs to the 2nd century AD. It may have belonged to a rather fringe group, since we have very little in the way of references to it in ancient literature.

At some point it was translated into Coptic, perhaps in the 3rd century AD (since literary Coptic itself doesn't develop that early). It may also have been edited at that time to increase the gnostic element, for all we know. The physical handwritten copy (=manuscript) of the text probably belonged to a Coptic monastery, as these were notorious for collecting offbeat apocryphal literature. The book was probably buried or hidden away during one of the purges ordered by bishops like Shenoute from the 4th century onwards, and forgotten; and probably found by a peasant tilling a field.

Nothing in this text has any connection with Jesus or first century Christianity. Indeed the composition of spurious gospels by outside groups, presumably to win converts from Christian groups, commences in the 2nd century AD and has continued even to our own day in a small way.

But part of the interest of very early texts of this kind, however, is the possibility that the authors of them might have had some contact with the oral tradition about the life and teachings of Christ, which perhaps did not make it into the canonical texts. In general there is unfortunately very little evidence of such, however. The possibility has been enough to get quite a bit of funding, however.

I hope that helps. :-)

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Originally Posted by Littlejohn

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Judas Iscariot was a fictional character, created to hide behind it a real character. However, this 'hidden' character can not be rehabilitated, because it was a murderess, lover of money ...

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Originally Posted by outhouse

While I agree that he may have been a fictional character, it cannot be said with certainty
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Originally Posted by Littlejohn

I can assure you that this can be said with almost absolute certainty. However, I can not now explain why: at least until my book, which I started writing in late 2005, will not be published ...

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Originally Posted by outhouse

If your book was finished, you still could not say with certainty

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Originally Posted by outhouse

Well said Roger.

More then anything it gives us insight to how wide diverse early christianity actually was.