The Gospel of Judas Iscariot

Several Weeks ago I picked up an interesting book at Benchmark Books called “The Lost Gospel of Judas Iscariot”: I was intrigued by the title. The author is Bart D. Ehrman; a New York Times best selling author and a professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina. I learned some great things by this book and would like to share a few of them.

The Gospel of Judas Iscariot is an ancient scroll that was found in the 1970’s by archeologist. But due to a variety of circumstances… mostly involving money, it was not published. Because of mishandling over the next 30 years it was almost destroyed. In about 2005 National Geographic acquired it and produced a documentary that aired in April of 2006.

The Gospel of Judas was not written by Judas himself. However, according to Ehrman it is the oldest known original New Testament text. The copy found was written in about 400 A.D. This appears to be about 200 years older than any other New Testament text. Therefore it has tremendous value.

It appears to have been written by a group of people known as Gnostic. The Gnostics were a religious group that seems to have Christian roots but mingled with “the teachings of men”. Much of what I read shows that in 400 A.D., the Great Apostasy was well under way. It appears that a group of these people highly favored Judas Iscariot.

The back of the book has this excerpt “Throughout the Christian tradition Judas has been portrayed as the rotten apple in the apostolic barrel. Nowhere in the Christian tradition has he been treated kindly. Until now. The Gospel of Judas insists that Judas was the only one of the disciples who understood hi Lord… Only Judas had a glimpse of the truth. And to him alone did Jesus reveal all that needs to be known.”

This idea intrigued me at first. Several years ago I read a series of books by Andrew Skinner that were titled “Gethsemane”, “Golgotha”, and “The Garden Tomb” (I highly recommend this series). Skinner proposed an idea in one of these books that has remained with me. Now he wasn’t proposing this idea as fact, but simply a different way of looking at Judas. He essentially said that he couldn’t comprehend that one of Jesus’ most faithful followers would turn against him. He instead proposed the idea that Judas truly believed that Jesus was the Messiah. His problem was that Jesus just wasn’t acting fast enough in saving the Jews. He therefore decided to turn Jesus over to the enemy believing full well that angels would come down to protect him, and force His glory to be proven. He was stunned at the outcome and therefore “went and wept bitterly”.

I am not saying that I believe this idea but it has caused me to do some serious thinking. It doesn’t seem to make Judas any less guilty; he was still following Satan by “forcing” others to be saved. He was also not being humble in saying “thy will be done” but rather “my will be done”. How many of us are guilty of this?
The greatest things I learned from “The Lost Gospel of Judas Iscariot” was Bible history that is known among scholars; but unfamiliar to me. Ehrman writes “It comes as a surprise to many people to learn that our earliest source for knowing about the life of Jesus is not one of the Gospels of the New Testament but the writings of the Apostle Paul. Even though the Gospels are placed first in the New Testament, that does not mean they were first to be written—the New Testament is arranged not according to when the books were written but according to genre, with the Gospels first, then the book of Acts, then the letters (of Paul and others), and then the book of Revelation. Although they are placed in the middle of the New Testament, Paul’s letters were the first of the New Testament books to be written. In fact they are the earliest Christian writings that we have, of any kind whatsoever. The Gospels of the New Testament were written thirty-five to sixty-five years after the life of Jesus.

Although some of the above material was not new to me, the following was ”Mark was probably the first Gospel to be written, later to be expanded by Matthew and Luke.” Speaking of the Gospel f Mark Ehrman writes “He is not simply stating historical facts but is telling a story. His understanding of Jesus has affected how he tells the story. Beneath the surface of the narrative is a theological agenda, which affects everything he says about Jesus; Especially his relationship with others.

When you read Marks Gospel carefully, it is clear that he wants to portray Jesus as the messiah of the Jews, the Son of God, who was destined to die for the sins of others. What is striking is that almost no one in the entire narrative understands Jesus’ identity, not even the disciples. The people form his hometown can’t understand how he can say and do such wonderful things—is this not the carpenter’s son? The leaders of the people think he is inspired and empowered by the devil, and Jesus constantly laments ‘Do you not yet understand?’”

Matthew appears to have used Mark’s text as a basis for his. Matthew was written 10 to 15 years after Mark wrote his. Matthew seemed to want to emphasize the things he feels Mark left out. Ehrman points out three major additions:

1) Matthew is much longer than Mark, mostly because he adds large sections of Jesus’ teachings that are absent in Mark. For example in Matthew is the only place we get the Sermon on the Mount.

2) Matthew is often thought of as the most “Jewish” of the Gospels. He places the largest emphasis on the Jewish Law. He wrote “Do not think that I came to destroy the law and the prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill”. He emphasizes the “fulfillments” of prophecies of the Jewish Scriptures.

3) He can also be seen as the most “anti-Jewish” as well. It is here that that Jesus most vigorously opposes the Jewish leaders of his day calling them hypocrites.

Like the book of Matthew, Luke was written ten or fifteen years after Mark. It appears that Luke used the book of Mark as one of his sources. Luke describes the three temptations of Jesus in detail. And Luke portrays the crucifixion as a Satanic act to lash back at the Son of God for his goodness and example.

One of the more striking differences that is offered by Luke is the way that Jesus faces his death. Mark’s narration is powerful but lean. Mark’s account tells how one of his followers betrays him, another denies him, and none stand by him in his hour of need. He is silent on his way to the crucifixion, while being nailed to the cross and while on the cross. In Mark it is where Jesus who has been betrayed, denied, condemned, rejected, mocked, and abandoned, even by the Father… that leaves Jesus to say “my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”

Luke provides a very different account of the events. In Luke Jesus is not at all silent on his way to the crucifixion. On the way he tells a group of women “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me but weep for yourselves and for your children.”

While being nailed to the cross Jesus cries “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” He tells one of the thieves “Truly I tell you, today shalt thou be with me in paradise.” And in his final moment he says “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.” It is in Luke that Jesus is fully in charge of his own death.

I must admit that I had never really paid attention to the differences between the four Gospels. I had even read them in “horizontal harmony” and still hadn’t noticed the differences. I for one am guilty of lumping them all together. It wasn’t until I read “The Lost Gospel of Judas Iscariot” that I was taught that each of the authors wrote with specific purposes in mind and for specific audiences.

I have much more to learn!