{"id":17172,"date":"2008-12-21T11:27:00","date_gmt":"2008-12-21T17:27:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/?p=17172"},"modified":"2019-12-21T11:35:14","modified_gmt":"2019-12-21T17:35:14","slug":"the-gospel-of-judas-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/the-gospel-of-judas-2\/","title":{"rendered":"The Gospel of Judas?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\t

by Ron Lehde<\/p>\n

\"\"Tonight (April 9, 2006) the National Geographic Magazine is scheduled to present a television program that deals with an ancient work known as \u201cThe Gospel of Judas\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0It is a 26-page manuscript (ca. AD 300) that is a Coptic translation of a Greek manuscript that is at least one hundred years older and was found in Egypt in the 1970s.\u00a0\u00a0The Copts are pre-Islamic inhabitants of Egypt and are believers in Christ.\u00a0\u00a0However, they have digressed in doctrine and practice to the extent they have their own pope.\u00a0\u00a0This \u201cGospel\u201d presents a Judas that is doing the Lord\u2019s bidding when he hands Him over to be crucified.\u00a0\u00a0At best this \u201cshow\u201d will be a cynical attempt to gain \u201cratings\u201d on TV and at worst it is \u2013 of course – an attempt by Satan to undermine faith in the Bible as the inspired Word of God.\u00a0\u00a0The following is from a news article about this false work.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlthough the full details have not yet been made public, snippets discussed in academic circles say it will prove Judas was acting at the behest of God when he sold Jesus to the Romans for 30 pieces of silver.\u00a0\u00a0Its publication will raise fears among traditionalists that efforts may be made to rehabilitate a man whose name is synonymous with betrayal.\u00a0\u00a0Sympathisers\u00a0(sic) with Judas contend that had Jesus not been crucified, he would not have been subsequently resurrected to save humanity.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There are at least three untruths in the above paragraph and even more in the newspaper articles, you may have already read about this \u201cGospel\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0To try and untangle this mess we must go back to the Bible and note a few things.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. \u201cJudas was acting by the command of God when he betrayed Jesus.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0This is not so! The Bible plainly states:\u00a0\u00a0\u201cAnd\u00a0supper being\u00a0ended,\u00a0the devil having already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, to betray Him<\/strong><\/i><\/em>\u201d (John 13:2).<\/li>\n
  2. \u201cJudas\u2026sold Jesus to the\u00a0Romans\u00a0<\/strong>for 30 pieces of silver.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0Once again this is an effort to cover up the guilt of the chief priests and elders of the Jews of\u00a0that generation<\/strong>.\u00a0\u00a0They are the ones who sent Jesus to the Roman governor, Pilate, in an effort to hide their conspiracy in Jesus\u2019 death.\u00a0\u00a0\u201cThen one of the twelve, called Judas\u00a0Iscariot,\u00a0went to the\u00a0chief priests<\/b><\/strong>\u00a0and said, \u2018What are you willing to give me if I deliver Him to you?\u2019 And they counted out to him thirty pieces of silver<\/i><\/em>\u201d (Matthew 26:14-15).<\/li>\n
  3. \u201cSympathisers\u00a0(sic) with Judas contend that had Jesus not been crucified, he would not have been subsequently resurrected to save humanity.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0Critics of the Bible contend that Judas\u2019 action was necessary for humanity to have salvation.\u00a0\u00a0However, just because God uses the deeds of an unrighteous individual to accomplish His ends does not mean that person will receive a positive reward.\u00a0\u00a0The unrighteous judge in Luke 18 finally did right in avenging the widow of her enemies; yet he did it only because she was wearing him out by her constant pestering him to do so.\u00a0\u00a0So we read: “The Son of Man indeed goes just as it is written of Him,\u00a0but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been good for that man if he had not been born<\/strong><\/i><\/em>” (Matthew 26:24).<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Scholars have long known that a work called \u201cThe Gospel of Judas\u201d existed.\u00a0\u00a0They have been on the lookout for it because of a reference to it in a text called\u00a0Against Heresies<\/i><\/em>, written by one of the so-called \u201cChurch Fathers\u201d, Irenaeus, bishop of Lyons, about the year AD 180.\u00a0\u00a0Irenaeus was a student of Polycarp, a disciple of the apostle John.\u00a0\u00a0As John made every effort to repudiate the heresy of the Gnostics (cf. 1 & 2 John), so did Polycarp and Irenaeus.\u00a0\u00a0The Gnostics were a faction that had apparently (outwardly) obeyed the gospel and were Christians but then had gone after the false teaching of this sect.\u00a0\u00a0Their name comes from the Greek word for \u201crevealed knowledge\u201d (gnosis)<\/i><\/em>\u00a0and they claimed to have a secret knowledge regarding spiritual things.\u00a0\u00a0They taught that \u201csparks or seeds of the Divine Being fell from this transcendent realm into the material universe, which is wholly evil, and were imprisoned in human bodies. Reawakened by knowledge, the divine element in humanity can return to its proper home in the transcendent spiritual realm\u201d (“Gnosticism,”\u00a0Microsoft\u00ae Encarta\u00ae 98 Encyclopedia<\/i><\/em>).\u00a0\u00a0In short, souls\/spirits from the Divine Being were shaken out of heaven, fell to earth, and became imprisoned in human bodies.\u00a0\u00a0And the only way they can find their way back to heaven is to embrace this secret, superior, revealed knowledge that will guide it back.\u00a0\u00a0Paul may have also warned against the beginnings of this heresy when he wrote: \u201cO Timothy! Guard what was committed to your trust,\u00a0avoiding the profane and idle babble and contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge<\/strong><\/i><\/em>\u201c (I Timothy 6:20).<\/p>\n

    Three of the divisions within Gnosticism were: Ebonites, Cerenthians, and Docetaeans. Essentially all sects of Gnosticism believed that the world was evil, evil was all present, and therefore Deity could never assume or occupy sinful flesh.<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. The\u00a0Ebonites\u00a0believed that Jesus was only a good man like anyone else in an evil world.\u00a0\u00a0Hence His death only benefited Him.\u00a0\u00a0This heresy the apostle John adamantly denied when he wrote: \u201cWho is a liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist who denies the Father and the Son<\/i><\/em>\u201d (I John 2:22).\u00a0\u00a0This passage also refutes the following belief of the Gnostics, the\u00a0Cerenthians\u2026<\/li>\n
    2. The\u00a0Cerenthians\u00a0believed that the body of the man called Jesus became occupied at his baptism by a demon named Christ, which then left him before the \u201cpassion\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0This belief denies the Deity of Jesus.<\/li>\n
    3. The Docetaeans believed that Jesus Christ appeared to be real but his body was only a shadowy phantom (hologram?).\u00a0\u00a0This would mean that Jesus\u2019 suffering, passion, and death was only an illusion; therefore they denied the humanity of Jesus.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      The apostle John, in refuting these Gnostic beliefs, said: \u201cBy this you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, and every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God. And this is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you have heard was coming, and is now already in the world<\/i><\/em>\u201d (I John 4:2-3).<\/p>\n

      All of these different aspects of Gnosticism actually came about because of one common hedonistic desire.\u00a0\u00a0It allowed them in their \u201cstate of superior knowledge\u201d to be as indulgent in the lusts of the flesh as they wished because the body was evil, would die, and the spirit \u2013 being pure \u2013 would return to heavenly realms.\u00a0\u00a0Their analogy was that if a diamond fell into a pigsty it remained a diamond despite being covered with filth, and when it was removed from the sty it could be cleaned and again become bright and shiny.<\/p>\n

      The most revealing passages in this false gospel\u00a0begins, \u201cThe secret account of the revelation that Jesus spoke in conversation with Judas Iscariot during a week, three days before he celebrated Passover.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0The account goes on to relate that Jesus refers to the other disciples, telling Judas \u201cyou will exceed all of them.\u00a0\u00a0For you will sacrifice the man that clothes me<\/i><\/em><\/strong>.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0This last phrase is very important to remember when you consider the aspect of Gnostic belief concerning the pure spirit being imprisoned in an evil body.<\/p>\n

      It is true that this \u201cGospel\u201d is an old work, probably dating back to the 2nd<\/sup> century AD.\u00a0\u00a0But because it does not go further back than this it cannot be the work of an eyewitness of the betrayal and crucifixion of Jesus; to which must also be added the death of Judas as recorded in Matthew and Acts.\u00a0\u00a0It is obviously a work espousing Gnostic heresy that we find at least in principle – if not outrightly \u2013 condemned in the writings of Paul and John.<\/p>\n

      In summation, we can see that \u201cThe Gospel of Judas\u201d is a contradiction of what is in the Gospels of the New Testament.\u00a0\u00a0They \u2013 Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John \u2013 all agree that \u201cwhen the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons<\/i><\/em>\u201d (Galatians 4:4-5).\u00a0\u00a0Because of the great truth (i.e., Truth never contradicts itself) it is easy to see that this is a false work and is to be rejected by all faithful children of God.<\/p>\n

      May our faith be strengthened through our confidence in God\u2019s revealed will, the Bible \u2026 as we have it now!<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      by Ron Lehde Tonight (April 9, 2006) the National Geographic Magazine is scheduled to present a television program that deals with an ancient work known as \u201cThe Gospel of Judas\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0It is a 26-page manuscript (ca. AD 300) that is a Coptic translation of a Greek manuscript that is at least one hundred years older and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[660,130],"class_list":["post-17172","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article","tag-apocrypha","tag-canon"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":17168,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/reflections-on-the-gospel-of-judas\/","url_meta":{"origin":17172,"position":0},"title":"Reflections on the “Gospel of Judas”","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"December 21, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"by\u00a0Ethan R. Longhenry While\u00a0The Da Vinci Code mania continues to develop and grow throughout the world and while \"other gospels\" and \"alternative Christianities\" have become popular, we now see revealed to us yet another \"lost gospel,\" the Gospel of Judas. The National Geographic Society has done a good job of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/12\/Holding-a-Bible.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":17163,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/the-gospel-of-judas\/","url_meta":{"origin":17172,"position":1},"title":"The Gospel Of Judas","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"December 21, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"by Boyd Jennings Were you alarmed to hear that another gospel has been discovered?\u00a0\u00a0Before we continue, let\u2019s remember what Jesus told the twelve minus Judas. \u00a0\u201cHowever, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into\u00a0all\u00a0truth\u201d\u00a0(John 16:13).\u00a0\u00a0That\u2019s why Paul wrote by inspiration of God\u2014twice,\u00a0\u201cBut even if we,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/12\/Gospel-of-Judas-389px-Codex-Tchacos-p33.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":60617,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/was-judas-really-a-traitor\/","url_meta":{"origin":17172,"position":2},"title":"Was Judas Really a Traitor?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"April 30, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"by Bob Prichard via\u00a0House to House, Vol. 17, No. 5 In conjunction with \"Easter season:' the National Geographic Society released an ancient document dubbed the \"Gospel of Judas.\" In their news releases, National Geographic indicated the information in this third-century papyrus codex threatened the \"official\" doctrine of the church by\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":44940,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/judas-iscariot\/","url_meta":{"origin":17172,"position":3},"title":"Judas Iscariot","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"March 24, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"by Jonathan Perz Spreading the Gospel","rel":"","context":"In "Audio"","block_context":{"text":"Audio","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/audio\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":17161,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/are-any-of-the-apocrypha-truthful\/","url_meta":{"origin":17172,"position":4},"title":"Are any of the Apocrypha truthful?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"January 4, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Thank you for the insight into the Book of Enoch. I have been curious about reading this piece. I was wondering if you know of any other \"gospels\" that are considered truthful that are apart of the Apocrypha writings, such as the books of Maccabees, Thomas, Mary, etc. Answer:\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":66534,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/does-foot-washing-indicate-acceptance\/","url_meta":{"origin":17172,"position":5},"title":"Does Foot Washing Indicate Acceptance?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"February 13, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"by Doy Moyer Much has been made over the recent \"He gets us\" ads depicting various scenes of different kinds of people washing their feet and having their feet washed. The debate is over what this means. Is it a good illustration of what Jesus would do? Does it accurately\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17172","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17172"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17172\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}