The "Gospel" of Judas

Skeptics are everywhere. Just as rampant as skeptics, though, are liars and frauds. If I were to tell you that the Senator Giuliani has contacted me and told me that he wants me to run beside him as his Vice President candidate for the next presidential election, you probably would be a little skeptical about that, right? Because let’s face it. That is extremely far-fetched. Who would ever believe that I was to be the next Vice Presidential candidate? I would be lying. But what if I told you that Dr. Spittal has contacted me and wants me to be the next Student in charge of Campus Activities. That a little less far-fetched, but it’s no more truthful than me running for Vice President of the United States. The truth is, though, you would probably believe the campus life story because it’s something that is prevalent and conceivable in my life. Right?

Skeptics of the Bible have been using this technique for years. Let’s take a look at Dan Brown and his best seller, The DaVinci Code. Now, he can’t PROVE that Jesus never existed. He knows that there is more evidence that the person of Jesus walked the earth than Alexander the Great. But what he can try to make his reader believe is that Jesus had and Mary Magdalene and had a child together. That is not so far-fetched to the mind of an average person. Is it true, though? There’s a similar theory that has been around for a while but has just recently surfaced among the media and that is The Gospel of Judas has been uncovered. That’s right, Judas, the one that betrayed Jesus, his “Gospel” has been uncovered and has highly controversial claims in it—claims that challenge the very foundation of Christianity.

This document was apparently discovered about 30 years ago by a farmer who was searching through some caves in Egypt. He then gave the manuscript to someone who then turned around and sold it to an Egyptian black-market antiquities dealer. It was then stolen from this dealer and somehow recovered again by that dealer. The dealer, not knowing what to do with the manuscript and not being able to decipher it, stored it for over 20 years in a safety deposit box in a bank, where it sat, dried, and deteriorated. It was then recovered and handed over to National Geographic for restoration and authentication purposes. These conservators have restored about 85% of the manuscript. Liberal scholars claim that this is an authentic manuscript from the 3rd Century A.D.

The manuscript apparently claims 3 things that fly in the face of traditional Christian beliefs. First (1) is that Jesus put Judas up to betraying him, that he was chosen to carry out a most important mission that would make him a hero and lead the way for the salvation of the world. Second, (2) the disciples were envious of Judas and decided to portray him as a traitor. And third, (3) that God did not create the world.

This manuscript is speculated to have been written by a religious sect called the “Cainite” Gnostics. Now if you are not familiar with the beliefs of this group called the Gnostics, I want to share with you 4 major things they believed. First (1) is that Jesus was never raised from the dead. They believed that it was essential for Jesus to die and his spirit lived on but there was no physical resurrection. The second (2) is that they believe that the Almighty God did not create the world, that in fact, the “creator God” is not worthy of worship. Which leads us to their next belief. Who is worthy of worship? Their third (3) major belief is that each and every one of us can become divine (worthy of worship) if we truly “find” ourselves. In other words, the Kingdom of God is within us.

The fourth (4) thing they believe is that the serpent in the Garden of Eden was not actually a bad character. In fact they believe that the serpent was a good character that was merely trying to offer Adam and Eve knowledge. And to these Gnostics, knowledge was something that was desired. They wanted knowledge. So the serpent was really an enlightening character. These Gnostics also praise Cain for killing his brother Abel. They praise the Sodomites, the people of Sodom and Gomorrah for their immoral behavior. And they also praise Judas for turning Jesus over. They make Judas the HERO of the crucifixion story.

Now in order to thwart these ridiculous claims, we need to understand a few things. The first (1) is that the New Testament is VALID. Skeptics will argue that the New Testament cannot be trusted because it was put together by on man. They claim that it was canonized by a man named Iranaes who lived around 175 A.D. What we know as the New Testament (and 4 gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John), today, was ACTUALLY canonized, or made official, in 382 A.D by a group of church fathers in the Synod, or Council, of Rome. These church fathers based their decision of what would stay in what we know as the Bible because these books all lined up with History and with each other. They hold to the belief that God inspired them to RECOGNIZE these books as canon, not to CHOOSE them. We believe these books to be the ACTUAL inspired word of God.

We also need to understand what the Bible says about Judas. Judas was obviously a friend of Jesus. He was one of the Twelve appointed disciples, Jesus closest friends and followers. In fact, Judas was arguably the most trusted of the disciples because he was given the responsibility of treasurer. He was entrusted with all the money of Jesus’ ministry. But Judas was not from Galilee like Jesus and all the other disciples. He was from a region known as Judea where a group known as the Zealots lived. Now a Zealot was pretty much a terrorist. They believed strongly that the Messiah would come, overthrow the Roman government, and set up an earthly kingdom. These Zealots resorted to violent terrorist acts to "jump start" the overthrow of the Roman government. He was convinced that Jesus was the man to do that.

Now, the more time Judas spent time with Jesus and realized that overthrowing the Roman government was not Jesus’ intent, the more enraged Judas became. In fact we see in the book of Matthew that Judas is the only disciple that does not acknowledge Jesus as the Son of God. He calls Him Rabbi, teacher (Matthew 26:22-25). So out of Judas’ greed, and lack of belief in Jesus, it is very easy to see what actually drove him to betray the Son of God. There is no way that Jesus would have put Judas up to the betrayal. In fact, the actual canonized Gospels say that Jesus told the disciples it would have been better if Judas had NEVER been born (Matthew 26:24).


So, you see, these theorists and skeptics have been using the same techniques for years. They have attempted to skew our beliefs by mixing FACT with THEORY (or FICTION). Look at the conspiracy theories that have surrounded events like the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the Oklahoma City Bombing, the bombing of the World Trade Towers. These theorists can’t possibly make you believe that 911 never happened. We all saw it. We were around to experience it! But what they can do is try to make you question some some of the details under the surface of the event. Maybe the Bush administration was behind the bombing of the World Trade Towers; maybe they actually planted detonation devices within the building to implode the buildings at the same time the planes were crashing into them. Maybe this Judas character wasn’t such a bad guy. Maybe Jesus actually put him up to the betrayal. But the TRUTH is that we can only trust one source; that is THE source of Truth. And this TRUTH will set us free!