Gospel of Judas Discussion

A discussion has been going on over the Tribe email list about the Gospel of Judas; let's continue the discussion here.  Does the Gospel of Judas represent another important perspective on the life and death of Christ, or is it just another apocryphal gnostic Gospel like the Coptic Gospel of Thomas or the Gospel of Mary?  What do Gnosticism, "gnosis," and more general discussions of mysticism mean in the ancient understanding, and do those understandings have any relevance to today's discussions?

This is all interesting stuff; if any Tribesfolk know any other knowledgeable people who would be interested in enlightening us by commenting on this discussion, please direct them here.  That's the fun of blogs - that we not only have this discussion within our community, but we can also bring in outside voices to add their insights to ours.

As I get permission to add the original discussion, I'll be adding the original thread as comments to this post as well, with attribution to the original authors.

-5

Comments

[Darius]

Guess it depends on what you mean by "just another apocryphal gospel."

I don't think the church council decisions that were made long ago concerning which early Christian writings were in and which were out will ever be reconsidered short of finding another codex perfectly consistent with those already signed, sealed, and certified as "The New Testament."

But for anyone not fully convinced that the church is the inerrant Bride of Christ, I think these discoveries are of great interest.

[jimmy 5]

In the sense that the Gospel of Judas won't really ever be considered canonical for orthodox Christianity, it is in fact "just another apocryphal Gospel" which can provide insight into the historiography of Jesus while not being considered Scripture.

Putting the Gospel of Judas on the same level as the Coptic Thomas or the Gospel of Peter isn't devaluing it entirely, as most theologians wouldn't say that those two Gospels are entirely lacking in value... if nothing else, they can contribute to our understanding of Gnosticism's interpretation of the life and sayings of Christ and our understanding of the context in which the books we do consider canonical were written. We would think the Gospel of John to be rather Gnostic in its outlook if we didn't have actual Gnostic texts to compare it to and to understand that in many ways John was a polemic against Gnosticism.

That said, it does require a certain amount of faith in the Church to understand certain works as canonical and others as not. Even from my limited understanding of church history and the process of canonization, I realize that one has to trust that the Spirit was involved in the collaborations and convenings of the church's ancestors, in order to accept that the canon they determined was blessed and touched by the Spirit. A trust in "inerrancy" as you put it might be a step too far, but to believe in Scripture requires a belief in the traditions of the Church - something many evangelicals, eager as they are to jettison tradition, tend to forget or ignore.

[Lucas]

One of my New Testament Profs at Talbot Theological Seminary wrote an article in response to the Judas text. If you are interested then simply click on the link below.

http://www.biola.edu/news/articles/060410_judas.cfm

I am very encouraged by your discussion on this issue. Iron sharpens Iron - keep it going...

[tamedcats]

Hi,

I tried to add image but I don't know how to do this
Can anyone be kind to tell me how?

thanks a lot