Text might be hidden 'gospel of Judas'

[ragingfear79 0]

Thought this migh interest some of you guys....

 

WASHINGTON (AP) -- National Geographic unveiled an ancient manuscript Thursday that may shed new light on the relationship between Jesus and Judas, the disciple who betrayed him.

 

The papyrus manuscript was written probably around 300 A.D. in Coptic script, a copy of an earlier Greek manuscript.

 

It was discovered in the desert in Egypt in the 1970s and has now been authenticated by carbon dating and studied and translated by biblical scholars, National Geographic announced.

 

Unlike the four gospels in the Bible, this text indicates that Judas betrayed Jesus at Jesus' request.

 

The text begins "the secret account of the revelation that Jesus spoke in conversation with Judas Iscariot."

 

The key passage comes when Jesus tells Judas "you will exceed all of them. For you will sacrifice the man that clothed me."

 

This indicates that Judas would help liberate the spiritual self by helping Jesus get rid of his physical flesh, the scholars said.

 

The manuscript was first mentioned in a treatise around 180 A.D. by a bishop, Irenaeus of Lyon, in what is now France. The bishop denounced the manuscript as differing from mainstream Christianity and said it produced a fictitious story.

 

There were several gospels in circulation at the time in addition to the four in the Bible. When those gospels were denounced, it was thought that believers hid them away.

 

What scholars refer to as the gospel of Judas was kept by a group called the Gnostics, who believed that the way to salvation was through secret knowledge given by Jesus to his inner circle.

 

National Geographic said the author believed that Judas Iscariot alone understood the true significance of Jesus' teachings.

[2GOLD 0]

So Judas goes from betrayer to Kevorkian?

That's a pretty good step up for him. 20 years from now, he might climb up to victim of circumstance.

[naiwf 0]

I'd heard about this before in a Christian Theology class I took. The main purpose behind the denouncement of the other gospels was to make Jesus look as sympathetic as possible. There's more of a sense of betrayal if Jesus knew what Judas would do and yet sat there in silence and accepted it, as opposed to telling Judas to do it to fulfill his destiny.

[Guest InuYasha]

*cough*Da Vinci Code*cough*

 

I seriously doubt that this would be true, at all. Jesus telling Judas to betray him makes about zero sense. I'll file this under "shit people made up to confuse Christians".

[naiwf 0]

Considering that many scholars view Jesus' sacrifice as the New Testament version of Abraham being told to do the same to his only son Isaac, it doesn't seem out of the realm of possibility that Judas was similarly told to sacrifice Jesus. The obvious difference being that God stopped the Old Testament test, but allowed his own son to be sacrificed. I don't want to bore you with details, but there are parallels which can be drawn from the two stories.

[Guest CWMwasmurdered]

*cough*Da Vinci Code*cough*

 

I seriously doubt that this would be true, at all. Jesus telling Judas to betray him makes about zero sense. I'll file this under "shit people made up to confuse Christians".

 

I can think of things in the bible that make a hell of alot less sense.

[Guest BobBacklundRules]

So this is a script that was denounced 120 years before this copy of it was written.

[naiwf 0]

So this is a script that was denounced 120 years before this copy of it was written.

 

The papyrus manuscript was written probably around 300 A.D. in Coptic script, a copy of an earlier Greek manuscript.

 

The original Greek one was the one that was denounced around 180.

[Jingus 0]

I'd file this under "who really cares?". There are many, many unauthorized "gospels" that the Church has denounced over the years, this is just one more of 'em.

[Guest BobBacklundRules]

So this is a script that was denounced 120 years before this copy of it was written.

 

The papyrus manuscript was written probably around 300 A.D. in Coptic script, a copy of an earlier Greek manuscript.

 

The original Greek one was the one that was denounced around 180.

 

I know... what I was getting at was that this coptic script is a translation of a greek script that was invalidated over a century before this coptic copy was written.

 

It would be like an anonymous Mexican making a copy of the "Da Vinci Code", in Spanish, in the year 2123.

 

I wouldn't take it too seriously.

[Ravenbomb 0]

Didn't that (Jesus asking Judas to betray him) happen in Last Temptation of Christ?

[Guest InuYasha]

Didn't that (Jesus asking Judas to betray him) happen in Last Temptation of Christ?

Which is why that movie is heresy, through and through.

 

Although, I think we need to come up with a new word for meaning "the opposite of God's/Jesus' teachings"; seeing as how heresy comes from a Greek root word meaning "to seek the truth".

[chaosrage 0]

*cough*Da Vinci Code*cough*

 

I seriously doubt that this would be true, at all. Jesus telling Judas to betray him makes about zero sense. I'll file this under "shit people made up to confuse Christians".

 

If no one betrayed him, then how could he did for mankind's sins? It actually makes the story make a hell of a lot more sense.

[LJSexay 0]

first thing that came to my mind after reading this was Harry Potter...

 

...anyway. It definitely would make sense. I don't understand why the church 'denounces' gospels, when really, would we not want as much information to get at the truth as possible?

[Jingus 0]

They denounce "false" gospels in order to keep their stranglehold on "the truth" as it were, and tell the version that they prefer. It's a neat bit of circular logic that helped the Vatican keep total religious control over the entire Christian world until the Protestant reformation: they say the Bible is the infallible word of God, but they chose which words go in and which stay out, plus their own scholars are the ones writing all the translations from the old scripts.

 

People still use the word "heresy"? I've never been a fan of that word, mostly cuz the people who use it tend to want to kill those they find guilty of it.

[Guest BobBacklundRules]

They denounce "false" gospels in order to keep their stranglehold on "the truth" as it were, and tell the version that they prefer. It's a neat bit of circular logic that helped the Vatican keep total religious control over the entire Christian world until the Protestant reformation: they say the Bible is the infallible word of God, but they chose which words go in and which stay out, plus their own scholars are the ones writing all the translations from the old scripts.

 

False gospels are denounced with good reason, most of them were written too late after the fact and by people who were not there first hand or close to those who were there first hand. It's not like the "the Vatican" gets together to suppress historical facts - they take careful consideration as to what they're doing, because they believe that if they're wrong they get eternity in hell.

 

And Bible translations are done by everyone and their mom - why do you think there are so many different translations. PLus the Bible is studied every day at Bible colleges and by Bible scholors. There's nothing new in the Bible.

 

There are tons of false religious texts out there. Everyone wanted a piece of Christianity when it first came out, and there were plenty of early offshoots of Christianity that wanted their own version of what happened.

 

And I love the fact that this was already denounced in the year 180 by a scholor who probably had nothing to do with the Vatican.

[snuffbox 0]

We need to stone more people to death.

[Dobbs 3K 0]

The books that are considered Biblical canon were chosen very early by church leaders, like in the first couple centuries after Christ. To blame the Vatican for the fact that they didn't include a book probably written well after Christ's life is ignorant.

 

(I'm not Catholic BTW, so I'm not trying to defend the Vatican, just stating the obvious).

[Jingus 0]

Yeah, the Council of Nicea was the group that originally chose which books were canon, but they're the group that eventually grew to be the Catholic Church as we know them... and they never changed their minds on which books were good and which were bad.

[Boon 0]

Judas was a TK'er you know.

[snuffbox 0]

Toby Keith fan?

[daileyxplanet 0]

Team Killer?