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March 30, 2005
Team to Publish "The Gospel of Judas"
The Middle East Online reports that a team led by Rudolf Kasser of the University of Geneva plans to publish the Gospel of Judas and translate it into English, French and German. The papyrus manuscript of 62 pages is in a "bad state." The text is in Coptic. Coptic is a late version of Egyptian written in a modified Greek alphabet. Many early Egyptian Christians spoke and wrote Coptic. There is reason to believe that Greek was the original language of this work.
Scholars have known of a work entitled Gospel of Judas for a very long time. Irenaeus (Against Heresies - Book I, XXXI, Doctrines of the Cainites) denounced it in 180 CE.
Others again declare that Cain derived his being from the Power above, and acknowledge that Esau, Korah, the Sodomites, and all such persons, are related to themselves. On this account, they add, they have been assailed by the Creator, yet no one of them has suffered injury. For Sophia was in the habit of carrying off that which belonged to her from them to herself. They declare that Judas the traitor was thoroughly acquainted with these things, and that he alone, knowing the truth as no others did, accomplished the mystery of the betrayal; by him all things, both earthly and heavenly, were thus thrown into confusion. They produce a fictitious history of this kind, which they style the Gospel of Judas. [Emphasis added].
Because of the citation in Against the Heresies, the work must be older than 180 CE. Irenaus does not say Judas Iscariot wrote it, only that it was associated with him. Irenaeus gives us a small clue as to what the work contains. Of course, it is possible that Irenaus was referring to something different than what is on the papyri but they are most likely the same work.
More recently (2002), my old graduate school colleague, Charlie Hendrik, reported seeing photos of the Coptic text.
In sum, in addition to the four canonical gospels, we have four complete noncanonicals, seven fragmentary, four known from quotations and two hypothetically recovered for a total of 21 gospels from the first two centuries, and we know that others existed in the early period. I am confident more of them will be found. For example, I have seen photos of several pages from a Coptic text entitled "The Gospel of Judas" that recently surfaced on the antiquities market.
The Middle East Online article gets to the bottom line:
Jean-Daniel Kaestli, an expert on gospels who has seen the manuscript, said the discovery was "very interesting," although the papyrus was in a bad state.He added that it was not going to lead to a revolutionary change in the vision of the Bible, although it could shed some new light on parts of Christianity's holy text.
Like the Gospel of Thomas and other non-canonical gospels, the Gospel of Judas will shed additional light on early sectarian Christianity. It will not shake believes. It will be abnormally interesting to see what it says.
References:
Hedrick, Charles W., The 34 Gospels. Diversity and Division among the Earliest Christians, Bible Review 18.3 (June 2002): 20-31, 46-47.
Posted by Duane Smith at March 30, 2005 12:42 PM | Read more on Archaeology |
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