The gospel of judas

[Caesarea]

Hello everyone,
I recently heard something about the gospel of judas being found. I am very intruiged by this and I wondered if it was true, and what the feelings of religious and non-religious people are about this. I also wanted to see if there is some more information. I don’t know much about it and I thought people here might? so, what do you think?

 

[Nine_Two]

It was actually found quite a few years ago, and the existence of the book had been known for quite some time prior to its actual discovery, It doesn’t contain anything unexpected, it’s a fairly run of the mill Sethian Gnostic text, which is one of the reasons the National Geographic Society managed to get it instead of a consortum of Universities, which have many more resources to devote to the acquisition to such things.

The name makes it appeal to pop-media, however anyone who thinks it is something special is sorely mislead.

Although I haven’t read it, I have read quite a few other gnostic tracts, so I haven’t been surprised by anything I’ve heard about it.

 

[StrawberryJam]

It’s “another gospel”. Not to mention it is dated far later than the narrative that you currently use. I would suspect it won’t raise a single eyebrow from any christian who knows the dating and reliability of the narrative they use now. Personally, I think Mark is the most reliable of all the books in the bible and the rest get less and less so from there.

 

[Nine_Two]

Keep in mind that the value of a text does not rest completely on when it was written, although that does play a significant part.

 

[firstmode]

Old Gnostic Heresies. You would be surprised what people are trying to use against Christianity these days, like we have not seen these same attacks over the last 2000 years.

Irenaeus noted A Gospel under the name of Judas Iscariot back in his day:

Irenaeus writes in Adversus Haereses:

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. (1.31.1)

Adversus Haereses

Adversus Haereses (Against Heresies) is the standard name of two books on Gnosticism and other Christian heresies:

A book which actually has the title On the Detection and Overthrow of the So-Called Gnosis written by Irenaeus in the second century A.D.

A book which actually has the title Panarion (medicine-chest) written by Epiphanius of Salamis (4th century), for a similar purpose

The Development of the Canon of the New Testament - Irenaeus

According to the lists in [Hoh], Irenaeus, in Adversus Haereses, quotes 626 times from all 4 Gospels.

154, there seems to be an allusion to Hebrews 1:3 in Adversus Haereses 2.30.9.

 

[firstmode]

Irenaeus and the Four Gospels

Irenaeus writes in Adversus Haereses:

The Gospels could not possibly be either more or less in number than they are. Since there are four zones of the world in which we live, and four principal winds, while the Church is spread over all the earth, and the pillar and foundation of the Church is the gospel, and the Spirit of life, it fittingly has four pillars, everywhere breathing out incorruption and revivifying men. From this it is clear that the Word, the artificer of all things, being manifested to men gave us the gospel, fourfold in form but held together by one Spirit. As David said, when asking for his coming, 'O sitter upon the cherubim, show yourself '. For the cherubim have four faces, and their faces are images of the activity of the Son of God. For the first living creature, it says, was like a lion, signifying his active and princely and royal character; the second was like an ox, showing his sacrificial and priestly order; the third had the face of a man, indicating very clearly his coming in human guise; and the fourth was like a flying eagle, making plain the giving of the Spirit who broods over the Church. Now the Gospels, in which Christ is enthroned, are like these. (3.11.8)

The 4 creatures are allusions to Revelations 4:7-8. Irenaeus goes on to compare them to the Gospels according to John, Luke, Matthew, and Mark respectively. The Davidic quotation is from Psalms 80:1.