The Gospel of Judas?

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Tantum ergo:
I don’t. The canon was assembled under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, whom Jesus told us would guide us to all truth. What is in the Bible is the inspired word of God. What is NOT in the Bible is then what is NOT the inspired word of God.

Clear as day. . .
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Yeah, ok.
 
Tantum ergo:
What is NOT in the Bible is then what is NOT the inspired word of God.
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I don’t think that’s necessarily the case. For instance I don’t think anything the Church has said would prevent the Orthodox from using their longer canon of scripture, which they hold to have been found in the Septuagint. The Church has declared what the Bible includes, not what it excludes (there may be some exceptions).

More on this Gospel of Judas in today’s BBC:
Gnostic writers are believed to have set down their contrasting account of Judas’ role in Greek in about 150AD, and some believe that this manuscript may be a copy of that.
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Records show that the leaders of the early Christian Church denounced that version as heretical in about 180AD.
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I’m curious as to what exactly was said in 180, and who said it - it was a century and a half before the first ecumenical council at Nicaea.
 
Zenit published a thorough response yesterday or the day before, when I get a minute I will go out and find the link. It is a Gnostic gospel, written long after the generation of the apostles, trounced by the Fathers, cf Irineus, for its heresy. It does not and never did represent Catholic scripture or tradition. It is also not new garbage, cf the Jesus Papers, Jesus Christ superstar etc.

zenit.org/english/visualizza.phtml?sid=87247
 
Good point about Ireneaus, it was in fact he who denounced the work. From the National Geographic website (they’re the one’s releasing the English translation today),
In that year St. Irenaeus—then the bishop of what is now Lyon, France—published Against Heresies, a volume intended to help unify the Christian church.

St. Irenaeus’s method was to savage alternative theological views and interpretations—including the Gospel of Judas—which he referred to as “fictitious histories.”
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This is true - heresy was pretty much an all or nothing game back then. You didn’t have the pope, or Irenaeus, having amicable philosophical discussions with the Hans Kungs of the world. So it will be interesting to see what the Gospel of Judas actually says, beyond what Irenaeus related.
 
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Dandelion_Wine:
My favorite part:
National Geographic said the author of the gospel of Judas believed that Judas Iscariot alone understood the true significance of Jesus’ teachings.
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Suddenly National Geographic is the world most renown and dependable expert on Jesus.
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:confused: It sounds like National Geo is commenting on the author’s beliefs, not about Jesus.
 
The Catholic Answers director of apologetics, Jimmy Akin, has addressed this topic on his blog.

Mane Nobiscum Domine,
Ferdinand Mary
 
Digitonomy said:
:confused: It sounds like National Geo is commenting on the author’s beliefs, not about Jesus.
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:o oops. I gotta learn to read more closely
 
I notice in this Gospel of Judas that it attributes the creation of Adam and Eve not to God, but rather to an angel named Saklas. Saklas himself was created, according to the story, by another angel named Nabro.

Wouldn’t the concept that mankind was created by beings other than God be considered heretical?
 
When would Judas have time to write a gospel? Wasn’t much time between the arrest of Jesus and Judas’ hanging!
 
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Heckler:
Wouldn’t the concept that mankind was created by beings other than God be considered heretical?
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That would seem to be true, on the face of things. Although one could conceivably argue that God used these angels as his agents in such actions.
 
"When would Judas have time to write a gospel? Wasn’t much time between the arrest of Jesus and Judas’ hanging "

I may be mistaken but I understand that none of the Gospels was actually “written” by any apostle but spoken and handed down until such time that someone wrote it down.

On the other hand, what confident did Judus have that would have this info while no others did.

I think it is pretty safe to say that the document is authentic (i.e. written in the time it said it was) but that Judus may not have been the author and that the content may be fictionalized - that’s why we need the church to tell us which Holy Scripture is true or not.
 
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Digitonomy:
I’m curious as to what exactly was said in 180, and who said it - it was a century and a half before the first ecumenical council at Nicaea.
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Yes, wouldn’t you have loved to be a fly on the wall and listening to that discussion?
 
Luke 22:3
Then Satan entered Judas, called Iscariot, one of the Twelve.

John 13:27
As soon as Judas took the bread, Satan entered into him.

Do you really want to read his book?

I am hearing that the gospel of Judas is the Gospel of Thomas.
 
Tixeront, tranlsated by Raemers, states (A Handbook of Patrology, p. 67): “Besides these Gospels, we know that there once existed a Gospel of Bartholomew, a Gospel of Thaddeus, mentioned in the decree of Pope Gelasius, and a Gospel of Judas Iscariot in use among the Cainites and spoken of by St. Irenaeus (i, 31, 1).”

Here is the Roberts-Donaldson translation of this section from Irenaeus:

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.

earlychristianwritings.com/gospeljudas.html
 
the fact that junk like this exists proves that the church did not surpress this junk.

Also, it reinforces the need for a teaching authority to define what is and what is not scripture or canonical.
 
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FightingFat:
Well, that seems very narrow minded to me. I think these things are fascinating. The Gnostic texts give us a real insight into the early Church and the kind of arguments that went on in the first couple of hundred years of Christianity. Further, reading around this subject has merely served to confirm my own beliefs and strengthen my understanding of Christ’s sacrifice for us. I understand why you might want to avoid these things- that’s fine. But some people will always bring up these issues, and someone needs to be prepared to address them, in context. To be ignorant of their context, content and meaning helps nothing.
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That is a very good point. Today, because of sensational TV, News Stories, movies the world is subject to a lot of false information. What do you say to the friend or aquaintance who comes up and says,“Have you heard…the Church is suppressing the truth once again, etc.” Do you say “Well I haven’t seen it and don’t know anything about it. It’s bad news.” Not a very credible witness to the truth in my not so humble opinion. I had a friend call me this morning, before I had even gotten out of bed, had I sen the news story about the Gospel of Judas in the local paper. Well I hadn’t seen it but I knew it was a copy of Gnostic Gospel found buried in the sand in Egypt a couple of years ago. I could explain what a Gnostic Gospel was and basically that it made Jesus out to be like a Manichean. Physical world evil, spriritual world good, etc. Didn’t have to say,“Duh…”
 
Sir Knight:
Judas hung himself shortly after the Last Supper. When did he have time to write this “Gospel”?
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To have religious text be relevant in a scientific discussion you would have to prove the reading to be true by other evidence than it’s existence. The discussion right now is revolving around whether it is an actual find, not whether Judas wrote it. I am not taking one side or the other. I’ve yet to look into the issue, since history dictates that many radical finds turn out to be hoaxes and I will wait to study it myself until there is more to the story.

However, I find it hypocritical to want to force religion on science but to not want science to influence religion.
 
What Margaret says seems to be right.I tried to read the DaVinci code though i was confident about my faith,but after reading half way there was this creepy feeling that i was subjecting myself to the evil one.then i was glad i didn’t read the whole thing.Knowing about the content is different from reading and being immersed from it.III ly it is not advisable to go and see the film itself.And also regarding the gospel of judas.it’s better not to go to much detail proving that it is false.The believers can always stick to their belief.The unbelievers will have a fight whether what they hear is true or not,and after some time that too will die away…
 
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