Truth Behind Gospel of Judas Revealed in Ancient Inks

This story has been brought up a lot over the past decade in pop culture. It comes down to faith, if you beleive in the bible and whether the books that were included were because of divine inspiration and the books that were left out was for the same reason.

If Jesus is God, then he knew everything that would happen to him. So regardless of whether you beleive the book of Judas or not, I say Jesus has to have pre-knowledge of what Judas would do, as he did with everything else. This doesn't imply any nefariousness to me.

I personally do not buy the Gospel of Judas as truth, for a variety of reasons, both historical and logical. Mainly though, all other writings we have pertaining to Judas Iscariot indicate that he never believed Jesus to be anything more than a man. The most illustrious title he ever bestowed upon Jesus when addressing him was Rabbi, or teacher. The gospels also indicate that Jesus had no real intimate relationship with Judas, while all the other disciples did. This could be indicated by the relatively consistent order of the disciples names when presented together in the gospels, Judas' always being last. But there are obvious arguments against my beliefs, although I will not attempt to dissuade from my own argument by presenting them, lol.

Many Biblical scholars maintain that the evidence points to Judas joining the disciples and Jesus simply for monetary gain. He saw that he could use the popularity of Jesus, as well as the collections taken up, for personal gain and profit. No matter what you believe, there is no denying that the Gospel of Judas was not written for another 200 years or so after these events took place, so obviously they were not written by an eyewitness. It is possible the text was copied, but unlikely in my opinion. It must be realized that the gospels which were not included in the Bible were left out for some logical reasons, a major one being their likelihood of being forgeries.

Of course we also know that the council of Nicaea was a bit biased as well, so we have to find the balance. Anyway, most scholars today actually do not believe that the Synoptic Gospels were written by apostles. although I am not sure if they believe the same regarding the writings of John. For those who do not know, the Synoptic Gospels are the books of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, all of which are vastly similar in what they present, and even their wording in some cases, although all three were clearly written by different individuals. Now it has not been proven that these gospels were not written by the apostles themselves, so we do not have the best evidence to work with in any of these cases. But, they are generally held to at least have been written by acquaintances of apostles, or those who received their information directly from an apostle, which would mean they still carried much weight. It should be noted that the Gospel of Luke was never claimed to have been written by an apostle, but rather a physician who interviewed many of those with firsthand associations with Jesus.

So at the end of the day, there is no proof either way. But I believe that most of the evidence points to the Synoptic accounts of Judas Iscariot being correct, and that the Gospel of Judas was likely a Gnostic forgery of the next century...Maybe we will know more in the future, if more evidence can be found.

reply to post by adjensen

There is nothing in the New Testament that can be reconciled with the teachings of the Gnostics, because they are two completely disparate theologies, utterly incompatible without significantly distorting one or the other.

Nothing?!?

How can you possibly say that?

Especially since you above most people know Thomas complies with the gospels on so many issues... not even mentioning other texts...?

Perhaps we should convene an ATS research team to go through Thomas, line by line, in an attempt to discern what's what.

Excellent idea!!

As a matter of fact I just might do that very thing... if no one else bothers...

reply to post by adjensen
[
Hi Adjensen

You wrote

QUOTE

“…the only means that you have to determine what the teachings of Christ were is the texts which detail it. So saying that the Gnostic texts are closer to Jesus than the canonical texts is nonsensical …. most of the Gnostic texts were written over a hundred years after the canonical texts were, and we know who started the Gnostic Christian sect, when and why…”

UNQUOTE

By ‘Christ’ I take it you refer to R. Yehoshua bar Yosef the Galilean Nazir (born c. 12 BCE / executed for armed sedition against Rome c. March 36 CE).

We do not know when the ‘Christian Gnostic’ texts were first set down in writing (e.g. in Greek, then translated into other languages e.g. Coptic) or how long the contents of these books existed in an oral stage, e.g. Aramaic.

Some of the textual material in ‘Judas’ may go back before the end of the 1st century, but it seems that many of the sayings had morphed by the time it was translated into Greek then into Coptic - one loses the flavor of any original texts by re-translations, - 2 or 3 steps away from the mother tongue.

With the ‘Gospel of Judas’, we have a reference to the Greek version of the ’Judas’ Gospel in a citation by Iranaeus in his ‘Against Heresies’ c. 170 CE – but he does not quote from it directly - which suggests he did not have a copy of it in front of him (he collected what he considered to be ‘Heretical Books’ for his Library), but only knew of it by hearsay.

One would assume that if the Greek version of the Gospel of Judas was known to exist by the year 170 CE it was probably in circulation for say up to 30 years prior i.e. at least by 140 CE.

The current Coptic version which surfaced at El Minya in Egypt sometime around the year 1975 (‘the Codex Tchacos’, 66 surviving leaves, 4 books including The Letter of Phillip, The 1st Revelation of James, The Gospel of Judas & the opening pages of The Book of Seth-Allogenes, Son of Adam) has an ink chemical composition current in Egypt c. 250 CE, so we could assume that the Coptic Copy of the Gospel of Judas was ‘copied out’ in the Egyptian desert sometime around 260CE – but...

We do not know how old the Greek document was from which it was translated – or what form that Greek MS took in terms of actual contents – all we can say is that from the Grammatical inconsistencies in the Codex Tcachos Coptic Copy that the original writing upon which Coptic Judas was based was certainly Greek (the odd Coptic phraseology / translation errors show that they were perpetrated when translating OUT of Greek INTO Coptic) although some ideas expressed in the book may have some Aramaic linguistic underpinnings (e.g. the term Barbelo = from the Aramaic phrase: B’arba-Elo’h, ‘from the god of the 4 [i.e. faces, or letters] etc.

What is curious is that forms of preChristian Gnosticism is now known to have existed in antiquity & there are many Dead Sea Scrolls which place emphasis on 'the Knowledge of the Most High' (‘things revealed and things concealed’) see the contents of Caves 1-11 of Qumran e.g. the Habakkuk Pesher, a book which was especially sacred to the Dead Sea Covenanters (copied between c. BCE 150 - 68 CE)

e.g. Habakkuk 2:14 = For in that Day the Land [of Yisroel] shall be filled with the Knowledge of the Glory of YHWH, even as the waters cover the Sea.

4Q301 F1

Amen, I shall speak out freely, I shall express my sayings among you, even to those who wish to grasp deep parables & riddles and those who wish to penetrate the origins of Secret Knowledge, and those who hold fast to the Mysteries of Wonder ...

4Q301 F2

But what good is this Mashal (riddle) to you, you who search for the origins of Hidden Knowledge? Who among you seeks the presence of Light and Illumination without the Help of the Angels to guide him…?

1Q27 col 1

In that Day, the world will be made firm and all the adherents of the secrets of sin shall be no more. True Knowledge of the Most High shall fill the world and there will never be any more ignorance ...

4Q299 F2 (+ 4Q300 F5) Col 2

What shall we call man who wishes to be called wise or righteous, for it is not a human possession for the Wisdom of the Holy One is hidden except for the Wisdom of cunning evil & the schemes of Belial …

So listen, you who hold fast to the wonderful Knowledge of the Secrets of Eternity , and the reasons behind every deed, & the hidden purpose of Heaven ...

4Q286-287

I acknowledge the seat of Your Honor and the footstools of the feet of Your Glory,and all [Your] Secrets, and the Foundations of fire, flames of Your lamp and the Secret Wisdom and image of Knowledge and Fountain of Understanding, Fountain of Discovery & the Counsel of Holiness and Secret Truths & the treasure house of Understanding ...

These passages were copied c. 150 BCE – sound kind of Gnostic don' they? And this is 300 years before Valentinus !

Originally posted by lonewolf19792000

Originally posted by Osiris1953
reply to post by retirednature

 

I've always found the idea of the Gospel of Judas. To me it's always seemed to be a more plausible story. Thank for the thread, I'm glad you posted this.

Wouldn't believe anything Judas supposedly wrote, besides he hanged himself right after his betrayal. Jesus also said it would be better for him if he had never been born. Not going to be real nice whats coming for him at the end.

reply to post by retirednature


[sorry if im double posting]

but 'news' like this hurts my eyes
such Nonsense

ask yourself: whý they serve sh** like this..?

and They do it very smartly:
they stress the point that ' this gospel was confirmed to be old ' , because of egyptian records

so what?
that its "old ", has nothing to do with the false texts it holds.

Its more then gnostic - its develish.
because it wants to excuse judas - and glue satan to be the 4th of the trinity.

Jung did the same
after three weeks being locked in a dark room
and got there his ' revelations' .

Same trick, this.

I wouldn't believe anything the holy roman empire has gotten its hands on, they completely stripped spirituality, of metaphysics/science/math, and what you are left with is religion which is not the way of the spirit.....remember these people at the Vatican are the same sect that told people they had to pay money in order to be blessed, and the same hypocrites that locked books away, even though their religion says its a sin to keep the word of god from people.....

Their excuse, is that its too controversial.....Not to life it isn't, the only turmoil it would bring, is an end to centuries of lies.


Similar to these new scientific theries. They aren't knew, everytime I read some type of new way to look at the universe....I've already read a more in depth description of the theory in the Gitas, gnostic bible, torah, ect......

What makes the gnostic bible devilish, Im only looking for your point of view I'm not criticizing. I might be missing something?

Originally posted by Akragon
reply to post by adjensen

 

There is nothing in the New Testament that can be reconciled with the teachings of the Gnostics, because they are two completely disparate theologies, utterly incompatible without significantly distorting one or the other.

Nothing?!?

How can you possibly say that?

Well, they both agree that someone named Jesus existed at one time

Especially since you above most people know Thomas complies with the gospels on so many issues... not even mentioning other texts...?

As I said, Thomas is not an exclusively Gnostic text, so there is obviously overlap.

My point, quoted up there, is that the Jesus of the New Testament is not compatible with the Jesus of Gnostic teaching.

Perhaps we should convene an ATS research team to go through Thomas, line by line, in an attempt to discern what's what.

Excellent idea!!

As a matter of fact I just might do that very thing... if no one else bothers...

If you want me to, I can pitch the idea to one of the mods in the Research Forum and see if they'll host it.

reply to post by Sigismundus


Thanks for the well researched information. However, I never said that Gnosticism was created by Valentinus -- it is well known to have existed hundreds of years before Christ was born. It was, in effect, the religious aspect of Platonism. What Valentinus created was Christian Gnosticism, and the mythos that inserted Jesus in as the Bringer of Gnosis.

In addition, the Essenes were definitely not Gnostics -- they put observant Jews to shame in their devotion to the Law. Yes, there's some overlap with their asceticism, but it was for different reasons.

reply to post by adjensen

Well, they both agree that someone named Jesus existed at one time

You can do better then that... your bias is showing...

As I said, Thomas is not an exclusively Gnostic text, so there is obviously overlap.

My point, quoted up there, is that the Jesus of the New Testament is not compatible with the Jesus of Gnostic teaching.

I disagree... I've found they're quite compatible, but if one reads Thomas or the Gospels with Pre-existing beliefs things tend to be skewed a bit...

If you want me to, I can pitch the idea to one of the mods in the Research Forum and see if they'll host it.

Feel free, I was actually halfway through making a thread for that purpose, and I accidentally hit the Page back button somehow :bnghd:

I will make another attempt though.... I F***kin Hate windows 8 sometimes...

it is well known to have existed hundreds of years before Christ was born.

Do you know of any Gnostic texts in existence from before Jesus?

I don't think I do....

Originally posted by Akragon

If you want me to, I can pitch the idea to one of the mods in the Research Forum and see if they'll host it.

Feel free, I was actually halfway through making a thread for that purpose, and I accidentally hit the Page back button somehow :bnghd:

I will make another attempt though...

No, if you want to do it, feel free. No sense in duplicating efforts.

it is well known to have existed hundreds of years before Christ was born.

Do you know of any Gnostic texts in existence from before Jesus?

How about The Corpus Hermeticum and Hermetic Tradition?

The Hermetic tradition represents a non-Christian lineage of Hellenistic Gnosticism. The tradition and its writings date to at least the first century B.C.E., and the texts we possess were all written prior to the second century C.E. The surviving writings of the tradition, known as the Corpus Hermeticum (the "Hermetic body of writings") were lost to the Latin West after classical times, but survived in eastern Byzantine libraries.

reply to post by adjensen

Hi again, Adjensen--

You wrote, QUOTE

"I never said that Gnosticism was created by Valentinus -- it is well known to have existed hundreds of years before Christ was born. It was, in effect, the religious aspect of Platonism. What Valentinus created was Christian Gnosticism, and the mythos that inserted Jesus in as the Bringer of Gnosis.

In addition, the Essenes were definitely not Gnostics -- they put observant Jews to shame in their devotion to the Law. Yes, there's some overlap with their asceticism, but it was for different reasons..."

UNQUOTE

I think here too the Teacher of Righteousness (c. BCE 190 to c. BCE 104) who was depicted in the Scrolls as the Central Keeper of Hidden Gnosis (i.e. Divine Knowledge & Revelation) among the Dead Sea Covenanters at Qumran might bear comparison with the Gnostic Iesous of the (non Pauline) i.e. Sethian Christians

This group of 'Gnostics' (a true definition of the term is still being debated by scholars to-day) were competing for converts for at least 300 years in parallel with what became considered to be ‘orthodox’ Pauline Christianity i.e. the form of Christianities allowed by persons such as Iraneaus and his followers

Whereas non Pauline 'Nazorean' Christianity e.g. an originally Aramaic speaking group such as the Evionim (‘the Poor Ones’) founded by Yakkov ('James') the brother of ho Iesous being marginalized & reduced in numbers following the Failed 1st Jewish War against Rome and the concomitant destruction of Jerusalem in c. 70 CE).

You refer to the Dead Sea Covenanters as 'Essenes’ but this group of Zadokite priestly Temple-secessionists called themselves by as many as 22 different epithets & titles in their writings, including the Sons of Zadok (i.e Zadokkim, or ‘Saduccees’), The Sons of Light, The Followers of the Way, The Men of the Plantation of Righteousness &tc. –but only rarely referred to themselves as ‘ossim’ (‘doers’ of the Law, Gk Essenoi)

Howbeit, when one takes a very close look at the Scrolls, one can see that the image of the Gnosis-Figure of the Teacher of Righteousness was in many ways the exemplar for the canonical Gospel ‘teacher’ ho Iesous, even down to a belief in personal Salvation soley by Faith in the Teacher – a theological outlook clearly foreshadowed in the Habakkuk Pesher

(see the 1Q Pesh Hab 2:4)

"And the righteous shall live by his faith" Interpreted, this concerns all the ‘ossim [‘doers’] of the law in the house of Judah, whom EL will save from the house of Judgment because of their toil and their Faith in the Teacher of Righteousness" (1Qp Hab. 8:1–3).

The text continues:

“For EL commanded Habakkuk to write the things that were coming upon the last Generation," but did not inform him when the epoch would be fulfilled. And as for the words, "so he may run who reads it," interpreted, this concerns the Teacher of Righteousness, to whom EL made known "all the Mysteries of the words of His servant the Prophets" (1Qp Hab. 7:1–5).

That is, the very words of the prophets remained mysteries (razim), even to the prophets themselves, until the interpretation (pesher) was revealed to the Teacher; after that, the Mysteries were revealed as Divine Knowledge i.e. Gnosis

The assumption behind the Dead Sea Scroll entitled 'The Scroll of the Book of Mysteries' (haSefer Razim aka ‘Book of Divine Secrets’) is that Divine Revelation, and not Faith or reason, is the key to Wisdom

(See 1Q27 and 4Q299, 4Q300 and 4Q301) and this is also the assumption behind the figure of ho Iesous in the later ‘Christian’ Gnostic Gospel tradition, against which Saul of Tarsus and the 'salvation by faith alone' Paulinists reacted so violently

The 'Book of Mysteries' throughout rails against those who do not live righteously (shades of the Coptic Gospel of Judas !) according to the view of the author who warns of the false knowledge of magicians, and the wrath of YHWH upon all ‘the sinful ones’ in the last Days etc..

It especially warns against the fate of those who do not understand or recognize the Divine Mysteries...

(e.g. “But they did not know the dark Secret of the way things are - nor did they understand the Mysteries of old, and thus they could not know what would come upon them, so they were not able to rescue themselves by means of the Secret of the way things are..”

When comparing Gnostic works such as 'On the Origin of the World' to much of the Dead Sea Scrolls Corpus and read alongside other Jewish Pseudepigrapha (The Book of the Words of Henoch, The Book of the Divisions of the Times into their Jubilees and Weeks, the Wisdom of Solomon, the Sybilline Oracles, etc. one is struck by the great linkages between the Dead Sea Scroll's Sapiental works and much of the Nag Hammadi Gnostic Library discovered in 1945 which echoes so many ideas outlined in the 'Coptic' version of the Gospel of Judas.

isn't the metaphorical story of pistis Sophia part of the gnostic teachings? Id like to volley a few ideals with anyone who has read into pistis Sophia, the upper and lower aeons, matter manifesting from the invisible, to the visible by lowering vibration frequency.

I don't read the gnostic txts and visualize primitive beings creating the universe, our minds couldn't comprehend the upper authorities level of awareness, however science shows me its possible with the explanation of the 5th special dimension(not time). Where all possibilities happen simultaneously but some how some way, it is filtered down through the dimensions, and stopping at our 3 dimensional level of awareness.

Originally posted by Sigismundus
I think here too the Teacher of Righteousness (c. BCE 190 to c. BCE 104) who was depicted in the Scrolls as the Central Keeper of Hidden Gnosis (i.e. Divine Knowledge & Revelation) among the Dead Sea Covenanters at Qumran might bear comparison with the Gnostic Iesous of the (non Pauline) i.e. Sethian Christians

I have heard similar claims in the past, though I've even heard that the Teacher of Righteousness was a prior incantation of Christ -- speculation knows no bounds, I guess.

However, I'll be the first to admit that I am no expert on the subject of the Dead Sea Scroll and the Essenes. It never interested me all that much, so I'll bow to your clearly superior knowledge.

This group of 'Gnostics' (a true definition of the term is still being debated by scholars to-day) were competing for converts for at least 300 years in parallel with what became considered to be ‘orthodox’ Pauline Christianity i.e. the form of Christianities allowed by persons such as Iraneaus and his followers

My understanding is that the Essenes had little to no interest in converting anyone. Combined with their asceticism, that may explain their demise.

Originally posted by STARTRUTH49

Originally posted by Cancerwarrior
reply to post by retirednature

 

I always found almost all of the Gnostic gospels to be more in line with the teachings of christ and his follower than what the church likes to portray. The gospel of Judas , Mary, and especially the Gospel of Thomas (which scholars believe is even older than the 4 new testament gospels and therefore probably more accurate.) all of these books Jesus talks about things like how we are all sons and daughters of God, how we all possess Gods will and favor and how the real church of God is within and how God does not need money.

I can imagine the church did not want people hearing things like this since they depended on people having to go to church every sunday to be absolved of their sins and put money in the basket. Thats why out of the 30 gospels so far known only 4 (that were spun as alot more churchy) made it to the christian canon.

Now that's the truth, its replies like this that allow others to see that there is another side to the truth and that is the truth. .

I thought religion was supposed to make us god conscious or at least show us how to find our source or at least to allow us to discover who we really are.... has this happened

The good book says we are one like them, the gods...so what has stopped humanity from advancing into higher consciousness so that he can know the truth for him / herself

The way of religion will never make us God conscious, religion and enlightenment is a contradiction. Religion is about the way man believes he should give praise, or live life, by a filtered set of emotions.

The way of the spirit is the only way to god consciousness. religion came from spirituality, not the other way around.

Not Jesus, Abraham, Isaac, ect, stated a religion was the way to the light. Only the way of the spirit. Its said in every gospel, there is only 1 path. The way of the spirit, which is more similar to the Gitas.

Originally posted by LastStarfighter
This story has been brought up a lot over the past decade in pop culture. It comes down to faith, if you beleive in the bible and whether the books that were included were because of divine inspiration and the books that were left out was for the same reason.

If Jesus is God, then he knew everything that would happen to him. So regardless of whether you beleive the book of Judas or not, I say Jesus has to have pre-knowledge of what Judas would do, as he did with everything else. This doesn't imply any nefariousness to me.

It seems only the varients of the king James version have this confusion of Jesus being the God, he is not and he said he's not....The Lord, and The Lord God are not the same.....God lives within the dimension of the Lord.

Imagine we were in the 9th special dimension and viewed the Lord, Looking into his face, or Eyes holds the 10th dimension of the zodiacs, and the Lord God.....

I think I got it right, I have to research this again.

Originally posted by FreshPrintz89

Originally posted by LastStarfighter
This story has been brought up a lot over the past decade in pop culture. It comes down to faith, if you beleive in the bible and whether the books that were included were because of divine inspiration and the books that were left out was for the same reason.

If Jesus is God, then he knew everything that would happen to him. So regardless of whether you beleive the book of Judas or not, I say Jesus has to have pre-knowledge of what Judas would do, as he did with everything else. This doesn't imply any nefariousness to me.

It seems only the varients of the king James version have this confusion of Jesus being the God, he is not and he said he's not....The Lord, and The Lord God are not the same.....God lives within the dimension of the Lord.

Imagine we were in the 9th special dimension and viewed the Lord, Looking into his face, or Eyes holds the 10th dimension of the zodiacs, and the Lord God.....

I think I got it right, I have to research this again.

Sorry I missed your last sentence, I know that Jesus knew, he was connected with the universal consciousness, His ability to open the book of life, is like stepping out of the bounds of the universe, and viewing all events layed out, not animated, but points of light, depicting everything that is, and will be, like a huge hieroglyph.

reply to post by retirednature


It wasnt silver but it was his heart, a man who wants better for his people will often use God to smite down his enemies and in the same way he wanted Jesus to punish them. The pharasee was planning awhile already to kill Jesus.

reply to post by Miracula


Why do you keep referencing Jesus with Sandusky when Mohammed was the pedo? Think you're getting your prophets confused