this unusual fragment
Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson, a long work by the mystic G, I. Gurdjieff, which covers a wide range of topics, presents Judas in accordance with his depiction in the Gospel of Judas.
: Reading Judas by Elaine Pagels and Karen L, King
This work is divided into two parts, one by each author, The second part, by Dr, King, is a translation of the Gospel of Judas with important notes to the translation, The first part is Dr, Pagels essay on reading the Gospel of Judas,
The Gospel of Judas is a second century work falsely ascribed to the infamous Judas Iscariot in order to gain acceptance of the work, just as the Epistle to the Hebrews was falsely ascribed to Paul, as well as all of the four canonical gospels were falsely ascribed to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, all for the same reason, to promote acceptance.
Stop and think. If the gospel was ascribed to Judas Iscariot in order to promote its acceptance, clearly, a number of Christians did not subscribe to the purported facts expressed in the canonical gospels that Judas was a fiend who betrayed his friend Jesus for thirty pieces of silver.
The essay points out, both by references to other writings and by specific references to the Gospel of Judas, that the origins of Christianity are very diverse.
The “modern” history of Christianity is not at all like the “received” history, accepted by most who do not care enough about the subject to learn about it.
The history of the beginnings of Christianity was written by the winners of the divergent views of Christianity, which is to be expected.
History today, however, has evolved into a science, rather than a victory celebration or propaganda, and now we know better.
The Gospel of Judas, one of perhaps twenty gospels, illustrates one of the many Christianities which competed with brands which became labeled “orthodox,” and which ultimately came out on top, thanks to the Roman congregation having the notice of the Roman Emperor.
This selfdescribed “orthodox” Roman congregation evolved, under the patronage of Roman Emperors, into the Roman Catholic Church, It, like Rabbinic Judaism, has spent succeeding centuries writing histories which lead readers to believe that their views were always the correct/true/orthodox positions, and that all other positions were consciously sinful apostasies, not history.
The Gospel of Judas, contrary to the “canonical” gospels promoted by the Roman church and its orthodox allies, depicts Jesus deriding the Peter and the Twelve, labeling them as sinfully unknowing and believing in the wrong god, a material god.
The gospel maintains that the twelve Apostles are rabidly mistaken in their core beliefs, especially about the resurrection of the body and the cult of martyrdom: both are to be rejected.
Among them, only Judas, by reason of special instruction from Jesus, knows the truth, that the human bodyand all materialare alien to the one, holy, spiritual God.
Judas must surrender Jesus to the Romans in order that Gods plan may be understood and fulfilled in the spiritual generation.
For this knowledge, Judas will be stoned to death by the Apostles, But this, too, is necessary, so that he, like Jesus, can ascend to the one, true, spiritual God,
Pagels competently illustrates one of a variety of beliefs among the early Christians, but not the variety, for the number and kind of beliefs are so diverse that she cannot accomplish her task in one hundred pages, given her methodology of careful, specific citations.
And, while the Gospel of Judas illustrates her points in many ways, the document itself is so defectivemissing letters, words and pagesthat the general reader probably will have difficulty appreciating the document.
This is a good book, but probably not the place for the general reader to start looking for the history of the church.
Of course, it would be valuable to students of the subject,
Mr. Graziano is the author of From the Cross to the Church: the Emergence of the Church from the Chaos of the Crucifixion.
I'm a fan of Elaine Pagels, Her approach to Biblical scholarship and unraveling historic conundrums makes sense and is easy for me to follow,
I enjoyed this collaboration because of the cross references to other texts from early Christianity, The background laying out some of the conflicts in the early church is thought provoking,
As often happens, the original Coptic text had been damaged over the centuries, The translation of it is easy to read, The end notes on the translation are a valuable source of further information, The antiwar Gospel
That's the message of these two scholars of early Christianity in their reading of the Gospel of Judas, of which only tattered fragments remain after a greedy dealer kept it in his freezer for years while angling for a huge sale.
An incredible restoration effort has salvaged a healthy amount of the original text, dating probably from the second century CE.
The translation provided here runsvery short pages, and notes various gaps of missing material of three lines,lines,lines, and so on, as well as an occasional "untranslatable" passage.
The two authors focus on a possible disagreement over martyrdom reflected in the fragments of this gospel, Its sect may have differed from other early Christian groups over whether martyrdom was ever to be the price of faith, and whether it was unnecessarily encouraged by church fathers of the time.
On the most basic storyline level, this gospel presents Judas as the hero of the Passion, and shows Jesus scorning and mocking all his other disciples in favor of Judas, who was actually doing Christ's bidding.
The Gospel of Judas was unveiled by the National Geographic Society in, and this book was copyrighted in.
Those dates are more significant than they may first look, because the controversy then raging at full blast over the U.
S. led coalition's occupation of Iraq seems to run through much of these authors' analysis,
That was the worst period of the Iraqi occupation, with relatively high casualties and much pain and disorder and doubt.
It is hard not to hear the fear and concern in the authors' introduction, for example, when they write: "As the age of martyrdom closed with the conversion of Constantine, stories glorifying the martyrs came to dominate the history of Christian origins, providing spiritual heroes for the new imperial church.
The Gospel of Judas restores to us one voice of dissent, a call for religion to renounce violence as God's will and purpose for humanity.
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Am I overreading Given all the critical comments being made at the same time about thenPresident Bush's personal religiosity and other poppsychologizing, I don't think so.
Especially since similar notes recur periodically in their writing, as though one or both authors saw in this text a lesson for U.
S. policies and had to throw out hints for their readers to understand, As it happened, happily, the casualties in Iraq were just about to experience a wonderfully rapid decline, while the political situation was slowly improving the second free general election in Iraq was just held as I was finishing reading this book.
The authors' passions also target the
early church with a hostility and bitterness that surprised me on first reading a tone I had not encountered in previous books by coauthor Elaine Pagels.
Pagels can be critical but is never bitter, So, is it from Karen King I haven't read anything else of hers, so have no idea, But, to make their case for this strange gospel, they fall into the trap of making allowances for every wacky turn in the text, explaining them away as they show great sympathy for its original author and followers while excoriating early church fathers like Irenaeus, the bishop of Lyons, who analyzed it and many other texts and found them essentially bizarre tangents for cults who were losing the way of Jesus, in his eyes.
And, I suspect, in those of most readers of the actual text here, The differences from the biographies of the synoptic gospels are so vast, it seems hard for anyone to imagine this as anything but what Irenaeus recognized at the time.
Still, that said, it provides another window into the dynamism, ferment, drama and excitement of those first two centuries starting with the overlapping lives of Octavian/Augustus and Jesus of Nazareth two more polaropposite lives could hardly be imagined, which makes the eventual crossing of their legacies so fascinating.
This and all the manuscripts that have been discovered over the last century or so are making those times much more vivid to us, and encouraging some of the most exciting scholarship going on today.
If this particular effort is more miss than hit, well, that comes with the territory, The ideas the authors present in their reading are worthy of consideration and testing against the manuscript itself, I gave only two because of my doubts, but it is still a book worth reading for those with an interest in the ongoing discoveries of how Christianity developed from those little journeys around the hills of Galilee and Judea.
The two leading, bestselling experts on the Gnostic Gospels weigh in on the meaning of the controversial newly discovered Gospel of Judas.
When the Gospel of Judas was published by the National Geographic Society in April, it received extraordinary media attention and was immediately heralded as a major biblical discovery that rocked the world of scholars and laypeople alike.
Elaine Pagels and Karen King are the first to reflect on this newfound text and its ramifications for telling the story of early Christianity.
In Reading Judas, the two celebrated scholars illustrate how the newly discovered text provides a window onto understanding how Jesus' followers understood his death, why Judas betrayed Jesus, and why God allowed it.
Most contemporary readers will find passages in the ancient Gospel of Judas difficult to comprehend outside of its context in the ancient world.
Reading Judas illuminates the intellectual assumptions behind Jesus' teaching to Judas and shows how conflict among the disciples was a tool frequently used by early Christian authors to explore matters of doubt and disagreement.
Presented with the elegance, insight, and accessibility that has made Pagels and King the leading voices in this field, this is a book for academics and popular audience both.
Pagels's five previous books, including The New York Times bestseller Beyond Belief, and King's The Gospel of Mary of Magdala prove that there is a considerable audience eager for this kind of informed and engaging writing.
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