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Archive 1

Old discussions

[The first FAC failed because the subject of the article is too much of a current event. It therefore probably should be relisted in a "while"] Clinkophonist 17:43, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Fascinating. Thank you Wetman. - Mustafaa 23:35, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

There's skullduggery,the black-market for antiquities, shady dealings and "lost" texts all involved in this weird tale: stay tuned! --Wetman 17:34, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)

This quote is false: "In AD 367, the bishop of Alexandria did urge Christians to “cleanse the church from every defilement” and to reject “the hidden books.”[21] It is possible that, in response to letters such as this one, some Christians destroyed non-canonical gospels." Those quotes are not known to Google, and are not found in the festal epistles: http://www.archive.org/stream/festalepistlesof38atha/festalepistlesof38atha_djvu.txt —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.127.214.83 (talk) 02:12, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

I would very strongly suggest that the opening paragraph should contain only most basic factual information about the document. Claims that "portrayal of Judas offered by this gospel is more full and positive" are not scholarly at all.

Scholarly study of the Gospel of Judas is not about "what it tells us new about Judas" but "what it tells us new about those who produced this document."

Therefore such guffs about whether Judas was "possessed by demon" or whether "he was fooled" are utter nonsense from the historical-critical perspective and do not belong to the opening section of the article - their place should be under heading "Gospel of Judas in popular naive speculations" or something in this manner. --Goldfinch 02:20, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Not only that - the article is filled with illiterate clunkers like this line: "Christ played to certain rules which he had to stay in tune with at a personal level." That line is so asinine and meaningless I'm thinking of making it into an ironic t-shirt design. Someone needs to sit down with this article and edit it for style, because now it alternates between acceptable and atrocious. Preferably a subject-matter expert, which I definitely am not. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.22.144.96 (talk) 14:56, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Possible Christian usage?

I moved this text here: "A Judas Testament, on the other hand, is a pejorative term refering to a hypothetical and apocryphal gospel written by any disciple of Jesus or Jesus himself that would severely call into question the historicity of the words and acts attributed to Jesus in the New Testament and create great dismay amongst most devout Christians."

Can we get some context for this highly unusual usage, which is unknown to most Christians? a quote? an external link? anything? --Wetman 17:34, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)

It appears that was moved to Judas Testament. Шизомби 18:54, 6 April 2006 (UTC)


This article (on the Gospel of Judas) is obviously written by a right-wing, "Christian," dogma-pusher whose "erudite" tone cannot conceal the writer's bias. (anon)


Is that an insult now? "Erudite"? (anon)

He was being sarcastic, calling into question the author's level of sophiscation. -KriticKill —Preceding unsigned comment added by KriticKill (talk • contribs) 21:34, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Hang On folks!

I've never seen an article move this fast, and not a single fight has broken out (..... yet). Guess giving obscure items noteworthy attention in the news stimulates interest, and makes for civil community cooperation. Hang on folks, I think we may be in for a very exciting (and enjoyable) ride with this one. This is an example of Wikipedia at its best.

LinuxDude 20:08, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
I know! This could be huge, like Da Vinci Code huge, and we can be at the forefront of it! bd2412 T 20:18, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

A "HANG On folks" section in the discussion of an article about Judas? This shows promise. Jsminch 05:58, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

You guys are making the mistake of thinking that this is a Christian text and thereby associating it with Christianity. The Gospel of Judas is not, repeat NOT, a Christian book. It is a work of Gnosticism, particularly Sethian. Knowing Gnosticism, the average Christian, as would the average Gnostic of any school or sect, would distance each other from its counterpart. While the two do share some similarities and figures such as Christ, and the Old Testament entity commonly referred to as God or Jehovah, they are not, repeat NOT, to be confused with each other in the sense that Gnosticism of any school is a sub-branch or sect of Christianity. -KriticKill

untrue.. gnostiscs hold firm that christ was the first gnostic son in heaven. and that the strict religion known as christianity which is a religion filled with hypocracy knows absolutely nothing aboout christ. that is to say they havent sent the right message to their congregation according to interpreting the hidden message of christ. if you ever read the words attributed to christ. youll know that he saved the meaning of his message to make people think. he would interpret his own parables for people to understand because often times the would be lost. davidisknowledge —Preceding unsigned comment added by Davidisknowledge (talk • contribs) 00:09, 14 December 2008 (UTC)


Anyone want to add this to the main page (you add it)? There is a freely downloadable audio text recital available at http://www.archive.org/details/gospelofjudas & also on bittorent, where the narrator Peter O'toole is available at http://www.aestheteka.com/

  • Also Noteworthy is that the Gospel of Judas is mentioned on the Torah Bible Code Matrix Prophecies as satanic lies. A search in the Torah Code prophesies produces this:

1. He understood from the Gospel of Judas, a fake (foe) of men (Judas possessed, superceded).
2. And it lied/deceived, Gospel of Judas, Variety of mixture they kneaded: Satan/Adversary.
Bible Code Links:
http://www.exodus2006.com/fab/Judas1.htm
http://www.exodus2006.com/fab/Judas2.htm

Sirmikey1 (talk) 02:17, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

More subdivision

Some additional sub-subheaders dividing up that big blocky "Rediscovery" section would be nice - may require moving some things around. bd2412 T 20:22, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Text available?

We are constantly hearing more about this text becoming available, it is in CNN news as having been dated to AD 300 (http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/science/04/06/gospel.judas.ap/index.html). Is this text available now? Or has it not been translated yet? This info should be in the article.

I agree. Both the translation, and the codex were made available today (6 April 06), which may be why this article is progressing quickly. LinuxDude 20:59, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
What is this? I found it in a link about the Gospel: Link Piepants 03:30, 8 April 2006 (UTC)Piepants

Word count?

Out of those 26 pages or more, how many words have been counted up?

Do some pages contain significantly more words crammed into them than other pages? What was the average number of words per page?

Like many of the other people here, I too saw those pictures on television, and it sure looked like some of those pages were pretty patchy, with holes here and there, riddled throughout. The main article would be improved considerably if some base numbers were used for comparison purposes, and the total word counts of the Judas Gospel were compared to those of the other more traditional gospels.

Physical size?

What is the typical size of a page? Can the physical size - whatever it is - be given in terms of millimeters, or fractions of an inch? Are the corners missing, as I would imagine to be the case?

Other relevant books etc.

Check out e.g. http://www.amazon.com/gp/search/ref=br_ss_hs/104-2879111-5483921?search-alias=aps&keywords=gospel%20of%20judas ...looks like there might be some other things worth adding to the article. A "search inside this book" search [1] might be worthwhile too. I don't have time at the moment. Шизомби 21:34, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Stumbled across these: http://ds009.xs4all.nl/artnews/judastotal.htm http://ds009.xs4all.nl/artnews/parooltrans6-7.htm Lots of scans, not sure how reliable it is. Шизомби 23:52, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Publication Date?

Currently, publication is expected for March 2006, accompanied by a possible television special. seems a bit dated now. Either we need to put in the publication date (if it has been), or change it to "was expected" or something. Aaronwinborn 22:43, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Agree: If any-one knows definitely that the publication(s) has (have) taken place, that person should change this wording, which seems to be contraditicted by the paragraph following it. Kdammers 12:02, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
As I understand it, it's in at least one of the Nat'l Geographic books, and their website says they're out now. Шизомби 13:42, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Irenaeus picture

Aside from his brief mention in the beginning, I'm not sure what makes the picture of Iranaeus relevant to the article. If there's no objections I'd like to remove it. Gnosis1185 23:43, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Gospel of James

The Wik article on the Gospel of James mentions what seems to be the Gospel of Judas as being contained in GoJ (but this obviously is not likely so, considering the stir the GoK is causing). Could some-one please clarify this and bring the two articles into easily understood accord" Kdammers 12:02, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

One of the articles on Yahoo! news I'd seen said that the codex had three parts, and two of them were already known in some form. Trying to find it now. Шизомби 13:43, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
OK, this isn't the one I saw, but it says about the same thing:
"The codex, or manuscript, which had deteriorated into about 1,000 fragments, contains the only known surviving Gospel of Judas as well as the Epistle of Peter to Philip, the First Apocalypse of James and a fragment of a fourth text, yet to be titled." Allen, Paul L. "UA team verifies age of Gospel of Judas gospel biblical text" Tucson Citizen April 7, 2006 Шизомби 13:48, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
The above conflicts with what is in the article "The Codex has three parts: an Epistle to Philip that is ascribed to Peter (a variant is in the Nag Hammadi collection), the Revelation of Jacob (also known from Nag Hammadi), and the Gospel of Judas." What's the source for that? Hmm, I see now the RoJ redirects to FAoJ, but the RoJ name isn't mentioned in the article - that's something that needs attention. But it still remains as to why one place says four parts and another says three. Шизомби 21:19, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
"Apocalypse" is Greek for "revelation"; they're equivalent. For example, the last book of the NT is called either the Revelation or the Apocalypse depending on the preference of the speaker, although the latter was the original title as it was written in Greek.
The article should follow sources actually available in describing the codex, IMO. TCC (talk) (contribs) 21:24, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
I agree, that's why I wondered where the reference that it had just three parts came from. I'll accept that Apocalypse=Revelation (something that could be added to the First Apocalypse of James article preferably with the Greek word itself, but is James=Jacob? Шизомби 21:39, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
Sorry, I missed that part of the confusion. Yes, it is. The name came into English by two etymological paths, one more directly from the Hebrew "Ya'akov" or perhaps via Greek "Iakovos", and the other through late Latin "Jacomus". ("J" formerly had the same value in English as in German.) So most English Bibles use "Jacob" in the OT and "James" in the NT, but they're both the same in origin. (See, for example, the confusion over what to call this saint in English: [2]. His name's day was for one of the NT Jameses, but he was, of course, always called "Yakov" during his lifetime.) TCC (talk) (contribs) 21:46, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Korak

Who is Korak (besides the son of Tarzan)? Шизомби 15:35, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

In addition to being the son of Tarzan, Korak is the same as Korah, son of Aholibamah, wife of Esau. You can find mention of Korah (Korak) in Gen 36:5,14,16,18 Exo 6:21,23 and other spots. In some older versions of the Bible, and modern Eastern European Versions of the Bible Korah, is translated as "Korak".
What was his claim to fame? He was the son of the man hated by God. [Mal 1:3] In addition to being related to Esau, he was also considered a legendary fighter in Canaan (against Jacob's kin)? And I believe that the dead sea scrolls have revealed a bit more about him than the Bible does, but don't quote me on this last bit.
LinuxDude 18:05, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Corporate Propheteering

The National Geographic Channel is aired on Fox Cables, part of NewsCorporation.

Type in "Gospel of Judas" in google search box, the first page has a paid sponsored link by HarperCollins, also a part of NewsCorporation, promoting a book they're selling on the $ubject.

The Holy Bible (as/is) needs no compliment in addition to gospels therein. Is our love and loyalty to Jesus not rooted in what we've already been blessed with in scripture.

User: Dean1970, April07, 2006

Uh, the books that are included in the Bible were included for political reasons. To claim that they have some kind of mystical importance that is lacked by any other books from the same time periods displays an ignorance of Christian theological history. As for corporate profiteering - what does that have to do with the veracity or importance of a document made at the latest in 300 AD? Is NewsCorp's reach so long-armed that they control primitive Christian theologians from 1700 years ago? Joey 20:12, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps you are correct. If you are a Christian, it is reasonable to hold that The Holy Bible does not need a compliment including the "Gospel of Judas". I am not quite sure why you felt the need to post this here however. This article is not about a Christian text, for the church's rejection of it is clearly documented. The use of the word Gospel is also legitimate since Christian believers and non-believers alike recognize that just because something is called “Gospel”, does mean it is canonized to a particular denomination. In fact Catholic Christians recognize books as canonized Gospels that Protestant Christians do not (see Apocrypha). Since the point of Wikipedia is to convey knowledge not belief, there is nothing wrong with this article, since it does so far convey a neutral point of view. Furthermore, I hope that your comments do not imply that somehow your own personal faith is threatened, since there is nothing “Anti-Christian” in what has been written.
One's love and loyalty to Jesus should be rooted in what's already been recorded in scripture, however one's love and loyalty to the process of the canonization of Christian Bibles, or one's love and loyalty to knowledge about historical things, should be rooted in what ever documentation exists that preserves evidence of ideas, including documents once rejected by faith based orthodoxies.

LinuxDude 20:12, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Actually, the "gospels" to which LinuxDude is referring are not gospels. All churches (that I know of, given my somewhat limited knowledge) have recognized four gospels. "Gospels" (at least in this context) are writings which tell the story of the life of Jesus of Nazareth. By contrast, the Apocrypha contains only writings from the pre-Christian era. I think that's what LinuxDude is referring to.Drkeithphd 02:12, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
I think LinuxDude confused the "apocryphal" books of the OT with the apocryphal gospels. The OT books are apocryphal only to Protestants; Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, and Oriental Orthodox accept various of them as canonical -- although occasionally labelling them "deuterocanonical". The apocryphal gospels, such as the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, are accepted by no one. (They actually read a bit like "Jesus fanfic"). TCC (talk) (contribs) 02:22, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
Ok - you guys are going to keep me honest here :) . Thanks Wikipedians! You are correct that I should NOT have spoken about the apocryphal books as 'Gospels', since they are not so denoted. I was, as you noticed, referring to the apocrypha and they have not been or ever denoted 'Gospels'. However, my point stands that there are pseudepigraphical Gospels that have not been Canonized. Although I made reference the apocrypha my point was that because something is denoted as 'extra-Biblical' or carries the name "Gospel" doesn't in anyway imply 'canonized text' or for that matter non-canonized text.

Didn't James Robinson attempt to purchase the Gospel of Judas himself, unsuccessfully, and part of his current criticism just sourgrapes?

I can appreciate that people are sensitive about their faiths and their sacred texts, but I was trying to show our friend above that this article should not be taken as implying the Holy Bible needs amplification.
LinuxDude 15:22, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

*snicker*

"James M. Robinson, one of America's leading experts of such ancient religious texts, predicted that the new book would not offer any insights to the disciple who betrayed Jesus because, though the document is old, being from the third century, the text is not old enough. According to Robinson, it was probably based on an earlier document."

LOL

You mean....sort of like...the rest of the Bible? -- DigiFluid

:)

Point taken. <opinion>Personally, I think the point Mr. Robinson was trying to make was that though this, our only version, of the Gospel of Judas is only dated to the third century, that criticism that it is not authoritive (due to its lack of age) should not be taken too seriously because the content must be older than the text itself (according to the implication). Or another way of looking at it- is that it may not carry value with respect to Christians, however it has intrinsic value (for Agnostics, scholars and others). If you look at other work by Mr. Robinson, you will see that he is very influenced by Gnosticism, and has written about the Nag Hammadi Library ISBN 0-06-066934-9. He has a vested interest in both disassociating the Gospel of Judas with mainstream Christianity and finding “ancient value” in it otherwise.</opinion>

LinuxDude 20:43, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
It should be noted that many scholars like Robinson ALSO consider the gospel of John to be too young and derivative to really tell us anything useful about the period it describes (and John is a little older than Judas). Usually, the best scholarly approximation of the times of Jesus comes from Mark and a reconstruction of Q. Matthew and Luke are not quite as reliable as those, but probably moreso than John. At least, that's my impression after reading some on this. --Daniel 13:06, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

The assumption that vatican has copies.

Pure speculation.We talking about the period of canonization and "heresy". People got burned with their books,do you think Roman Empire in 3rd century would tolerate "heretics". The document is ghostic,it doesn't fit the christian dogma.What reason on earth have they to archive this?

That part should be referred as allegations of possible copies available in Vatican.And this is related to Vatican pornography conspiracy yet?

Hey, I smell an article: Vatican Pornography Conspiracy! ;-) Шизомби 21:41, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
I am so tempted to run with this... TCC (talk) (contribs) 04:22, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

The claim that the Vatican is notorious for intentionally not cataloging its archives? What kind of drivel is that? This article needs some serious NPOV cleaning. It reaks of the old "OMG! We found an old text, we hype it, misinterpret it (on purpose), and try to sound like we're shaking everything up" ploy and blather. Granted, Wikipedia is about documenting (even unsupported and biased) analyses, but we could move a bit into the NPOV direction. We even link to external material which allows for some of that as information about this text becomes available. As it stands, it looks like something from someone who is all to eager to make a bunch of noise. Dan Brown fan, anyone? --~~ Above written by an anon from IP 65.96.112.133 on 03:38, 8 April 2006

The claim about the Vatican library is partially true: only in the past 100-200 years has it been the routine practice to maintain catalogs of library holdings, & due to the cost many private libraries like the Vatican's) only have their inventories cataloged when a scholar volunteers to do it -- & is given permission to do so. Add to this the complication that many books in the Vatican library are not only manuscripts, but bound collections of manuscripts -- which require some time to examine & determine their contents -- & may also be written in unfamiliar languages.
More likely, whoever wrote this has the Vatican archives in mind, which are accumulated like any organizational archives -- & not often not in a systematic way -- & access to which are guarded as carefully any government would guard access to its own archives. (For example, I have read that the British government still refuses to unclassify some documents from the 16th century.) Of course, the Vatican isn't interested in opening these records to one & all -- but it would hardly require the mindset of a fanatical Jesuit to argue for the Catholic Church's right to restrict access to some of their records.
However, the section entitled "Footnote" strikes me as being, at best, silly. Mario Roberty claims that the Vatican has a copy under lock & key for the whole purpose of hiding the truth; any reasonable person would find this unsubstantiated claim "drivel" -- to quote the anon above. So this statement compels someone else to add a couple of paragraphs arguing the truth of this claim -- & before we know it, 75% of the article is about whether the Vatican might be hiding one or more documents & maybe 25% is about this ancient manuscript. At most, there should be only a sentence or two about Roberty's allegations, a sentence about whether he has any evidence to back this statement, & a link to Secrets the Pope doesn't want you to know. Right now, I am strongly tempted just to delete the section & be done with this kind of foolishness; I've long lost my patience over allowing kooks to document their kookiness. -- llywrch 21:22, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

On the whole, the Vatican Secret Archives are not that secret at all. You can browse some of them on the Vatican website. Thats doesnt mean you can turn up at the Vatican, and demand entry. We dont want people turning up with grubby fingers, dripping a hamburger over extremly valuable manuscripts that are in some cases 1800 years old. How to get in? Be a world expert on church history, or languages, or Papiri, or something. Bring a set of gloves at the bear minimum to show you know how to treat valuable antiquities. Make an appointment.:)

Cialovesyou 15:31, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Llywrch, I agree with you. I contributed that section, and I do agree - the claim itself is ridiculous. However I added it not because of the factual correctness of the accusation itself, but because the quote itself is part of the public record and speaks to the claim made here that this is our only copy. I believe that there is only one copy, and I further believe that it is near impossible that the Vatican has a copy. Nonetheless, the footnote as written raised the unlikeliness of a “heretical book being kept”. We should not censor Mario Roberty's comments on the uniqueness of his copy because we all think his comments are a load of rubbish. I am going to restore the footnote, but will try to do it in such a way that portrays Mario Roberty's opinion as opinion.
Llywrch, though I agree with you, I see no evidence of kookiness here. I think perhaps you exaggerate.
LinuxDude 15:44, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
LinuxDude, you make a good point, & I see no problems with your draft of this section. The inclusion of Roberty's quotation itself is not objecitonable -- the fact that a self-described expert would bring up this old chestnut is an important clue to the knowledgable & thoughtful that they might want to carefully evaluate his other pronouncements. However -- & speaking from some unpleasant experiences -- this section can take this article down a slippery slope into kookdom, for the reason that one verifiable statement is being balanced by an unsourced statement. And for some kooks & cranks, allowing one exception means that they have the "right" to add their own unsupported statements.
To repeat myself, I feel the best way to head off this problem would be to link the refuation of Roberty with an article that provides a list -- with sources -- of all of the documents that are said to be hidden away in the chambers of the Vatican. Fight the kookiness by showing the kookiness that it is associated with. The alternative solution would be for someone to keep an eye on this article, so when the inevitable kook or crank comes by & starts adding their own material it can be swiftly & decisively removed. -- llywrch 19:59, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
Hasn't anyone debating this actually READ the Vatican website? A document has to be requested by name by a scholar with full Vatican-approved credentials. Therefore if noone knows a document exists already then it would have to be discovered elsewhere for a Vatican copy to ever be accessed - it is entirely possible the Vatican contains a copy because they take the research of heresies fairly seriously over there.

Wikipedia article about the Vatican Library, section on the "Secret Vatican Archives" says that what was supposed to be the largest collection of pre 8th century heretical texts have been misplaced. I hate shooting from the grassy gnoll, but that sounds a little funny to me. I suspect the vatican has had at one time copies of everything they found heretical, it for no other reason than to be able to trace heresy. The allegation should be qualified better in the text of the article, but I don't think it is drivel.


The Vatican Archives are the 'Area 51' of religious conspiracy kooks - despite the fact none of them have the credentials to get access to them, they all seem to somehow 'know' what is 'hidden' there. The reason those pre-Eighth Century heretical texts no longer exist is simple - the Vatican Archives actually contain very little prior to the Fourteenth Century. This is because prior to that the Papacy wasn't based in the Vatican, it was in Avignon in France and, before that, the Lateran Palace. Sorry conspiracy kooks, but the fevered fantasies of vast collections of suppressed gospels etc are up there with alien autopsy movies. The Archives actually contain mainly modern administrative documents. Boring, but reality is often like that. 139.168.147.26 08:28, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
The comment that the Church had copies of Gnostic works destroyed in the Fifth Century is totally irrelevant to the discussion of supposed *modern* Vatican concealment of any other assumed copies. And the statement that scholars are not able to enter the Vatican Archives is simply wrong. Arguing that the Vatican Archives aren't open to everyone and therefore they may contain another copy of 'Judas' is an illogical non-sequitur. These comments have been removed.
Thiudareiks 00:36, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Orginal Documents

Can anyone find a pdf or pictures of the original untranslated documents and link them here? Angrynight 23:40, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

There are several in this slideshow (they repeat). Would it be fair use to snarf one of them? TCC (talk) (contribs) 02:28, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Fair Comparison?

"And although the earliest known manuscript of the Gospel of Judas dates from the 3rd century, the earliest known entire manuscripts of the canonical gospels...date from the fourth and fifth centuries--the manuscript of the Gospel of Judas predates them."... From what I gather from this article, the Gospel of Judas is not currently present in its entirety. So is it fair to say that the Gospel of Judas predates the other Gospels? Or even to compare the dates of complete manuscripts to incomplete ones? From the wikipedia page on the Gospel of John it states that there are portions of it that date to the first half of the 2nd century. Also fragments of Luke are dated to the 3rd century. So I'm just pointing out that something needs to be changed here... unless there is relevance in that the incomplete Gospel of Judas predates the complete Gospels. Perhaps it should just be noted that sections of the other Gospels are dated earlier/around the same time. (Cabin Tom 06:02, 8 April 2006 (UTC))

The dating of incomplete fragments is certainly relevant. The important issue in these dating questions is how early the Gospel in question was composed. If you have a fragment that you can date accurately, then you know that the text on it was composed at least that early. A fragment is just as good in this regard as a complete copy, although of course the more text you have the more confidently it can be dated.--Srleffler 16:21, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
Well the problem I was trying to point out got fixed. It wasn't the dating I had an issue with. I was merely pointing out that the comparison should be made between the earliest known fragments of each Gospel. Stating that fragments of document A dating earlier than a complete document B, and ignoring the existance of fragments of document B dating earlier than those of document A, seemed (to me atleast) a purposeful miss-representation. (Cabin Tom 20:32, 10 April 2006 (UTC))
Related to this topic, I had previously inserted a slight thematic comparison to the Gospels of Thomas and John - both claim that the disciples they're named after were Jesus' closest disciples and that Jesus divulged certain information only to them - it was removed in a later edit and I feel that they were important tidbits of information, and I ask that they be put back in, although with a better writing style.

Title

Maybe I missed it, but why is it called the "Gospel of Judas?" I assume the author claims to be Judas, could someone provide a quote from the text clarifying this? And does the document have an "alternate ending" to the life of Judas after the Crucifiction? I assume it would pretty much have to. Don't leave me hangin' Jsminch 06:14, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Well the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John arent actually written by those people who had those exact names. The reason why they are calling it The Gospel of Judas to my undertstanding is because it focus's mostly on Judas's secret relantionship with Jesus. The document has an "alternate" everything. Basicly Judas was the chosen one.

It is called the Gospel of Judas because that is the title given both in the manuscript itself and by the late second-century Irenaeus who attacked it. Stephen C. Carlson 18:03, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

My credentials: I have a research grant to study Coptic with one of the men who worked on the Nag Hammadi library. I have read the text in English and done a little translating of it. OK. The author does not claim to be Judas. It is written in the 3rd person, and does not show the crucifixion or Judas's death. It ends with Judas: "And he received some money and handed him over to them." (This is from the Kasser-Meyer-Wurst translation.) The reason it is called that is because it ends with the words: pEuangelion nIoudas, the Gospel of Judas. The incipit explains that this is "The secret account of the revelation that Jesus spoke in conversation with Judas Iscariot during a week three days before he celebrated Passover." So it is not a Gospel "According to" Judas. This is the reason why I changed the attribution. The Dogandpony 20:49, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Significance

If this document is found to be genuinely associated with a figure entitled Judas, then the speculation that Judas never actually existed is 'put to bed' once and for all. This idea purported that Judas, which is the Latin word for Jews, was invented by the Christian Church at some time after c. 400 A.D. The invention of the character Judas was thought to be done by the political elite of the Roman Empire in conjunction with the leadership of the Christian Church in order to blame the Jews while lessening the implications of the Roman Imperial presence in Palestine at the time of the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth. Judas, who according to canonical Gospel is singled out for the betrayal of Jesus, is meant to personify the Jews, whereas the Roman players in the Passion of Christ such as Pilate are merely powerless victims caught up in the events.

It is no doubt that out of shame the Christian Church/Roman State would have downplayed their role in the crucifixion in the period after Christianity became the official religion. It is also no doubt that their role at that time was much more than Pilate's noble "hand-washing" gesture in the face of the frenzied mob; the execution of Trouble-makers would certainly have been common place in this volatile Roman province. 193.28.178.61 11:38, 8 April 2006 (UTC)


Obviously the views above do not reflect those of most Christians, or most Christian scholars.

Cialovesyou 08:23, 10 April 2006 (UTC)


At best, if we are to assume that this is the document Ireaneus talks about, it represents an early Christian Gnosticism. So, what does that mean? Does it carry the same weight as the 4 canonical Gospels? Not from the perspective of the Christian faith, no. And here is why...The Gospels were chosen, and proliferated on the basis of the fact that they represented the belief of the faith community. That is, the community believed certain things, and saw in the 4 gospels, an accurate reflection of the faith they already had. They saw the faith in the Gospel, so kept it, and proliferated it to sister churches. Other douments, and there are heaps of them, did not get the same attention, becuase in detail, or overall, they contradicted the faith. No conspiracy, just an ancient form of, "well, I wont recommend this book to my friends, as I dont believe it". And so, although the canon was not closed until the council of Trent(C16), the 4 canonical Gospels enjoyed continued use in liturgy, and usage of the Church throughout history, whereas the Gospel of Thomas, Judas, Magedeline, simply did not.

Cialovesyou 17:50, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

Significance of the author? I am flying blind as yet on who it claims as its author, but lets assume it claims to be written by Judas himself. Are such claims uncommon? No. The fact is, there is varying evidence as to who wrote the Canonical Gospels, but we are not sure. On top of this, in the first century, people tended to claim all sorts of authors in order to gain authority. The name "Judas" etc on its own, means little without supporting evidence.

Cialovesyou 18:09, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

Interpretation -- what is this section doing here?

How is the "Interpretation" section relevant to the article on the Gospel of Judas? Under "The Superior Generation" they are talking about Vedism, not the Gospel of Judas. Somebody may have a personal opinion that Vedism and the Gospel of Judas are related, but they have no citations to back this up. Similarly for "Zodiacl Symbolism". No citation is provided which would indicate that the text of the Gospel of Judas what is claimed. Finally, the section makes reference to "some cosmologists". Which unnamed cosmologists; cite please? Cosmology is a branch of astrophysics, not of astrology. Both subsections "Zodiacal Symbolism" and "The Superior Generation" were added by an anonymous user at 24.4.206.84. No citations to the Gospel of Judas are given. I suspect this entire section is either original research or personal belief. Since it has no sources cited and is entirely conjecture (and unrelated to the main article to boot) I am removing the section. If someone can come back with verifiable references they can put it back in. Derek Balsam 13:22, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

I didnt see the section you removed, but I can say that if it didnt quote the text, didnt offer the opinions of experts, and didnt represent a significant minority view, then you did well to remove it. Ancient texts, particularly scripture, gets all sorts of spin from all sorts of arm-chair critics. This is unhelpful, and not NPOV.

Cialovesyou 08:40, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Sorry if I wrote in less than perfect wiki expectations. But, there should be Interpretation section included in this article, with room for various interpretation, including similarities to Vedic visionaries, and references to the Zodiac. I can back these things up the interpretations with references and will re-work it, with citations and all. Such interpretations can be presented as NPOV. Just because an interpretation is not mainstream doesn't mean there can't be a place for it on wikipages. Someone edited out a link of mine they didn't like as well. For no good reason other than they didn't agree with the content. There needs to be some room for alternative views of the significance of the Gospel of Judas. There are many. [user:saberlotus]

That's great, saberlotus. I look forward to the citations to specific sources, and to the names of the experts you referred to to support those interpretations. Without such references, the whole section appeared to be either original research or your own interpretation. Derek Balsam 11:23, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Date Format

Am I being a bit picky or do other people think that articles that have a reasonably christian-centric topic are prime candidates for using AD/BC rather than CE/BCE? The Manual of Style leaves this to editorial discretion. I am not particularly concerned but I did find it a little jarring in this context. Zarboki 09:15, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

  • Why? Does it come out differently? Actually, I think we should change our dating to the founding of the Roman Empire, given that the Empire still exists, albeit under new Management. >:) Wahkeenah 09:25, 10 April 2006 (UTC)


I find the whole argument that we shouldnt use BC, and AD ridiculous. Why? Saying BC doesnt mean you have to follow Christ, it just means you follow the calender the Romans made. But lets follow this logic for a second, and I will tell you my issues...

1.Sunday needs to be re-named, too closely linked with the Roman Sun god.

2.Monday needs to be re-named; too much association with the Germanic moon God, and for those of us who dont believe in moon gods, it offends.

3.Tuesday needs to be re-named; linked to the Nordic god Tyr.

4.Wednesday needs to be re-named; I dont believe in Woden the Norse god.

5.Thursday; Thor, another Norse god, and I am not a Polytheist.

6. Friday; Germanic god of beauty, maybe I need such a god, but it offends me as I am not a Norse god believer.

7.Saturday is definately out, the Roman god saturn was a total puddin' head, and it offends me to be invoking him on the weekends.

Shall I start on how the planets offend me? Or can we all move forward and do it the way we have for the last 1000+ years?

Cialovesyou 11:28, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Amen! :p This smacks of the French Revolution when they tried to get a decimal calandar to work (which, ironically, lasted for twelve years). <opinion>It's the same anti-Christian spirit at work</opinion> --Woolhiser 11:56, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Not to labour the point, but lets take a simple sentance...

"Mars will be visible from Thursday the 5th of January, 2006."

Now lets filter it through the New-Speak non-offensive dictionary.

Words identified for deletion: Mars(Roman god), January(Janus, roman god), Thursday(Thor), 2006(counts from Christian god), avoid word Sun(Roman god implications).

Result:

"The 4th planet from the big fiery ball near us, will be visible on the 5th day of the week, on the 5th day in the first month of the year, in the 2006th year, if we count years as from the birth of the person Christians call Jesus, who may or may not have existed at all."

There....very clear!

Cialovesyou 12:16, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

OK... So if we could get some kind of consensus here I am willing to change it (or leave it, either one is cool). This is not about wide ranging policy for all articles but I do think that if the policy is to use AD/BC and CE/BCE then of all articles to use Anno Domini surely ones that impact on Christianity are the ones to use it in. Zarboki 13:12, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
Even as an atheist, I do agree that for an article about a Christian topic BC/AD makes sense. Other articles are another issue. Шизомби 16:29, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
I also agree. LinuxDude 16:57, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
I was an atheist for awhile, but I gave it up. No holidays! Wahkeenah 23:40, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
Okay, let's set aside the issue of whether it is proper to use AD/BC or CE/BCE in this article for a moment. Unless someone has rewritten the MOS, it states that the original style used shall hold for the article unless a consensus determines otherwise. Digging thru the history of this article, I find that when Wetman wrote it about a year ago, he used AD/BC dating (& properly put "AD" before the year.) This is what the article used until a few days ago when an anonymous editor changed the style to "CE". (This person must have been sitting on a burr, because one change was AD 180 -> "CCCCC.E. 180".)
In short, the date style was changed without a call for discussion, & so I'm changing it back because of that lack of discussion. This vote probably wasn't necessary, but having five different people state they prefer it this way does help to keep it changed: IMHO -- & I'm not a wikilawyer -- at least 10 different people would need to speak up to change this style back. (And by "10 people", I mean contributors who have established accounts on Wikipedia -- preferably people who have contributed in a meaningful way to this article.) Let's keep that in mind & try to avoid a reversion war. -- llywrch 01:57, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Uninteresting

We must not be blind, it is a media hype to further fan the interest in the upcoming Da Vinci Code movie. The NG society has a bad reputation, everybody remembers the great pyramid scandal two years ago, when they hyped how the robot is going down a secret shaft and may find egyptian treasures inside. Then one newspaper disclosed that the entire operation was done in fact more than a month previously and found absolutely nothing and NGC is doing the fake hype to recover huge costs via TV ads. I think someone resigned from NG in shame over the scandal.

Frankly, the entire Harry Potter saga is very short read compared to the full corpus of gnostic "holy scripts" which are abundant like mushrooms after rain. It remains a fact that there are only four true evangelions and the rest is fake or subversive. One must also consider that research of "alternative" holy scripts is mostly funded from Israel, with an obvious aim. The elders do not like christianity. 195.70.32.136 13:05, 10 April 2006 (UTC)


I dare say this comment should be in the "significance" section?

Um... NO. Not without sources. I don't think the NGS has a bad rep, but the program on The Gospel of Judas was sensationalistic, uninformative and just plain lame. It could have stated everything it did in two hours in less than five minutes, probably. Шизомби 14:56, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Footnote on the uniqueness of the codex

I've re-added this section, albeit, edited to show the comment as an opinion. I believe the consensus here is that the assertion being made is dubious, however the comment itself IS worthy of mention because the owners of the only known copy are essentially refuting the claim that it is the only known copy. I agree with the community that the assertion is rubbish, however, I don't think we should censor it because we all know it to be false. We must assume that the average reader of the article can make distinction between opinion about something and the truth about something.

If this comment had been made by anyone else (than the owners of the text) I would support its exclusion, but the fact that the owner is making this claim, makes the inclusion of the comment noteworthy. The segment is NOT written to support the claim that the Vatican has additional copies, but to record a (<opinion>rather silly</opinion>) claim that has been made by the owners of the text about the uniqueness of the text, and a claim that is part of the public record.

LinuxDude 17:30, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
Resored this section after anonymous edit removed it without discussion. If one disagrees with parts of a section, recommend approach is to edit rather than to remove. Editing is a contribution, Removing (though sometimes necessary) is simply anti-social.
LinuxDude 15:34, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

The Vatican does have a gigantic secret archive. I don't have any information about the Gospel of Judas, but why is it so ridiculous to suppose that another version of the document might be among the suppressed documents there? —Vivacissamamente 20:42, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Considering the lack of references and extensive weasel wording, I wouldn't rely on that article for accurate information. The Vatican Secret Archive is primarily, as its name suggests, archival in nature, containing not so much books as records, roughly the Vatican's equivalent to the US' National Archives. It's "secret" only because, like any political institution, much of what it does is too sensitive for public release. There are also confessional records in it that must be kept confidential. It is nevertheless open to scholarly researchers. TCC (talk) (contribs) 21:51, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
I edited this section before noticing this discussion. Hopefully my changes help somewhat. My thinking is to just present the basic facts of the situation and keep analysis to a minimum. Ashmoo 23:13, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
I don't know if the Vatican has a secret library, or not - it doesn't matter. The accusation has been made that there MAY be additional copies. That claim is an unproven assertion, and people are free to believe it or not. I'm afraid that llywrch may have been correct about the effect this is having. Ashmoo your edits look good.
LinuxDude 14:41, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
If it means anything, I'll state that I wish I hadn't been right about the effect. I guess this proves why writers tend to avoid covering unconventional topics or opinions: the people who advocate them are often their own worst enemies. -- llywrch 16:46, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

thats a bold statement. all writers are their own worst enemies. in more ways than one. if a writer wont be attacked for what hes written theologically its not worth writting. like now i dont capitalize the first letters of a sentence does that mean i dont know how to think or write? does that make it harder to read? i doubt it. is it harder to write using the shift key? yes very much. is it worth the extra strain to my pinky finger to make it seem like i care enough about capitalization or someone who would insult my credibility based on how many calories i choose to expend to make no point whatsoever? and do i respect that the reader can understand what ive written? maybe. and the vatican does have secret libraries. read a book called the gospel of the second coming. google it. lol. all in good fun... wtf.?

The effect it is having on whom? I didn't say Roberty's claim was likely to be true, but that it isn't completely unreasonable. I'd suggest "uncorroborated" or something sounding less POV than "unqualified," in that section, since that doesn't sound as POV. Then again, you seem to be implying I am one of the gullible fools vulnerable to "the effect," in which case my opinion is worthless. —Vivacissamamente 07:11, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Gospel of John

What is the real point of comparing the dates of the (manuscripts of) Gospel of Judas and the Gospel of John? They are different works with different histories. Let's just state the facts rather than make comparisons designed to elicit doubious conclusions. A straight forward section discussing the historical veracity of the Gospel of Judas compaed with the canonical gospels would be great if it could be done well, but the issue is so complex and emotion laden that, IMO, it should be set aside for the time being.Eluchil404 21:55, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

WP:AGF. Comparison to dates for canonical gospels makes for useful context IMO, but the article need not go into any great depth on that. Шизомби 01:04, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

The article currently says:

Irenaeus is also one of the first people to extensively quote from the canonical Gospel of John; hence the ancient witnesses to the existence of Judas are no weaker than that of John. While it is clear that the author of the Judas was almost certainly not Judas Iscariot, the authorship of the Gospel of John has been questioned by a large number of scholars as well.

This is comparison is inaccurate and misleading, especially as to the "no weaker" claim. While Irenaeus quotes extensively from John, neither he nor any one else does the same for Judas. Furthermore, John had extensively been used a decade earlier than Irenaeus by Tatian c. 173 in composing the Diatessaron, a harmony of the four gospels. We have manuscripts of John in its original translation, but Judas is a translation. Finally, the earliest manuscript of John, P52, dates to the middle of the second century, about 150 years older than the only manuscript of Judas. Either the comparison should be correct or, better, simply removed. Stephen C. Carlson 18:16, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Theorized (non-Coptic) prior editions

Most of the news articles and press releases I've seen are careful to mention that the manuscript we have now is likely a Coptic translation of a much older document, probably written in Greek. I was surprised that this is mentioned nowhere (explicitly) in the current Wiki article. It would be nice if this could be included in one of the early sections of the article, with proper attribution to the expert(s) who make this claim.

This conjecture was first made by James M. Robinson (see comments above) and is still being debated (and not studied (yet)). Currently there is more opinion than evidence surrounding it. No one has shown linguistic elements that suggest earlier sources, and the idea has been proposed but the jury is not only still out, they haven't even examined the case. I'm not against mentioning it, if we can find a convincing argument outlining the evididence, but I doubt that we can currently find anything more than discussion the moment.
LinuxDude 15:23, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
It's opinion, but informed opinion; it would be quite noteworthy if the Gospel of Judas was originally written in Coptic. Citing some facts from memory:
1. The vast majority of apocryphal writings are in Greek, or can be shown to have originally been written in Greek. The only exceptions I can think of are the Epistle of the Laodemecians, which only exists in Latin (& I believe has been shown to have been a cut-n-paste creation from the Old Latin text of the NT), & the supposed Hebrew version of Matthew (which has not survived, but a number of ancient authors have descirbed to some detail).
2. Irenaeus appears to have read a copy of the Gospel of Judas. Because Coptic was not known to more than a negligible -- if any -- extent outside of Egypt, that would indicate that the 2nd century version of this work was in Greek.
3. As far as I know, the text has not been published. I would expect that any evidence that this is a translation from Greek would appear in that edition. Until then, any journalists reporting on this matter would probably be content to simply repeat that the original was written in Greek, & avoid the problems of explaining why this is so.
My suggestion is to find an authoritative source to quote (hopefully someone other than Roberty) on this issue, provide the reference, & leave it there until publication. -- llywrch 17:26, 11 April 2006 (UTC)


1. Epistle of the Laodemecians only existed in Latin - Now that's interesting (and I wasn't too famaliar with that Epistle)
2. I think this is good reasoning, and possibly the strongest point so far.
3. Agreed.
4. I agree - this would be a good approach.
LinuxDude 19:36, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

The notes to the 1985 translation stated that no Greek fragments were known. He implied, but did not explicitly state that there were at least fragments of another manuscripts.

I guess this is as good a place as any, to point out that National Geographic published the _second_ transltion of the Gospel of Judas_ into English. The first translation was done by the American Gnostic Society. [When I get the ISBN of the first edition, I'll put that in the main page, both as a citation for hard copy reference, and in the main heading.]

Why "Possible Flaws"?

I mean, I guess I understand the section's purpose for existing, if it is truly thought that it cannot be incorporated into the rest fo the article. But I really think that its existence seperate from the rest of the article destroyes NPOV in any form.

I just killed this section; it seemed fairly redundant. (Accidentally left that edit marked as "minor" - my bad. Not trying to edit under the radar or anything.) Brennen 06:43, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
After reading that now-excised section, I was left amazed at how Judas presumably wanted to clear his name after he had hanged himself. Wahkeenah 08:02, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Star Wars joke?

Does this strike anyone as funny at all? "renowned Cairo antiquities dealer Hannah Soalo." Antiquities dealer- smuggler hannah soalo - Han Solo X_X Thatfunkymunki 05:13, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Featured Article Quality?

I think so. Read the Leave Comments page to discussion this nomination.

LinuxDude 17:45, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
You've got to be kidding. It's getting changed like every 5 minutes. Wahkeenah 23:40, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Images from National Geographic

The images will be posted shortly. I have negotiated permission from the National Geographic Society for a limited period of time commensurate with their license from the photographer for several images to accompany this article. Please note, these are not GFDL images, they are copyrighted and are subject to permissive use, which will be detailed at length on the image pages. Amgine and Essjay are assisting me with getting them up on the page. On behalf of WMF, I want to express my sincere appreciation to the NGS and their associate general counsel for working with us to allow these images to enhance the quality of this article, and deepen Wikipedia's appreciation for this subject matter. --BradPatrick 23:48, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

And thanks to User:Wgfinley for getting in on this.--BradPatrick 05:05, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

By placing these images on the page with attribution in the image comments you are placing us in a weak position when we argue that our practice of providing attribution on the image page rather than inline is standard and sufficient to meet that attributions requirements of the licenses most fee photos we use are distributed under. Furthermore, the special attribution given to National Geographic here is a direct insult to the countless photographers who choose to donate their their works to the world under a fully free license: The inclusion of the national geographic material here as unfree content damages our goal to have a fully free encyclopedia, so when you thank them for it you spit in the face of everyone else who has walked away from the rights that have been reserved here for this historic work which should belong to the world. Please be more considerate in the future. --Gmaxwell 19:32, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Contents - That which you are doing do quickly.

I think the entire paragraph under the content section which deals with the Greek subjunctive should be removed. There is no Greek subjunctive in the following phrase: 

  ὃ    ποιεῖς    ποίησον   τάχιον
 what  you do    do       quickly

There is a present, active, indicative and an aorist imperative of "to do". No subjunctive. Perhaps I am not understanding the argument. The "that" which appears in the KJV comes from the relative pronoun.Christian Askeland 12:33, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Agreed, Christian. This looks like bad armchair linguistics. I have a requested a citation for a reference to which "traditional Christian scholars" hold this interpretation. In addition, I am going to remove the whole subjunctive text, because they don't even have their English subjunctive right. The early modern English 2nd person singular subjunctive of "do" is not "doest". It is "do". The -(e)st ending is not used in the subjunctive; see Thou#Conjugation. The text given is patently not subjunctive in the KJV; it is rather, as you say, a relative clause. Derek Balsam 14:25, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, Derek. Can we also remove the following : "Whether to Satan or Judas, the context of statement may carry a different meaning than that of a command. This interpretation of the meaning of the passage is more commonly held among traditional Christian scholars.[citation needed] The João Ferreira de Almeida Portuguese translation, and other translations of the verse similarly interpret Jesus as saying "That which you plan on doing, do it soon." Verse 29 of the same chapter indicates that even some of the disciples found ambiguity in the meaning of the statement."

-1- I do not understand how the above imperative might not be a command. -2- This Portuguese translation is a paraphrase. It is not a translation proper and gives no insight that I can see into the Greek. -3- Verse 29 does not suggest that the disciples found ambiguity in the phrase ὃ ποιεῖς ποίησον τάχιον. The ambiguity in the verse is simply the antecedent of ὃ rather than the nature of the verbal actions.

Given these points, I believe this section should go. It makes sense to have a brief allusion to the canonical Judas. Maybe we could even say more. This information, however, is not helpful. Let me know what you think!Christian Askeland 18:28, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Christian: I did want to give someone a chance to provide a citation for that interpretation. No one has done so. I agree that the interpretation is not linguistically motivated. Since that text gives no reason other than claimed linguistic ambiguity, and since there is no ambiguity of referent or of verbal mood in the Greek, this text cannot stand. Even the KJV translator was able to discern the meaning. So, I will remove.Derek Balsam 20:41, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Derek: Thanks. Sorry for my impatience. : ) Christian Askeland 10:16, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

  • Yada, yada, yada. It's all Greek to me. Meanwhile, I'm reminded of this old joke that incorporates three random Biblical quotes:
    • Judas went out and hanged himself.
    • Go therefore and do likewise.
    • What thou doest, do quickly!

Wahkeenah 12:39, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Groan!? LinuxDude 14:39, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

NPOV?

Whoa. I happened upon this page while looking for a decent document on the Gospel of Judas and was startled by the first section of the article, which doesn't seem to have been written in a thoroughly encyclopaedic style -- indeed, it reads like a high school student's interpretive essay.

The word "fake" appears to have been inserted before the words "Gnostic gospel" at some recent point; what makes the document fake? I thought its authenticity, if not its content, had been verified as its being a Gnostic document written 150-300 AD/CE, according to most current sources. And whose opinion is it that the document should not be read as a Christian gospel and that its text should be interpreted as standing in direct opposition to true Christianity? Whose Christianity?

It's not the job of Wikipedia authors to interpret the Gospel of Judas for us. Let's give factual statements about the document itself and about the things that Biblical or historical scholars can be documented to have said about it. The last paragraph of the header section, in particular, needs to be rewritten or eliminated, and for stylistic as well as NPOV reasons. I am not prepared to take the step of doing this, because I know no more about the document than what has been discussed in recent newspaper and journal articles, but I suspect a lot of readers recognize poor writing when they see it.

Some of that was vandelism and has been removed. The last paragraph has been removed as well, as it was only very loosly relevant and didn't really add anything to the content of the article (which is about a Gnostic document, not the relationship between Gnosticism and orthodox Christianity). --MonkeeSage 14:03, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
BTW, Please sign your name using four tildes ~~~~ when making your posts on talk pages. Thanks! --MonkeeSage 14:06, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

That paragraph is back. Someone at 83.248.208.188 keeps putting that same text back in (the last paragraph in the intro). As pointed out, it's not NPOV, badly written, and not relevant. Derek Balsam 15:07, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Someone also added this very POV text to the background section: "What they do not tell you in the news is that this gospel has not been "lost", it was written about by early saints of the Catholic Church and rejected by the early church." This section is not only not NPOV, it contains unsubstantiated reference to what "they" don't tell you, whoever "they" are. In addition, this topic is correctly covered elsewhere in the article. I removed. Derek Balsam 01:32, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

There is a very POV section in the third or so paragraph of the Conservative Christian Reaction section. This is an encyclopedea, write what's been reported. I came here looking for some information, and I'm seeing a lot of assumptions and commentary. The paragraph in question is pure commentary and even features the word "I" in it. Such reporting is disgusting in an encyclopedia.--68.0.144.96 02:36, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

The author of the Gospel of Judas

I might have missed this in the show and in the write up as well as in Wikipedia itself. I scrolled through the online articles but could not seem to find any credible hint on this. Would anyone like to clear this up and explain who exactly wrote the Gospel. I know the show indicates Gnostics but it seems a tad illogical.

If Judas died soon after Jesus died (in the field or hung), then did he actually tell someone what actually happened before he died? I think this is pretty important in determining the actual theological credibility of the Gospel.

The gospel is generally considered to be pseudepigraphal, in which case the true author(s) is (are) intentionally unknown. It is also generally considered to be of Gnostic origin, as it speaks of secret knowledge being imparted to Judas (gnosis), and (according to Tertullian) accepts some form of antithesis between the God of the Jewish Scriptures and the God of Jesus (see Cainites). --MonkeeSage 18:04, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

In which case, the 4 canonical gospels are pseudepigraphal too right? Anyway, for the Gospel of Judas, it seems illogical that anyone could have known what Jesus told Judas, considering how he died soon after Jesus died. What do you guys think?

To play Devil's advocate, maybe that's why the Gospel of Judas ends right after Jesus is seized by the Romans... bd2412 T 00:07, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Sorry I am not getting it. So what you are saying is that it is made up? Well I do admit there is a probability but is there any confirmation as to whether the Gospel of Judas might hold as much weight as the canonical Gospels? While the 4 Gospels are known to bear some semblance on what actually happened, can we say the same for the Gospel of Judas then? By the way, are the 4 canonical gospels pseudepigraphal? --Fi5hbone 01:18, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm just relating what the majority of scholars are saying. Regarding the synoptic gospels, the mainstream view is that Matthew and Luke are based on an earlier (possibly apostolic) source, which may also be cognate with or underlie the Gospel of Thomas (namely, the Q document), and-or oral tradition, as well as the Gospel of Mark (see Markan priority), with later theological embellishments. The Gospel of John is a whole other kettle of fish (see Authorship of the Johannine works). That's what the majority of scholars say, however my own opinion is closer to that of J. P Holding. HTH. --MonkeeSage 13:53, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
Judas 'Iscariot'seems to be unknown. The entyomology of the name is less enlightening. What Iscariot signifies is unclear, other than its Greek suffix -otes, like English "-ite" or "-ian". No territory "Iscaria" has ever existed. "Iscariot" is considered to be a transformation by metathesis of the Latin sicarius, or "dagger-man". Therefore, Iscariot maybe a name given to Judas to describe his actions. Perhaps the other disciples hated Judas and wrote him into history as Dagger-man (or back stabber). Anyhow what is interesting from the Gospel of Thomas, and the Gospel of Judas is that both Judas' claim to have known Jesus' true identity. Compare the following excerpts;
Firstly from the Gospel of Thomas. 13 Jesus said to his disciples, "Compare me to something and tell me what I am like." Simon Peter said to him, "You are like a just messenger." Matthew said to him, "You are like a wise philosopher." Thomas said to him, "Teacher, my mouth is utterly unable to say what you are like." Jesus said, "I am not your teacher. Because you have drunk, you have become intoxicated from the bubbling spring that I have tended." And he took him, and withdrew, and spoke three sayings to him. When Thomas came back to his friends they asked him, "What did Jesus say to you?" Thomas said to them, "If I tell you one of the sayings he spoke to me, you will pick up rocks and stone me, and fire will come from the rocks and devour you."
Secondly from the Gospel of Judas:
When Jesus observed their lack of [understanding, he said] to them, “Why has this agitation led you to anger? Your god who is within you and […] [35] have provoked you to anger [within] your souls. [Let] any one of you who is [strong enough among human beings bring out the perfect human and stand before my face.” They all said, “We have the strength.” But their spirits did not dare to stand before [him], except for Judas Iscariot. He was able to stand before him, but he could not look him in the eyes, and he turned his face away. Judas [said] to him, “I know who you are and where you have come from. You are from the immortal realm of Barbelo. And I am not worthy to utter the name of the one who has sent you.” JESUS SPEAKS TO JUDAS PRIVATELY Knowing that Judas was reflecting upon something that was exalted, Jesus said to him, “Step away from the others and I shall tell you the mysteries of the kingdom. It is possible for you to reach it, but you will grieve a great deal. [36] For someone else will replace you, in order that the twelve [disciples] may again come to completion with their god.” Judas said to him, “When will you tell me these things, and [when] will the great day of light dawn for the generation?” But when he said this, Jesus left him.
In both texts, Judas is aware of the true nature of Jesus, and accordingly, Jesus tells him things away from the disciples. In the Gospel of Thomas, Judas keeps what Jesus has said to him quiet because he fears the other disciples will want him stoned. Perhaps Judus Didymus had just heard from Jesus that he was to hand over Jesus to the Romans? One wonders if these two texts are related? What if Judas Didymus, and Judus Iscariot are the same Judas after all. Perhaps the Didymus (meaning twin) was dropped by the disciples after the 'Gethsemany incident' and replaced with Iscariot (for backstabber). At any rate, if this was the case we can postulate that Judas Iscariot did not hang himself, as he turns up later in India (where he is Judas Didymus (twin) again). It was perhaps a lie that Judas was hanged, a lie to cover up the fact Judas had escaped! Who knows.86.4.59.203 21:37, 11 April 2007 (UTC)icnivaD

Um, actually if you read the quote you cited from GoT you should notice that it is Thomas, not Judas, that Jesus revealed the secret insights to. -KriticKill (talk) 17:42, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

More fragments reportedly found.

Fox News is reporting that an Akron court-appointed bankruptcy lawyer is in possession of fragments found in the estate of a client[3]. bd2412 T 05:02, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Source for last Roberty quote?

What is our source for the last Roberty quote, under "The uniqueness of the codex" - I can not find such a quote. bd2412 T 02:13, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Attribution?

Recently an editor changed the article to say that the text does not claim that Judas was the author. Is this accurate? The first line (from the NG translation) reads: "The secret account of the revelation that Jesus spoke in conversation with Judas Iscariot during a week three days before he celebrated Passover." This appears to be a common attribution formula:

  • Rev. 1:1-2 "The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants the things that must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, who bore witness to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw."
  • Apocryphon of John 1:1 "The teaching of the savior, and the revelation of the mysteries and the things hidden in silence, even these things which he taught John, his disciple."
  • Acts of Andrew 1:1 "After the Ascension the apostles dispersed to preach in various countries. Andrew began in the province of Achaia. . ."
  • 1 Apocalypse of James 1:1 "It is the Lord who spoke with me: 'See now the completion of my redemption. I have given you a sign of these things, James, my brother. For not without reason have I called you my brother, although you are not my brother materially. And I am not ignorant concerning you; so that when I give you a sign - know and hear.'"
  • Acts of Thomas 1:1 "At that season all we the apostles were at Jerusalem. . .and we divided the regions of the world, that every one of us should go unto the region that fell to him and unto the nation whereunto the Lord sent him. According to the lot, therefore, India fell unto Judas Thomas, which is also the twin: but he would not go. . . And as he thus reasoned and spake, the Saviour appeared unto him by night and saith to him: Fear not, Thomas, go thou unto India and preach the word there, for my grace is with thee."

What do the people studying the GoJ say about the claimed attribution (or lack thereof)? » MonkeeSage « 04:12, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Well, I *am* a student of Coptic. These quotes are great but Judas just doesn't have a byline. It is one thing to say that this is the text of a conversation--that could be anything from a Playboy interview to a Socratic dialogue, it doesn't attribute authorship. On the contrary, consider the Gospel of Thomas: "These are the hidden sayings that the living Jesus spoke and Judas Thomas the Twin recorded." This does not occur in Judas, neither (as in Luke) does the author ever employ the first person. I am not making any claims as to who wrote it-- but someone claiming that Judas Iscariot himself wrote these words has an immense burden to prove it. It can't be just slipped in for convenience. For at least two other reasons:

  • Judas is alleged to have killed himself prior to Jesus's resurrection and the organization of the Church in Acts. If Judas is the author, this is the earliest claim for the writing date for any gospel account. How would Judas have had time to compose this account before killing himself? Or what is the evidence that he did not kill himself and composed it later, and that the Gospels are lying?
  • Ireneus does not condemn this text on the grounds that Judas, a traitor, had written it. If Judas had written it, why not?

The Dogandpony 07:16, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Good points. Counter-points would be (and I'm also not arguing for any particular authorship either) that several contemporary religious texts don't make a direct assertion of authorship (though several others do, in addition to the ones you mention, for example, the Apocryphon of James comes right out and says "James writes to you"), yet they are regarded as pseudepigraphal; Judas didn't have to actually write it for it to be attributed to him — why would Irenaeus refer to it in the gentitive case (Judae Evangelium "Gospel of Judas") if that is not the attribution made by those who used it (which he seems to imply)?; since Irenaeus was aware that many Gnostics saw Judas as a typification of the twelfth Aeon[4], he may have seen condeming the GoJ on the grounds that Judas allegedly wrote it as futile, since that would have been as a boon rather than a bane. » MonkeeSage « 09:13, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
True, these are good questions and I'm not an expert, just a student. The difference I see between 'The Gospel of Thomas', which does claim Thomas as its author (whether true or not) and 'The Gospel of Judas' which does not, is in the original language of the titles as we have them--Coptic mixed with Greek. GoJ is simply P-Euangelion n-Ioudas, 'of Judas', which could mean that Judas wrote it, but it could also mean 'about Judas', simply to disambiguate this gospel from any other text without Judas as a main character. On the other hand, GoT's title is 'P-Euangelion p-Kata Thomas', i.e., The Gospel, The One According to Thomas. All of this does raise the very interesting question, that if this is a secret conversation between Judas and Jesus, how does the conversation get recorded? The text doesn't say. It ends very abruptly. On the other hand, it doesn't purport to be a 'gospel' in the sense of recording the life story, ministry and crucifixion of Jesus the way the synoptics do. A lot of it is given over to discussing cosmology and Judas asks Jesus a lot of the 'big' questions, e.g., 'Does the human spirit die?' Anyway, enough of my speculation. The Dogandpony 22:48, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
I'm no expert either. I was just wondering if it is correct to remove the attribution from the article. Since we don't have a (clear) external tradition as with the canonical Gospels, and since there is no explicit claim of authorship, I guess it is correct. » MonkeeSage « 05:35, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
The only way for the events in the Gospel of Judas could have got recorded is if Judas never hanged himself. Perhaps the other Gospels lied about Judas because the other disciples wanted to discredit him. I think Judas Iscariot=Judas Didymus (twin) aka Judas Thomas. This would make the Gospel of Judas a document written in India during Judas Didymus' stay there. That would explain the similarity of the Gospel of Thomas to the Gospel of Judas (saying 13 GoT vs [35] GoJudas).86.4.59.203 21:45, 11 April 2007 (UTC)icnivaD

It's no forgery but radiocarbon dating is dubious

A brilliant example of 'independent' dating of an artifact. A sample is submitted for an radiocarbon dating with very imressive expensive machinery to confirm supposed dating of an artifact. Radiacarbon guru makes his magic passes, big machine purrs, starwars lasers beam, NatGeo films, voice over explains. No, it is not a fake, hooray! What stays behind the scene is: dating of the manuscript by iii-iv cy is questionable (too crude) as any radiocarbon dating per for the timeframe of 0-3000 B.C.. C14 has a +/-1000 years precision at best, all calibrating efforts notwithstanding. The radiocarbon lab will confirm any date that pleases the customer. Method is based on false assumptions that isotope stays in equilibrium in atmosphere and always decayes at the same rate, which is simply not true. This method is good not for finding independent dating of an artifact, but for rubber stamping dating suggested by historians. Read: History: Fiction or Science? by A.Fomenko.[[5]] —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.210.78.186 (talk • contribs)

Look at the article Radiocarbon dating - it is better than the above user claims. GRBerry 00:48, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
This is correct, the editor who brought this up shouldn't have bothered slating radiocarbon dating unless he knew the process and could claim to be knowledgable. There is nothing wrong with the date given by the experiment. Its error (published in the report) is based upon modern radiocarbon dating accuracy. The Gospel of Judas was likely copied many times, and the one thats survived is likly to be a third century copy (as thats when the Romans started to burn heritic texts during the 3rd century). The unsigned editor's postulation that dating is inaccurate for less than 3000 years is not correct anymore, infact it just shows he hasn't read his new scientist mags. Modern dating equipment is much more accurate than those experiments carried out in the early 1980's. Also, as a biochemist, I can say that radioactive decay is constant for all isotopes at any tempreture or conditions (who ever told this guy otherwise is misguided, decay is not effected by heat or anything). He seems to have his science wrong. The only way modern radiocarbon dating can be massively wrong is if the experiment is faked or rigged (as with the turin shroud dating experiment).86.4.59.203 22:00, 11 April 2007 (UTC)cinivaD

POV para

This para is pure POV, and explicitly contradicts the historical record:

"Though it is assumed that roughly fifty gospels existed during the early church, [1] there remains further information for only twenty of them, four of which are the canonical gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. The Gospel of Judas is one of the sixteen other gospels about which some information has historically been preserved in early church writings. Of these twenty writings, however, the four canonical gospels were the only ones that the emerging early Christian orthodoxy considered to be divinely inspired."

There is no period visible in the ancient texts at which the church had any more than the 4 gospels. The creation of fakes during the second century is referred to; the idea of 50, whittled down to 20, whittled down to 4, seems to be a modern invention. If anyone can name 50 -- or 20! -- first century gospels, I would be most interested to hear it (with ancient references, of course).

I haven't edited the page. While it contains this POV in it, it discredits itself. 84.65.68.197 15:11, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Well, the twenty is provable enough - although possibly too low. This page [6] gives links to seventeen texts of non-canonical gospels, although three are different texts of the same gospel - and they are only using texts "from public domain publications" (per their disclaimer). This page [7] contains a longer list, only some of which are gospels, but some of the gospels on it are not on the prior page's list. Examples of additional gospels there include the Oxyrhynchus 1224 Gospel, the Gospel of the Egyptians, and the Gospel of the Hebrews. The first is so fragmentary that I'd be extremely reluctant to count it, but the others are clearly legitimate. If we count even one from that latter page, plus the fifteen on the former, plus the four canonical gospels, we are up to twenty. It is quite safe to say that there were more than twenty originally, and the clause with the number fifty is specifically referenced, so should stand. If anything, "there remains further information for only twenty" is the clause that needs to be changed, with an increase in the number twenty. But my doing so would be original research, so I shan't. If the above user is thinking that "early church" equates to "first century church" - that would be the first I've ever encountered that definition. GRBerry 00:50, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
This doesn't really address my point. We all know that there were any number of apocryphal texts which claim to be gospels. (Hey, making these has been a cottage industry since the second century, and some are still being written today!) But there are only four with a solid claim to the first century, which would not be the first impression of anyone reading the paragraph above. But hey, leave it! As I said, it's just an easy way to discredit Wikipedia.84.68.50.172 16:24, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
While I would agree that the canonicals are the only ones with firm claims to the first century, the paragraph you question does not say that the others are from the first century — as GRBerry indicated, it says "early church" — in common parlance "early church" extends to at least the third- or fourth-century (sometimes later). » MonkeeSage « 18:43, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
You're quite right that it says "early church", because, of course, if it said "first century" it would be too grossly wrong to be defensible. Hence the weasel-wording, in order to mislead. 84.66.5.105 17:47, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
"Early church" is neither "weasel wording" nor misleading. It has a clearly defined meaning which includes, but is not limited to, the first century. I will agree that "divinely inspired" in that paragraph is inadequate. It's at least as important that the church decided that the canonical Gospels were both accurate and not pseudepigraphical. I do not, however, have a reference handy for this at the moment outside of class notes. TCC (talk) (contribs) 20:12, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
IF you consider _The Didache_ to be a Gospel, it is an obvious example of a canonical Gospel being removed from the Canon, for political reasons. specifically, the compromise The Syriac Orthodox Church made, when it accepted the Book of Revelations, John 2, John 3, Peter 2, and Jude.
The lists of canonical books written by Gnostic Christians do include texts that are currently considered to be psuedopigraphical Gospels. [Ironically, The Gnostic Christians were the first to create a list of canonical material, so that they could better refute the heresies that were creeping into the church.] —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.40.45.49 (talk • contribs)
Or vice versa. But why would anyone consider The Didache to be a Gospel? It neither reads like one nor purports to be one. If one wants to argue that it should be canonical scripture, that's a different discussion -- but it also has little to do with whether a community might consider it to be a useful text. There's lots of material like this that's not scripture, but at the same time is not rejected as false. TCC (talk) (contribs) 00:28, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
The Didache was considered to be a canonical gospel by the Syriac Orthodox Church. It is an example of a text that was considered to be a Gospel, Canonical, dates from the First century, and then was removed from the Canon. IOW, It demonstrates that there were more than four Canonical First Century Gospels. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.109.194.53 (talk • contribs)
I see no evidence that it was ever accepted as a Gospel by anyone, and you have not seen fit to provide any. It was, of course, regarded as canonical scripture by several local Churches and Fathers, although in the end only the Ethiopian Church retained it in their canon. TCC (talk) (contribs) 07:34, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

"Terminus ante quem" a pretentious Latinism

The use of this Latinism, as with most Latinisms, comes off as being pretentious and affected. I didn't know what it meant, not speaking ane xtinct langauge, so I followed the wiki link and what i got was little more than a dictinary entry. Remove the foppish Latinism, and replace it with simple, straightforward English.--C.M. 67.170.176.203 14:13, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

The reason why terminus ante quem is still used is that there is no other simple straightforward English for it. Septentrionalis 15:36, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
The pharse is commonly used in textual criticism and papyrology. It is no more pretentious than the article on pneumonia using terms of the medical field like "pathogen" (rather than "a biological agent that causes disease or illness"), "fluoroquinolones" (rather than "a group of broad-spectrum antibiotics"), "aspirating" (rather than "secreting foreign material into the trachea and lungs"), "anaerobic" (rather than "not requiring oxygen for growth") and so forth. Even though NG made the GoJ popular, this page is still about an ancient manuscript; so using terms from the field of papyrology and textual criticism is fine. At least that's my two pennies. » MonkeeSage « 22:08, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
Then too, Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.--djenner 13:53, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
Unless, of course, it has already become a colloquial expresion or been Anglicized — antiquate/antiquity (antique, antiquatus); bone fide; consequence (consequens); subtle (subtilis); feeble (flebilis); quid pro quo; QED; ibid. (ibidem); s.v. (sub verbo); q.v. (quod vide); et cetera; et al. (et alii); et pass. (et passim); i.e. (id est); e.g. (exempli gratia) — then you just sound like any other schmoe. » MonkeeSage « 15:18, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

Christ is a title

Jesus appears to be equated with Seth: "The first is Seth, who is called Christ"

Sorry but that is quite an assumption. Christ is a title not a name solely describing Jesus. --Arsenio 16:20, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

In Gnosticism it should more properly be rendered "The first is Seth, who is called a Christ". Clinkophonist 17:46, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Spirit of Christ

"...and that Judas was to put into motion events that would release the Spirit of Christ from its physical constraints."

The line above is from the article. I don't really see how this viewpoint is different from the standard view presented in the bible (I'm referring to the Spirit of Christ part; not the notion that Judas was doing it as a favor, not an act of betrayal). Wasn't the original belief that Christ wanted to be released from his physical body/form? I mean, the idea of a spirit or soul trapped inside a body (and only death can release it) doesn't seem new to me; and it doesn't appear to really go against the original idea of Christ being the Messiah. Both could be true. In fact, the idea of him needing Judas to "betray him" and sacrafice his body, so that he could become a free spirit and the Messiah is what's found in this gospel AND the Bible. The only thing that's different about this gospel is that Judas was asked to do it. But a lot of attention seems to be put on the idea of Christ being released from his "physical constraints."

It's because the Gnostic concept of matter-spirit dualism is not a canonical concept; the canonical Christian scriptures go to great lengths to point out that Jesus continued to have a physical body after the resurrection; that Paul was laughed at by the Athenian philosophers for suggesting an eschatological bodily resurrection; that anyone denying that Christ had come in the flesh was antichrist and so on. The canonical idea is that Christ had to die in order to save humanity from their sin, not to be released from the evil physical realm created by the demiurge. But that phrase you cite from the article is probably not very acurate anyhow, since most Gnostic sects held a docetic Christology. » MonkeeSage « 11:44, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Minor consistency problem

At the moment, section 4.1 contains a sentence which begins with, "The codex has three parts," and then, it seems, proceeds to enumerate four. I stumbled across this when making a minor edit to clean up typos and wording. The citation immediately preceding this doesn't clarify the issue, and I don't know enough on this subject to make changes to content. My punctuation currently leaves it ambiguous, and this should be resolved by someone better acquainted with the topic -- either "four parts," or one of my semi-colons does not belong. --Philodespotos 03:03, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Section moved out of the article for discussion

The following section was added without citations, and reads more like an argument or essay than an article - I have brought it here for discussion and possibly salvation. bd2412 T 02:43, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Conservative Christian Response
To conservative Christians, there is no value in vilifying Judas and no harm in making him a hero. However, if this controversial account of Jesus and Judas is accepted, doubt is thrown on the historical accuracy of the canonical Christian gospel accounts (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John). If indeed the role of Judas was misrepresented, then the trustworthiness of other accounts also becomes questionable.
Confusion has arisen over claims that this document is "authentic". What this actually means is that this manuscript has been proven to be an authentic ancient document dating to the 4th century (i.e. it is not a modern-day forgery). It does prove that the contents of this document is historically accurate. Conservative Christians generally do not consider the contents of this document as factual.
In fact, it is impossible to prove that this 4th century manuscript is an accurate copy and translation of the original 2nd century work. The original work has never been found and no other copy or translation of that work exists today.
Even if this manuscript accurately reflects the original work, it is highly unlikely that it contains true historical facts concerning Jesus or Judas. It is almost certain that the contents of this document were fabricated.
  1. Although called the ‘Gospel of Judas’, it was not written by Judas Iscariot, the former disciple of Christ. This is because the original document was composed, at the earliest, in the 2nd century, when all eyewitnesses to the life of Jesus were no longer around.
  2. Whoever wrote the “Gospel of Judas” pseudonymously had no way of knowing what secret teachings Jesus had given to Judas, since these were spoken to Judas alone. In the same way, the writer could not have known that it was Jesus who had instructed Judas to betray him, since Judas had committed suicide the very next day after the betrayal. That Judas committed suicide was a publicly known and attested fact: the 30 pieces of silver, which he returned to the Jewish leaders, was used to buy the Potter’s Field, which was renamed the Field of Blood and used as a burial place for foreigners (Matt 27:3-10).
  3. If Jesus did actually instruct Judas to betray Him, Judas would not have been filled with regret and guilt, nor would he have committed suicide. Rather, he would have felt a sense of satisfaction, reveling in the knowledge that he had done Jesus a favor and has attained supremacy over the other disciples.
  4. No other document, from antiquity till now, anywhere in the world, corroborates the story presented in this one source. On the contrary, the betrayal of Judas and his suicide was publicly known, well documented and widely accepted since the 1st century.
  5. Church father Irenaeus (c 180 AD), bishop of Smyrna and a disciple of Polycarp, who was in turn a disciple of the Apostle John, was possibly aware of the existence of this “gospel” but had rejected its authority, considering it a heretical work by the Gnostics.
  6. The obvious motive for producing this work was to support the teachings among the Gnostics of the 2nd century. They taught the attainment of secret knowledge as the means of salvation and the dualism of spirit as good and matter as evil. Which is why it records Jesus asking Judas to free his spirit (good) from his body (evil) and omits the account his bodily resurrection.
  7. That the Gnostics believed in their ability to attain secret knowledge directly from God much accounts for the total disregard of known facts in this version of the “Gospel of Judas”.
In conclusion, most conservative Christians consider the “Gospel of Judas” a valuable archeological find, an authentic ancient document, which sheds light on the beliefs of the Gnostics in the 2nd century. However to them, its contents are entirely fictional, adding nothing to our understanding of the historical Jesus or Judas, and posing no real challenge to the weight of historical evidence supporting the accuracy the four Christian gospel accounts.

No references whatsoever. No adequate definition of "conservative Christians". (Is it supposed to include Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox, or just the relatively small number of American self-identified "conservative Christians"?) No idea whether this is a summary of the editor's own thoughts on the subject or whether it actually represents the expressed reaction of some identifiable group. It repeats information found in the rest of the article. If it's to stay, it needs major surgery. TCC (talk) (contribs) 02:48, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

It reads like 'One Conservative Christian Editors Response' to me. It doesn't belong in the article. Ashmoo 02:59, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

The argument is just that. An argument. It has no place in this article, cites no sources, and most of it comes from commentary. The fact that this was in the article as it was is insulting. CITE YOUR SOURCES.--68.0.144.96 08:03, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Ok, ok, got your point. No need to get so worked up. I do have sources. May rework this if I find the time. Meanwhile, keep cool :) Chenjs 01:44, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Tsichlis citation

I'm not Eastern Orthodox, nor do I really care if the citation is included, but I do care about the principle on which it is being deleted, which looks to me like bias rather than anything else.

[Steve Tsichlis] graduated from the University of Missouri in 1974 with a B.A. in history and philosophy; received a certificate of studies from the University of Thessaloniki in Greek and Byzantine History in 1977; graduated from the Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology in Brookline, MA, with a Masters of Divinity in 1978; graduated from Yale Divinity School with an S.T.M. in 1981; and pursued a doctorate in patristics with the late Fr. John Meyendorff at Fordham University in New York. [8]

I think that qualifies him as a scholar with training in relavent fields to be able to comment on the GoJ, or if not a scholar, at least as a reputable source. However, in the section it was in might not be the best place for the citation; probably the Responses and Reactions section would be better. » MonkeeSage « 08:35, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

I am Eastern Orthodox, and I see nothing here that particularly qualifies him to comment on this subject in a scholarly way. The quote itself simply reproduces information already present in the article, followed by Fr. Stephen's personal opinion about it. It was probably aimed at his parish and not intended to be a scholarly commentary. Note it's rather demotic tone. Fr. Stephen appears to be the rector of St. Paul's Greek Orthodox Church in Irvine, CA. If we want to represent Eastern Orthodox opinion of the GoJ this would do well -- with about 90% of it trimmed -- and in the section you suggest, but not where it was. TCC (talk) (contribs) 05:41, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

I am the person who originally noted the quote, corrected the link (which wasn't working in some browsers), and deleted the quote. Clearly, Fr. Tsichlis is well-educated, but there is no evidence that he has published articles in a scholarly venue or that his work is well-regarded by the scholarly community, or for that matter, the religious community. I am open to seeing such evidence. But currently, he appears to be a well-educated person, who is being quoted as an expert, in order to present critical views of the Gospel of Judas. I'm sure that there are critical opinions by experts. But let's present them rather than from the (educated) man of the street. Also, I should point out that have I have no religious opinion on either side of this debate. But I do care about accurate attribution of sources. - pmondrian

Also, is it really true that Tsichlis' opinion is the view of the Greek Orthodox Church? If so, then the view should be presented, but from someone at the head of the church or from an official statement from the church. But also, would this then be scholarly opinion? Shouldn't it be in a section on religious opinion/reaction instead? -pmondrian

I just created a religious response section whose only entry is currently from the Archbishop of Canterbury. It would seem appropriate to have a Greek Orthodox Response here, but I feel that you need someone of similar stature to that of the Archbishop and currently, it doesn't appear that Tsichlis is at that level. - pmondrian

pmondrian: Thank you for explaining your reasoning. That makes sense. Regarding Tsichlis representing the Eastern/Greek Orthodox Church, I'm going out on a limb, not being a member of said church (TCC can correct me), but I think that having his article featured on the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America website probably indicates that he is speaking for a large section of the E/GOC. » MonkeeSage « 14:49, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
The "Orthodox Church" as such rarely issues official opinions on matters such as this in a unified way, but individual bishops or synods might, which then become the official opinions for those places under their jurisdictions. In this case I don't know that Fr. Stephen's statement rises quite to that level, but it almost might as well. There's nothing unexpected about it. We know there were many Gnostic gospels in circulation during the 2nd Century; that one more example has come to light is neither surprising nor disturbing. I'd say it would be fair to call this "representative". TCC (talk) (contribs) 21:03, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Whose text?

There are several references to the Cainites in the article, but it also says the Gospel of Judas was a text of the Sethians. I was under the impression these were different groups. Was it used by both of them? Could someone make whatever distinction there is between them clearer?--Cúchullain t/c 18:03, 15 May 2006 (UTC)


Cainite is probably a polemical term invented by the heresy hunters --

Bart Ehrman from GoJ p89: "One of the many gnostic groups that Irenaeus discussed was called the Cainites. We don't know if this group really existed or if Irenaeus simply made their name up -- there is no independent record of their existence." Marvin Meyer p137: "that name seems to be a nickname invented by heresy hunters."

-- but derived from their reaction to Sethian texts, which have both Christian and Jewish flavors.

Marvin Meyer p138: "The Nag Hammadi texts noted for their interest in Cain all are part of the Sethian gnostic school."

The term "Gnostic" itself is being deprecated in scholarly discourse, and should be used with care.

Karen L. King What is Gnosticism (2005): "There was and is no such thing as gnosticism, if we mean by that some kind of ancient religious entity with a single origin and a distinct set of characteristics. Gnosticism is rather, a term invented in the early modern period to aid in defining the boundaries of normative Christianity." --Aleph1

I don't know about the distinction (if any) between Cainites and Sethites — but we have no more reason to think that Irenaeus invented them than to think that he invented any other group he discussed; we didn't have indepentend verification for many of the groups and texts he mentioned prior to 1945, either. In fact, until the discovery of the GoJ, we had no independent confirmation of its existence. To invent them would be like writing a text on modern political views and discussing a group called the "Flabbergasters" along with real groups like Democrats. He would have done more to discredit himself than bolster himself by such a move. Meyer's thesis, that "Cainite" was a nickname for Sethite is more plausible.
Regarding the use of the term "Gnostic" — Walker, Norris, Lotz, Handy, A History of the Christian Church (Scribner, 1985, 4th edt.), p. 61, make the same basic observation as King: "[. . . I]t has not proved an easy matter for scholars to bring to the phenomenon of Gnosticism into clear focus or even to decide upon a uniform way of characterizing or defining it." (See following discussion, pp. 61-67.) Also, note that "Christianity" is no easier to define precisely. I haven't noticed any shift from using the term, but my newest reference works are 2001, so perhaps in very recent literature there is a move away from the term? If so, what term is now preferred? » MonkeeSage « 08:15, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
So Elaine Pagels' recent book The Gnostic Paul is about what exactly? Clinkophonist 17:44, 21 May 2006 (UTC)


The Gnostic Paul focuses on Valentinian Christianity, but was written in 1992. Her most recent book is Beyond Belief (2003), which is subtitled "The Secret Gospel of Thomas" but has very little to say about GoT. And yes, a lot of articles that use the term "gnosticism" should be re-edited in light of recent scholarship.--Aleph1 20:34, 21 May 2006 (UTC)


I think the main point about "Cainite" is that it was a perjorative term probably invented by Irenaeus and used by no one else -- there never were any "Cainites." Note that doesn't stop Ehrman from talking about them anyway (or Wikipedia from writing a whole article based on polemical propaganda).

"Gnosticism" is a bigger problem. Ehrman: "I should say at the outset that there were a large number of gnostic religions ... some scholars have insisted that we sholdn't even use the term gnosticism any more..." (GoJ p.83) King's point is that the academic study of religion has (unconsciously) adopted the same polemical categories and structures of thought as the heresiologists, and "gnosticism" should only be applied in very specific situations ("Sethian gnosticism") and not as any kind of general descriptive term.

"My purpose in this book is to consider the ways in which the early Christian polemicist's discourse of orthodoxy and heresy has been inter-twined with twentieth-century scholarship on Gnosticism in order to show where and how that involvement has distorted our analysis of the ancient texts. At stake is not only the capacity to write a more accurate history of ancient Christianity in all its multiformity, but also our capacity to engage critically the ancient politics of religious difference rather than unwittingly reproduce its strategies and results." (What is Gnosticism, p.19)

The direction that modern scholarship seems to be going in is the recognition of a much more complex picture of the historical environment, social structure and textual resources of early Christian and Jewish communities, and a "Gnosticism" that cannot be separated from pre-normative Judaism or very early Christianity -- what Ehrman calls "proto-orthodoxy" -- since there was no orthodoxy at the time. According to King, "Christoph Markschies suggest that we have lost 85% of Chrisitian literature from the first two centuries -- and that includes only the literature we know about." (The Gospel of Mary Magdala p.6). --Aleph1 20:34, 21 May 2006 (UTC)


Sleman's assertion

The following passage was originally added to the article.

Rev Fr. Abraam Sleman of the Coptic Orthodox Church adds: - :The discovery of the Gospel of Judas was not a surprise to the scholars. It was known to be a heretical work in the second century. The Gospel of Judas is found as a trial to pervert the Gospel of Christ. St. Paul warned of such kind of teachings and said, “Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned! As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let him be eternally condemned!” (Galatians 1:7-9, NIV). Such false teachers who introduce destructive heresies bring destruction on themselves and their followers. St. Peter said, “But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them — bringing swift destruction on themselves. Many will follow their shameful ways and will bring the way of truth into disrepute.” (2 Peter 2:1-2, NIV).

The problem is that the first line is not correct. The discovery of the Gospel of Judas was a surprise. Noone expected to find it. We did know that members of the Church in the second century found it heretical, but its specific contents were not known. In fact, parts are still not known as they were poorly preserved. The rest of the quote doesn't seem significant enough to justify its inclusion. It is essentially saying that the early Church leaders warned about heretical texts and adds nothing to the specifics of the newly found Gospel of Judas

-pmondrian

There is not even complete agreement that the GoJ referred to by Irenaeus (but not actually seen by him) is the same as the recently discovered text. Ben Witherington (and others) doubt the existence of a prior Greek text. The rest of the quote is standard polemical propaganda (See Karen King).--Aleph1 01:49, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Anachronistic slanted labelling

"During the second and third centuries AD, various semi-Christian and non-Christian groups composed texts..." The writers and audience of many of the non-canonical texts, Gospel of Peter, Shepherd of Hermas, Didache Third Epistle of John etc were not "semi-Christian and non-Christian groups". In the first through third centuries there were Christian gnostics and there were non-Christian gnostics. Gospel of Judas was written for Christian gnostics. The historical fact is that there was a wider range of possible responses to the teaching of Jesus than was permissable from the fourth century onwards. Can this sentence be re-thought in neutral, historical terms, without the implied imprint of "semi-Christian" or even of "heresy"? Wikipedia is not the organ of any of the official Christian cults, no matter how powerful. --Wetman 16:32, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

"The historical fact is that there was a wider range of possible responses to the teaching of Jesus than was permissable from the fourth century onwards." (as an excuse for classifying gnostics as Christians, against the view of early Christians) -- Please keep your religious opinions out of Wikipedia. Particularly, as here, when you are peddling anti-Christian propaganda. 193.128.25.20 10:48, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
Wetman is actually peddling the standard academic viewpoint on the matter. You on the otherhand are peddling anti-academic propaganda, and doing so ever more obviously due to not logging in. Clinkophonist 22:49, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
Please keep your religious opinions out of Wikipedia - 193.128.25.20
My opinions about Wetman are not religious. Clinkophonist 20:31, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
I AGREE! (!Mi luchador nombre es amoladora de la carne y traigo el dolor! 23:06, 11 July 2006 (UTC))

Wow, I am really impressed with this article as it currently stands (13th July 06), it's a really well balanced approach to a controversial subject. Kudos, all involved. By the way Wetman, are you familiar with Ireneus? He was writing against Gnostic beliefs circa 180AD, in his writings we also find justification for the four canonical gospels. An orthondoxy within Christianity began crystallising around that time. Move your timeline back? (unsigned)

Are you aware that the Gospel of John is all too convenient to Irenaus - contradicting docetism and arianism, major heresies in Irenaeus' time, in its very first sentences? Are you aware that Irenaeus is the first person known to have ever quoted from the Gospel of John, and a number of scholars believe that he wrote it, perhaps using a few earlier sources to do so, as anti-Gnostic propaganda. Are you further aware that said scholars believe that his justification for the four canonical gospels was precisely designed to give authority to his forged Gospel - the Gospel of John?. Clinkophonist 20:36, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
Calling the early Christians sects Gnostics is a modern invention. Other Gnostic sects unrelated to Christianity had little to do with the Ebionites or the Nazarene's, or the early Church in India (even if some philosophy is similar). Clearly there is much speculation, but all can agree that we don't know enough about the early Nazarene's or the Essenes to comment on the Qumran scrolls. Same for the originators of the Nag Hamandi library.86.4.59.203 22:18, 11 April 2007 (UTC)john.

Inconsistency

Unlike the four canonical gospels, which employ narrative accounts of the last year of life of Jesus (three years in the case of John) and of his birth (only in the case of Luke and Matthew), the Judas gospel takes the form of dialogues between Jesus and Judas (and Jesus and the twelve disciples) without being embedded in any narrative or worked into any overt philosophical or rhetorical context. The Gospel of Judas, like many apocrypha Gospels, is a narrative account and often contradicts the canonical four Gospels found in the New Testament, which were written in the form of a dialogue.

The first sentence of this paragraph says that the canonical gospels are narrative accounts and the Judas gospel uses dialogues. The second sentence says that the Judas gospel is narrative and the canonical gospels are dialogues. Ken Arromdee 16:18, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

The addendum is simply a contradiction of the statement, apparently made by someone who hasn't read the Gospel of Judas. --Wetman 04:48, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

NPOV & Confusing

The community has been very enthusiastic in contributing to this article. As a result, I agree this article has become a bit of a mish/mash and confusing, and requires structural cleanup (I still think it has dealt with its subject really well!). After having read over both the article and the discussion page a few times, I can't see quite why the NPOV tag is there. There are obviously sensitivities to this Gospel but I think the article does a good job outlining the theological issues and its authenticity issues by dealing with them separately.

Furthermore I think that all POV's have been represented here without endorsing one or another. I can't therefore see why we cannot remove the NPOV tag. Am I missing something? Which faction feels that this article is not NPOV? On the one hand, this article makes it clear that most scholars recognize this text as a later text (therefore not an endorsement of it being a canonized scripture), while at the same times it outlines what the text is about, pretty much in an NPOV.

Can I therefore suggest, that we remove the NPOV tag, keeping the confusion tag, and make some effort to tidy this article up a bit? At one point it was a really well organized, well written article, and I'd like to see it that way again by reviewing its organization.

Can I also suggest we separate out the theological discussions surrounding the gospel into its own article (perhaps dealing with the issues that make this a hot topic) while reducing this one again to simply history and rediscovery? As texts, historians are interested in one set of questions, and theologians another.

Summarizing Recommendations:

  1. Remove NPOV tag
  2. Keep confusing tag
  3. Split article into
    1. History and rediscovery of texts (not so much about content)
    2. Significance of text WRT theology, heresay, and gnosticism (about content)

--LinuxDude 16:46, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree on the NPOV tag. I'm not sure that splitting the article is necessary though. - DNewhall 16:25, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Irenaeus and "Cainites"(?)

From what I've been able to ascertain, Irenaeus is the only one who maintained the existence of the Cainites as a distinctive Gnostic sect. Is it therefore possible to amend the text to reflect the uncertainty about its actual existence, as it might well be a fictional group designed to demonise Gnosticism through incorporating excoriated groups and individuals from Christianity and Judaism? User:Calibanu 13.17, 29 July 2006

Is this a doubt actually raised in the scholarly community? If not, then it would be OR.
Personally, I can't see it. Genuine Gnostic beliefs were sufficiently offensive to the catholic Church that concocting false ones was quite unnecessary. Has he proven unreliable for other Gnostic sects for which we have more information? TCC (talk) (contribs) 01:28, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
Actually, the above discussion #Whose text? sheds considerable light. TCC (talk) (contribs) 01:54, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
Not Canaanites, right? bd2412 T 18:30, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

The "Kingdom" mentioned by Jesus is not the Kingdom of Heaven in the Christian sense

When, in the Gospel of Judas, on page 47 of the codex, Jesus mentions the Kingdom, he's not talking about the Kingdom of Heaven in the Christian sense (so IMHO the link should be removed): the Kingdom he talks about, which he's going to elaborate shortly after, is a kingdom only accessible by the gods and (in gnostic belief) those that belong to them. The Kingdom of Heaven is, in Christian belief, a place prepared for those that are saved. There is no notion of salvation in gnostic beliefs: only knowledge of ones true identity which leads to escape from this infernal reality. Similarly, the Kingdom of gnostic beliefs is where the gods come from - it is not a place prepared by (one of) them for humans (who, by the way, don't have access to it, according to what Jesus tells Judas after Judas' vision of a house he wants to enter after being murdered. Hence, IMO, the link to the Kingdom of Heaven as understood by Christian and other beliefs is wrong and misleading..


The kindom of heaven in Gnostic sense is within the mortal realm (known as 'Asgard in nordic mythology, and Satvyaloka in Vedic mythology). The gnostic world of the saved is a spiritual world free from the constaints of matter.86.4.59.203 22:06, 11 April 2007 (UTC)John.

role of Sanhedrin

The artice uses the phrase "Jerusalem's Great Sanhedrin, which officiated over the crucifixion of Jesus, with the endorsement of the occupying power of Rome." I find this a partisan statement that reflects an inaccurate picture of the authority of the Sanhedrin; my training has always been that they lacked the power of capital punishment, and that cruxifiction was strictly in the hands of the Roman authorities. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Sageadvisor (talk • contribs) 15:08, 8 March 2007 (UTC).

Uniqueness of the Codex

In this section someone has added a "citation needed" tag to the sentence:

There is, however, no evidence of any concerted effort in the late ancient or early midieval eras to destroy alternative gospels.

I disagree that this statement needs a citation. Since Wikipedia is an open encylopedia, IF any evidence DOES exist, then it will get added with applicable citation. More important, I think the addition of the "citation needed" tag creates a NPOV issue. It is far easier to offer evidence of something than to prove there is no evidence. Adding the "citation needed" tag seems like a backhand way of casting doubt on the claim that there is no evidence without having to provide said evidence.

On the other hand, an absolute statement that there is no evidence seems to create the opposite NPOV problem. I would suggest rewording the sentence from the current "There is, however, no evidence of..." to a more POV neutral "However, no evidence has been found of ..." and removing the "citation needed" tag.

Comments?--TimJohnK 01:47, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

My first comment is that new threads should go on the bottom of the page so that people can find them easily.
Secondly, yes the statement needs a citation. We don't have to prove anything here; that's not what a cite is for. The important point is that someone else has proved it, or at least a that reliable source makes this claim. If no one has said this anywhere, the statement is original research and should be removed entirely.
Third, all a {{fact}} tag does is point out an area where a statement really should be supported by something other than some editor's say-so. That applies all over Wikipedia to any non-trivial statement of fact. Applying NPOV standards to placement of that template is simply invalid. TCC (talk) (contribs) 05:41, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
Here we have to be sensible. We know the other Christian sects were brutally suppressed by the Roman empire. Early evidence is hardly likely to appear, as the Romans wrote the history. Yet we do know what the Holy See did to the Cathars, the Templars and those effected by the Inquisitions. But then the Holy See couldn't cover such evils up, as they had less power than the Romans of the 3rd century. There is no doubt that the Roman empire forced Christianity into one direction. Only a fool would claim the romans would leave evidence to implicate their guilt.86.4.59.203 22:12, 11 April 2007 (UTC)John
The Roman Empire was much more concerned with stamping out Christianity as a whole in the 3rd century, not forcing any particular direction on it -- except perhaps underground. You're probably thinking of the 4th century, but in that case the Church itself decided on the direction (or rather, it formalized which direction was the correct one); the empire merely enforced its decision. Since this enforcement was seen as the right thing to do, there was no reason to cover anything up as far as the empire was concerned. It would have been more a matter for boasting, actually. "Brutally" is a bit of an overstatement, especially compared to the persecutions that occurred just a few decades before Nicaea; the usual penalty was exile, not death. TCC (talk) (contribs) 22:21, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
Yep your right of course, 4th century. However, you realise the contradition you make whenn refering to the empire enforcing the churches views. Jesus never advocated destroying or oppressing other religious views. His approach was one of "lets debate our differences". So its not a Christian thing to do, enforcing one church on all the Christian sects. Neither is it Christian to exile those whom you disagree with. Thats what politians do. Thats why the Babylonians exiled the Jews, to divide and conquer. There was no official single Church before the council of Nicea was there? That is the whole point of the council of Nicea, to impose uniformity upon Christian sects via a centralized Roman controlled Church community throughout the empire. Constantine hand picked those responsible for establishing the council of Nicea (and hence its political objective), so he had set the agenda from the start. If you are suggesting that the Church community used the empire to enforce its decisions, I think that unlikely. Lets be sensible, the empire controled the Church to serve its own purpose of uniting the empire under one religion in order to reduce insurgency (to stablize a weakened empire). The empire was a ruthless facist authority (to be kind), and those heading the Roman Church were as much politicians as religious leaders. Rome didn't relax its punishment for decent, although exile may have been used upon those whom renounced their views and swore alliance with Rome. All heretical scripture was chased and where possible destroyed. That is why we have to rely upon the Nag Hamandi library and Qumran scrolls for the broader view of early Christians.86.4.59.203 00:44, 12 April 2007 (UTC)John
I don't actually disagree with you about the character of the Empire, except to quibble that "fascist" is anachronistic. It refers to a specific arrangement of an absolutist government, and the Empire was not that. It was indeed very nasty, although not excessively so by the standards of the time.
No, the Empire didn't control the Church. It doesn't matter how often it's said; repetition doesn't make it any less ridiculous. Before the legalization of Christianity the Empire was unable to control the Church; why should that change after? It couldn't have been fear on the part of the bishops, as some of those at Nicaea bore scars from the tortures they had already suffered for the faith. No one who makes this claim can give any credible reason why they should suddenly decide to betray their faith after that. On later occasions when the Empire really did attempt to impose some false doctrine or other, the orthodox preferred to be persecuted rather than accept a lie. See, for example, Maximus the Confessor. But your viewpoint is Western-centric overall; Rome was not the center of Christianity for many centuries after Constantine. A great many Christians did not accept the role Rome assigned to itself, and never have to this day. This story about a monolithic church centered at Rome starting in the 4th century is a fantasy.
The prevailing opinion is that the Qumran scrolls were not written by a Christian group. Claims that they were are supported by circular arguments; one has to assume a certain state of the 1st century Church for them to be credible, but the only indication this might be the case are the scrolls themselves, which nowhere mention Christ. The idea is heavily contradicted by other early documents. The Gnostic viewpoint represented by the Nag Hammadi cache was always marginal in Christianity where it could even be considered Christian at all. Irenaeus of Lyons wrote extensively about their errors -- at a time when Christianity was still illegal and had no support from the Roman state whatsoever. Rejection of that viewpoint was not a 4th century novelty. TCC (talk) (contribs) 05:21, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
Lots of people write down opinions, I am not swayed by politics, but I am convinced of human nature. Priests who spend time critizing religious beliefs (in their writings) of others were attempting to control public opinion against people with different views, or different perspective of history. Whether such people call themselves church men or politicians makes no difference to me. People have minds, they should read the texts for themselves and not be swayed by the critique of others. Qumran is in Jordan, very close to where Jesus was babtized. This is the home of early Christianity through the Nazarene sect. Prevailing opinion is as much speculation as is non prevailing opinion, as we have insufficient information to form solid opinion (it is a matter of belief to us both). It is my opinion that the non canonical christian texts are a different perspective of the same teachings. Jesus may well have tought one aspect of the whole to Judas (to suit his level of knowledge or realization), and another aspect to Simon Peter (againt to suit circumstance). That some knew more than others (forming an inner and outer cirlce) was bound to result in jelousy after Jesus left the scene. As alot of varigatedness of perspective exists in society, all teachings should be maintained as Christian if they claim to be so. Rather than trying to play down a scripture as heretical (which ironically means choice), one can read it and take what is of value to one's own situation. Would it be prudent to adopt Irenaeus Christianity for one's own wholesale, or does it seem a better idea to sample everything and come to a personal understanding thus forming one's own critisizm without being swayed by others side comments of the different scriptures?86.4.59.203 16:15, 12 April 2007 (UTC)John.
I'll stick with Irenaeus - thanks. Lostcaesar 16:48, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
"No Scripture is of private interpretation." Creating a custom-made cafeteria-style religion for yourself is fun, but I prefer the truth and the Church that Christ actually founded. But at least you admit you're speculating, and your ideas should therefore not be taken as statements of fact. But naturally you miss the point, which is that these Gospels were rejected by the Church long before pressure from the Roman government could possibly have been an issue in such matters. The idea that they were rejected only because the Empire forced the Church to is clearly false. TCC (talk) (contribs) 19:15, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
As all scripture is not written by Jesus, therefore all scripture are private 'interpretation' of those whom wrote the scripture's. If you were to teach 10 people, all 10 will interpret your teachings in relation to their own perspective. It is likely that Jesus would have taught some of his disciples more detail than others (as a disciple might ask a question to Jesus without anyone else being present). Also, the minute you decide that something written in one of the scriptures is true, you have interpreted it literally. That is a problem if the story is allergorical. We must all interpret to our ability, as to what we believe is truth. If you believe the Gospels, Jesus died before the founding of the orthodox church. Can we assume he would agree with the church's development in his absence? For me, I don't want to assume anything. The non-canonical gospels were still rejected, because those controling the development of orthodoxy wanted to silence books they didn't agree with. That to me was an arogant act, by a bunch of people who couldn't stand allowing normal people to read all the availible books and make their own minds up. Who is Irenaeus to interpret the scritputures and make my mind up for me, arogant Irenaeus. Sure he can critisize books in his own private notes for his own record, but I don't want his bias being forced upon me by the instrument of the chruch. Those whom supress the freedom of information are worse than those who physically persecute. For they mislead souls, whereas violence only harms the body.86.4.59.203 21:23, 14 April 2007 (UTC)John.

Assessment comment

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Gospel of Judas/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

Using a number of the external links as references would (a) increase the number of inline citations, and (b) trim the number of links. It would also make this article easily at least B-rated. Pastordavid (talk) 15:28, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Last edited at 15:28, 22 May 2008 (UTC). Substituted at 14:52, 1 May 2016 (UTC)

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