Gospel of Judas?

Some of us watched a National Geographic TV show last night called The Gospel of Judas. Those are two words you don't hear together... especially this time of year when the focus is on why Jesus had to die. I remember sitting in a dark church one Maunday Thursday, railing at God: What kind of father are you anyway!?! How could you, why would you do this to your own child? Many people have tried to answer it for me over the years... but it's still one of the things on my list to ask God when I see Him. "My ways are not your ways, saith the Lord." No kidding.

Anyway, there is a Coptic codex (old papyrus book) that was supposedly found in Egypt, near the site the Nag Hammadi library was discovered. It has been painstakingly analyzed, carbon dated, and translated by Coptic experts who all agree it is authentic. The Codex contains a gospel... of Judas, and a very different take on who he was, and why he did what he did in those last days.

The funny thing is I've heard this story before. Now that's eerie. I have also always felt that Judas was maligned in the Bible for reasons not readily apparent. There are too many instances where Jesus can read the minds of the people around him. You're telling me he didn't know he had a bad apple in his barrel? I don't think so. No, the portrayals of Judas get worse with each successive Gospel until John outright slams him, calling him a thief, liar, agent of Satan.

In the Gospel of Judas, he's the only one who gets who Jesus really is and what his mission really is... the one chosen by Christ to do the unthinkable... to turn him over to the authorities. Whoa! That would certainly give new meaning to "the first shall be last and the last first."

The reality is this gospel is just one of many of the Gnostic gospels circulating during the first three centuries after Christ's death. There were dozens, possibly as many as thirty, of these gospels floating around. They were eventually squelched and thrown out as heresy when the current version of the New Testament was compiled. There were lots of reasons for the editing and censoring. Many had to do with the continued survival of the early church, but some because the gnostics were mystics and believed each person could tap into God's grace directly. No need for a hierarchy of church fathers telling you what to do, how to behave, how to be Christian. I probably would have been a gnostic.