Gospel Of Judas Quotes

Look, you have been told everything. Lift up your eyes and look at the cloud and the light within it and the stars surrounding it. And the star that leads the way is your star." So Judas lifted up his eyes and saw the luminous cloud, and he entered it.

Master, take me in along with these people." Jesus answered and said, "Your star has led you astray, Judas.

But God caused knowledge to be given to Adam and those with him, so that the kings of chaos and the underworld might not lord it over them." [--Jesus]

Judas became the spokesman of all those who through the centuries would protest the ornamentation of the Christian cult and would feel that, when the best of gold and jewels were given to the God Who made them, there was some slight made to the poor - not because they were interested in the poor, but because they were envious of that wealth.

The Bible is a work of art. Were it not art, were it simply an instruction manual, it would not satisfy or convince, and very likely would not have survived. So, to be faithful to the original work, which in Greek is normally chanted in churches, as the Torah is chanted in the temple and the Qu’ran is melismatically chanted in the mosque… the Bible here must resonate.

But you will exceed all of them. For you will sacrifice the man who bears me. Already your horn has been raised, and your wrath has been kindled, and your star has passed by, and your heart has become strong." [--Jesus to Judas]

O artesão no seu trabalho não deve levantar-se ante o maior doutor, podemos imaginar com que orgulho profissional começava José a instruir os seus filhos mais velhos, um após outro, à medida que chegavam à idade, primeiro Jesus, depois Tiago, depois José, depois Judas, nos segredos e tradições da arte carpinteira, atento ele, também, à antiga sentença popular que assim reza, O trabalho do menino é pouco, mas quem o desdenha é louco, foi o que veio a chamar-se trabalho infantil.

For there exists a great and boundless aeon, whose extent no generation of angels could see, in which is the great invisible Spirit, which no eye of an angel has ever seen, no thought of the heart has ever comprehended, and it was never called by any name.

Judas said, "Master, as you have listened to all of them, now also listen to me. For I have seen a great vision." And when Jesus heard this, he laughed and said to him, "You thirteenth daimon, why do you try so hard? But speak up, and I shall bear with you.

Paul suggests that gentiles can practice a law written in their hearts, which will be seen as not only equal to but also above the written Torah…It should be remembered that in Paul’s day the only religious law for Paul was that of the Jewish Bible, in Hebrew… Though Torah and the New Testament, including Paul’s letters, will eventually shape church law, the New Testament’s books are not in themselves composed as law. They are not a self-consciously composed constitution. They contain no Ten Commandments in form or statement.

Let twelve angels come into being to rule over chaos and the underworld." And look, from the cloud there appeared an angel whose face flashed with fire and whose appearance was defiled with blood. His name was Nebro, which means in translation 'rebel'; others call him Yaldabaoth.

The ultimate expression of this Christian attitude toward the power of money is what we will call profanation. To profane money, like all other powers, is to take away its sacred character.... Giving to God is the act of profanation par excellence.... We need to regain an appreciation of gifts that are not utilitarian. We should meditate on the story in the Gospel of John where Mary wastes precious ointment on Jesus. The one who protests against this free gift is Judas. He would have preferred it to be used for good works, for the poor. He wanted such an enormous sum of money to be spent usefully. Giving to God introduces the useless into the world of efficiency, and this is an essential witness to faith in today's world.

...Then they will fornicate in my name and slay their children [...] in my name, and your star will rule over the thirteenth aeon." And after that Jesus laughed. Judas said, "Master, why are you laughing at us?" Jesus answered and said, "I am not laughing at you but at the error of the stars, because these six stars wander about with these five combatants, and they all will be destroyed along with their creatures.

Paul knew what he was talking about when he called Christians “earthen vessels.” We’re baked clay. We’re privy pots. The advance of the gospel will never occur on account of us. This helps explain why God chose none of the early preachers among the apostles because of his superior intellect, position, or prominence. As I wrote in my book Twelve Ordinary Men, these twelve were so ordinary it defies all human logic: not one teacher, not one priest, not one rabbi, not one scribe, not one Pharisee, not one Sadducee, not even a synagogue ruler—nobody from the elite. Half of them or so were fishermen, and the rest were common laborers. One, Simon the Zealot, was a terrorist, a member of a group who went around with daggers in their cloaks, trying to stab Romans. Then there was Judas, the loser of all losers. What was the Lord doing? He picked people with absolutely no influence. None of the great intellects from Egypt, Greece, Rome, or Israel was among the apostles. During the New Testament time, the greatest scholars were very likely in Egypt. The most distinguished philosophers were in Athens. The powerful were in Rome. The biblical scholars were in Jerusalem. God disdained all of them and picked clay pots instead.

In oral societies it is recognized that the telling of a story to a different audience or in a different context or for a different reason calls for a different version of the story. Stories are molded to the time and circumstance in which they are told.

Allow me to sum it up this way; if the Church allows this secular humanistic "social gospel" into its hallowed halls, then it is putting its very existence at risk, for it will subject itself to the government. And the Church must be subject to Christ---not the government.

The publication of the Gospel of Judas within Codex Tchacos represents a significant moment for the study of religion and culture. It is a rare occurrence that a previously unknown gospel manuscript is discovered, particularly one that was mentioned in early Christian sources, and that is precisely what is the case with the Gospel of Judas. The Gospel of Judas can be dated, with some certainty, to around the middle of the second century, or perhaps even a bit before, and the materials included within it are even older. The gospel is thus an early source for our knowledge of an important mystical movement within early Christianity and Judaism, namely the Sethian gnostic school of religious thought. Further, the text provides the opportunity to evaluate, and perhaps reevaluate, the historical role of a figure—Judas Iscariot—who has been much maligned within Christianity and has been a prominent figure in the development of anti-Semitism. All in all, the Gospel of Judas sheds important light on the character of developing Christianity, and reminds us again of the rich diversity of the early church.

considering the question, what’s the difference between Judas and Peter,*3 I’ve wondered what would’ve happened if  Judas would have had a forgiving encounter with the resurrected Christ in the same way Peter did. What would’ve happened if  Judas had heard in his ears a word of grace just for him, a word he could not create for himself. Would he still have died at his own hand? Proclaiming the purifying, forgiving love of  God is what I call preaching the gospel. But in a way, it’s really only preaching if the one doing the proclaiming hears it too. As

Judas betrays Jesus for thirty pieces of silver. No one in the Gospel ever judges of punishes him for this. Even Jesus, who is shown to know Judas will betray him, simply tells him "That thou doest, do quickly". But ultimately Judas sees he has done wrong and condemns himself. He goes to the chief priests and elders to return the silver, saying "I have sinned in that I have betrayed innocent blood", then hangs himself. The price of 'sin' is not that you will be sent to hell by a divine judge or that karmic forces will ensure you're paid back. The price of being bad is that you have to live with being the person who did wrong.

That Jesus had brothers is, despite the Catholic doctrine of his mother Mary’s perpetual virginity, virtually indisputable. It is a fact attested to repeatedly by both the gospels and the letters of Paul. Even Josephus references Jesus’s brother James, who would become the most important leader of the early Christian church after Jesus’s death. There is no rational argument that can be made against the notion that Jesus was part of a large family that included at least four brothers who are named in the gospels—James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas—and an unknown number of sisters who, while mentioned in the gospels, are unfortunately not named.

The kingdom is open to everyone,” Joshua said. “Ev-ree-one, get it?” Everyone nodded. “Even Romans.” Everyone stopped nodding. “The kingdom of God is upon us, but the Romans will remain in Israel. The kingdom of God has nothing to do with the kingdom of Israel, do you all understand that?” “But the Messiah is supposed to lead our people to freedom,” Judas shouted. “No master but God!” Simon added. “Shut up!” said Joshua. “I was not sent to deliver wrath. We will be delivered into the kingdom by forgiveness, not conquest. People, we have been over this, what have I not made clear?” “How we are to cast the Romans out of the kingdom?” shouted Nathaniel. “You should know better,” Joshua said to Nathaniel, “you yellow-haired freak. One more time, we can’t cast the Romans out of the kingdom because the kingdom is open to all.

Biblia pamoja na historia vinatwambia kuwa mitume kumi na wawili wa Yesu Kristo waliamua kufa kinyama kama mfalme wao alivyokufa, kwa sababu walikataa kukana imani yao juu ya Yesu Kristo. Mathayo alikufa kwa ajili ya Ukristo nchini Ethiopia kwa jeraha lililotokana na kisu kikali, Marko akavutwa na farasi katika mitaa ya Alexandria nchini Misri mpaka akafa, kwa sababu alikataa kukana jina la Yesu Kristo. Luka alinyongwa nchini Ugiriki kwa sababu ya kuhubiri Injili ya Yesu Kristo katika nchi ambapo watu hawakumtambua Yesu. Yohana alichemshwa katika pipa la mafuta ya moto katika kipindi cha mateso makubwa ya Wakristo nchini Roma, lakini kimiujiza akaponea chupuchupu, kabla ya kufungwa katika gereza la kisiwa cha Patmo (Ugiriki) ambapo ndipo alipoandika kitabu cha Ufunuo. Mtume Yohana baadaye aliachiwa huru na kurudi Uturuki, ambapo alimtumikia Bwana kama Askofu wa Edessa. Alikufa kwa uzee, akiwa mtume pekee aliyekufa kwa amani. Petro alisulubiwa kichwa chini miguu juu katika msalaba wa umbo la X kulingana na desturi za kikanisa za kipindi hicho, kwa sababu aliwaambia maadui zake ya kuwa alijisikia vibaya kufa kama alivyokufa mfalme wake Yesu Kristo. Yakobo ndugu yake na Yesu (Yakobo Mkubwa), kiongozi wa kanisa mjini Yerusalemu, alirushwa kutoka juu ya mnara wa kusini-mashariki wa hekalu aliloliongoza la Hekalu Takatifu (zaidi ya futi mia moja kwenda chini) na baadaye kupigwa kwa virungu mpaka akafa, alipokataa kukana imani yake juu ya Yesu Kristo. Yakobo mwana wa Zebedayo (Yakobo Mdogo) alikuwa mvuvi kabla Yesu Kristo hajamwita kuwa mchungaji wa Injili yake. Kama kiongozi wa kanisa hatimaye, Yakobo aliuwawa kwa kukatwa kichwa mjini Yerusalemu. Afisa wa Kirumi aliyemlinda Yakobo alishangaa sana jinsi Yakobo alivyolinda imani yake siku kesi yake iliposomwa. Baadaye afisa huyo alimsogelea Yakobo katika eneo la mauti. Nafsi yake ilipomsuta, alijitoa hatiani mbele ya hakimu kwa kumkubali Yesu Kristo kama kiongozi wa maisha yake; halafu akapiga magoti pembeni kwa Yakobo, ili na yeye akatwe kichwa kama mfuasi wa Yesu Kristo. Bartholomayo, ambaye pia alijulikana kama Nathanali, alikuwa mmisionari huko Asia. Alimshuhudia Yesu mfalme wa wafalme katika Uturuki ya leo. Bartholomayo aliteswa kwa sababu ya mahubiri yake huko Armenia, ambako inasemekana aliuwawa kwa kuchapwa bakora mbele ya halaiki ya watu iliyomdhihaki. Andrea alisulubiwa katika msalaba wa X huko Patras nchini Ugiriki. Baada ya kuchapwa bakora kinyama na walinzi saba, alifungwa mwili mzima kwenye msalaba ili ateseke zaidi. Wafuasi wake waliokuwepo katika eneo la tukio waliripoti ya kuwa, alipokuwa akipelekwa msalabani, Andrea aliusalimia msalaba huo kwa maneno yafuatayo: "Nimekuwa nikitamani sana na nimekuwa nikiitegemea sana saa hii ya furaha. Msalaba uliwekwa wakfu na Mwenyezi Mungu baada ya mwili wa Yesu Kristo kuning’inizwa juu yake." Aliendelea kuwahubiria maadui zake kwa siku mbili zaidi, akiwa msalabani, mpaka akaishiwa na nguvu na kuaga dunia. Tomaso alichomwa mkuki nchini India katika mojawapo ya safari zake za kimisionari akiwa na lengo la kuanzisha kanisa la Yesu Kristo katika bara la India. Mathiya alichaguliwa na mitume kuchukua nafasi ya Yuda Iskarioti, baada ya kifo cha Yuda katika dimbwi la damu nchini India. Taarifa kuhusiana na maisha na kifo cha Mathiya zinachanganya na hazijulikani sawasawa. Lakini ipo imani kwamba Mathiya alipigwa mawe na Wayahudi huko Yerusalemu, kisha akauwawa kwa kukatwa kichwa. Yuda Tadei, ndugu yake na Yesu, aliuwawa kwa mishale alipokataa kukana imani yake juu ya Yesu Kristo. Mitume walikuwa na imani kubwa kwa sababu walishuhudia ufufuo wa Yesu Kristo, na miujiza mingine. Biblia ni kiwanda cha imani. Tunapaswa kuiamini Biblia kama mitume walivyomwamini Yesu Kristo, kwa sababu Biblia iliandikwa na mitume.

If the Gospel of Judas found in Codex Tchacos can be convincingly identified as being a Coptic translation of the original Greek Gospel of Judas that Bishop Ireneaus mentioned around A.D. 180 in his book, "Against Heresies," it will be an important step in the study of ancient gnosticism. We would have for the first time the chance to trace back the history of Sethian gnosticism to before the time of Irenaeus. This would be a significant gain in our knowledge of early Christianity.

Just as if Manetho's "Aegyptiaca" or the second book of Aristotle's "Poetics" reappeared, the simple fact that such a significant text as "The Gospel of Judas," believed to be lost forever, comes back to light, constitutes in itself an absolutely exceptional event. But in the present case, the impact of such a discovery takes on particular importance, since, through the rehabilitation of Judas, by presenting him as the closest disciple of Christ and as the one he chose to "betray" him in order to fulfill God's will, this text not only seriously challenges one of the most firmly rooted believes in Christian tradition, but also reduces one of the favorite themes of anti-Semitism to nothing

Give Gnostic scholars a new Gnostic text filled with aeons and cosmic mysteries and they think they’re in hog heaven.

The historical story of Judas the Galilean confirms the 6 CE date while the later date of 29 CE is fraught with contradictions. The reason is clear for the displacement of John: the early church had to distance itself from the "Jesus" of history or Judas the Galilean. In his place was inserted the Gospel Jesus of Nazareth.

The Gospels were written for Gentile consumption, and their Jesus was meant to identify with Gentile notions concerning God. Therefore, the human sacrifice of Jesus became central to this Gospel, something abhorrent to the Jewish God of the Old Testament.

Further to that, it is surely interesting that many church fathers did not know about several of these so-called Gospels. Whereas Bart Ehrman thinks that the Gospel of Peter was just as popular as the Gospel of Mark, Bishop Serapion of Antioch had never heard of the Gospel of Peter before the church at Rhossus brought it to his attention. However, we can assume that Serapion knew all four canonical Gospels because his predecessor Theophilus compiled a Gospel harmony.95 While Irenaeus had his own collection of “other” Gospels, including the Valentinian Gospel of Truth and the Sethian Gospel of Judas,96 these are never once mentioned by either Clement of Alexandria or Origen, the two authors who cite “other” Jesus books more liberally, nor are they known to the catalogs of Eusebius and the Gelasian decree. Consequently we must wonder precisely how widely many of these “other” Gospels circulated beyond their point of origin.

Let's think of that moment when a woman washed the feet of Jesus with the nard, so expensive: it is a religious moment, a moment of gratitude, a moment of love. And he [Judas] stands apart with bitter criticism: 'But this could have been used for the poor!' This is the first reference that I have found, in the Gospel, to poverty as an ideology. The ideologue does not know what love is, because he does nt know how to give himself.

Jesus’ special knowledge of his Father’s will for him, articulated in v. 1, is now repeated, but with two significant additions: he knew not only that the time had come for him to leave this world, but that he had come from God and that the Father had put all things under his power. With such power and status at his disposal, we might have expected him to defeat the devil in an immediate and flashy confrontation, and to devastate Judas with an unstoppable blast of divine wrath. Instead, he washes his disciples’ feet, including the feet of the betrayer.

Who killed Jesus? Who killed Him?" Octavius Winslow asks. "It wasn't Judas out of greed. It wasn't the Jews out of envy. It was His Father out of love.

If the gospel lacks correspondence to reality, why is it that the majority of believers never comes to terms with this? As I expressed in my opening chapter, I am convinced it is not due to a lack of intelligence. Nor is it due to a lack of goodness or noble intentions on the part of most believers. Rather, from the perspective of one who has escaped the finely tuned clutches of the Christian machinery designed to keep me in the fold, I see it primarily as a lack of courage, at least for those who have encountered good reasons for doubting. I, like most believers, experienced serious doubts as a young Christian, but I lacked the courage to pit my reservations against the authority of the church and against its fallible, humanly authored scriptures, finding it safer to submit to the supremely well-crafted, guilt-inducing tactics of apologists who assured me that all the fault lay with me and not with the divinely inspired Bible. I capitulated and managed to hold my doubts at bay for over a decade longer while serving God on the mission field. Many if not most of you have faced similar questions and misgivings about the Bible and the Christian faith, even if not to the same extent. You might be like me during my initial short-lived crises of faith: I could not bring myself to face with courage the possibility that life might not have any cosmic Meaning; that there might be no higher power to guide, protect, and provide for me; that justice might not prevail in the long run; that I might no longer be able to hold sinners accountable with the words, "Thus says the Lord"; that life ends at the grave; or that I might have followed and lead others to follow a grand mistake. I lacked the courage to face my church, family, and friends whom I feared would look upon me as a reprobate. I lacked the courage to think for myself—to accept that the virtues of humility and meekness must not be used as an excuse for failing to challenge entrenched ideas that lack sufficient evidence. In short, I preferred to squelch the seed of doubt and label it as sin rather than as healthy, critical thinking, lest it flower and make life unbearable. That I viewed my incipient doubt and disbelief as sin was no accident: the church has a powerful vested interest in keeping believers in the fold, and it will not let them go without a fight. My courage-squelching guilt or angst was the result of a concerted effort developed over the centuries to make me feel like a depraved worm, a proud and willful rebel, a traitor, a God-hater, and an enemy of all that is good. I was programmed to consider that I would be better off if I were to commit adultery or murder than if I were to abandon the one who created me and redeemed me. Without Christ I would be worse than a good-for-nothing, and, like the traitor Judas, it would have been better for me had I never been born. No wonder most believers never muster the courage to break free from this cage!

and coming to  m his hometown  n he taught them in their synagogue, so that  o they were astonished, and said, “Where did this man get this wisdom and these mighty works? 55 p Is not this  q the carpenter’s son? Is not his mother called Mary? And are not  r his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas? 56And are not all his sisters with us? Where then did this man get all these things?” 57And  s they took offense at him. But Jesus said to them,  t “A prophet is not without honor except in his hometown and in his own household.” 58And he did not do many mighty works there,  u because of their unbelief.

the New Testament is arranged not according to when the books were written but according to genre, with the Gospels first, then the book of Acts, then the letters (of Paul and others), and then the book of Revelation.

(Paul, and all the other authors of the New Testament, wrote in Greek).

In the Hebrew language, the word for “anointed one” is mashiach, from which we get our word messiah. In Greek, the language of the New Testament, the translation of mashiach is christos, whence we get our word Christ.

that infamous cry that has led to such hateful acts of anti-Semitism over the ages, where they take responsibility for the death of Jesus and pass that responsibility on to their descendants: “His blood be upon us and our children” (27:25).

thirty pieces of silver.

apostles” (i.e., those sent on a mission)

It was clear to me that this newly discovered Gospel of Judas could be one of two things. Its importance and the breadth of its appeal would depend entirely on which of these two things it was.

These manuscripts had evidently resided in this limestone box for over sixteen hundred years, completely undisturbed.

the manuscripts back immediately and return the worthless checks.

Vođe poput Ireneja, posvetili su decenije svojih života uspostavljanju struktura simbola, kanona, sveštenstva, verujući da opstanak pokreta zavisi od njih - i na neki način možda su imali pravo, jer postoje ograničenja u pogledu broja različitih stavova koje svaka grupa može da podnese, naročito u nemirna vremena.

However for Gnostics, Judas is a hero, a benefactor of mankind, who, through his betrayal, helped Jesus Christ's mission to be carried out. A “Gospel of Judas” even existed, which narrated all these events from his point of view. You can already imagine what happened to this gospel. According to Gnostics, Judas came to help Christ with his mission. Judas's betrayal is what led directly to the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. The death of the Messiah redeemed the world. The redeeming death of the Saviour would not have occurred without Judas. Without Judas, christianity would not have succeeded as a religion. How different the history of man would have been if Judas, “the best of the Lord's disciples”, had not existed.

Luke mentioned that he wrote to Theophilus previously about Jesus and all that he did (the Gospel of Luke).   After his resurrection, Jesus appeared to his disciples for forty days, convincing the people he was alive.  He told them to wait in Jerusalem for the Holy Spirit and that they would be his witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and to the ends of the earth.   After that, Jesus ascended into heaven.  An angel asked the disciples why they were standing around.  Jesus would be back.  So the apostles casted lots to replace Judas, who had died in a field, and Matthias was chosen.

Can we listen to him as he tells us that knowledge without virtue can neither bring us good nor show us truth?

This knowledge cannot come to us through natural means—for example, by looking around at the world and thinking hard about it.

the state of the world today. Why is it a place of such misery, pain, and suffering? Because it is not the good creation of the ultimate true God.

The enemies of God might imprison, torture, and kill the apostles of Christ, but they could never stop the forward movement of the mission.

Despite Dan Brown’s claim at the beginning of his novel that all of its “descriptions of documents … are accurate,” nearly everything he says about the Gospels outside the New Testament is wrong.

Irenaeus was particularly distressed about the widespread presence of Gnostic Christians in the midst of the church.

Frieda Tchacos Nussberger, the antiquities dealer of Greek origin who owned the manuscript, and her legal counsel, the Swiss lawyer Mario Roberty, internationally known for his work with European clients interested in fine art and antiquities

The author of Acts, who has put these words on Peter’s lips, sees that everything—even the disastrous events of Jesus’ betrayal and execution—was according to plan.

The widespread notion that stories never should be changed but should be repeated without alteration every time is an innovation of modern written cultures.

I’m not a Coptologist. Coptic is one of those languages that I taught myself in my spare time over the years, mainly because I wanted to be able to read ancient Coptic translations of the New Testament and some of the Gnostic Gospels discovered in the twentieth century.

3My soul ached for the children of humanity, because they are blind in their hearts and do not see, for they came into the world empty, and they also seek to depart from the world empty. 'But meanwhile they are drunk. When they shake off their wine, then they will change their ways.

people either live in the light or walk in the darkness; they either stand for the truth or propagate error.

a book called the Golden Legend, compiled by the Dominican monk Jacobus of Voragine in 1265. Prior to the Protestant Reformation, this was the most widely read book in all of Christendom,

When he comes to learn that he is in fact not related to the queen, and so is not the royal heir,

So too the famous preacher and bishop of Constantinople, John, who was so eloquent in the pulpit that he earned the sobriquet Chrysostom, which means “golden-mouthed.

So to walk even as he walked." 1 John 2:6 Why should Christians imitate Christ? They should do it for their own sakes. If they desire to be in a healthy state of soul--if they would escape the sickness of sin, and enjoy the vigour of growing grace, let Jesus be their model. For their own happiness' sake, if they would drink wine on the lees, well refined; if they would enjoy holy and happy communion with Jesus; if they would be lifted up above the cares and troubles of this world, let them walk even as he walked. There is nothing which can so assist you to walk towards heaven with good speed, as wearing the image of Jesus on your heart to rule all its motions. It is when, by the power of the Holy Spirit, you are enabled to walk with Jesus in his very footsteps, that you are most happy, and most known to be the sons of God. Peter afar off is both unsafe and uneasy. Next, for religion's sake, strive to be like Jesus. Ah! poor religion, thou hast been sorely shot at by cruel foes, but thou hast not been wounded one-half so dangerously by thy foes as by thy friends. Who made those wounds in the fair hand of Godliness? The professor who used the dagger of hypocrisy. The man who with pretences, enters the fold, being nought but a wolf in sheep's clothing, worries the flock more than the lion outside. There is no weapon half so deadly as a Judas-kiss. Inconsistent professors injure the gospel more than the sneering critic or the infidel. But, especially for Christ's own sake, imitate his example. Christian, lovest thou thy Saviour? Is his name precious to thee? Is his cause dear to thee? Wouldst thou see the kingdoms of the world become his? Is it thy desire that he should be glorified? Art thou longing that souls should be won to him? If so,

To say “Lord, Lord” and then disobey is the moral equivalent of a Judas kiss.

was dismissing the Torah as irrelevant and insisting that, for the approaching Last Judgment, what was needed for salvation was not obedience to the Law but faith. If Jesus had stuck to the provinces no harm would have come to him. By arriving at Jerusalem with a following, and teaching openly, he invited arrest and trial, particularly in view of his attitude to the Temple – and it was on this that his enemies concentrated.90 False teachers were normally banished to a remote district. But Jesus, by his behaviour at his trial, made himself liable to far more serious punishment. Chapter 17 of Deuteronomy, especially verses 8 to 12, appears to state that, in matters of legal and religious controversy, a full inquiry should be conducted and a majority verdict reached, and if any of those involved refuses to accept the decision, he shall be put to death. In a people as argumentative and strong-minded as the Jews, living under the rule of law, this provision, known as the offence of the ‘rebellious elder’, was considered essential to hold society together. Jesus was a learned man; that was why Judas, just before his arrest, called him ‘rabbi’. Hence, when brought before the Sanhedrin – or whatever court it was – he appeared as a rebellious elder; and by refusing to plead, he put himself in contempt of court and so convicted himself of the crime by his silence. No doubt it was the Temple priests and the Shammaite Pharisees, as well as the Sadducees, who felt most menaced by Jesus’ doctrine and wanted him put to death in accordance with scripture. But Jesus could not have been guilty of the crime, at any rate as it was later defined by Maimonides in his Judaic code. In any case it was not clear that the Jews had the right to carry out the death sentence. To dispose of these doubts, Jesus was sent to the Roman procurator Pilate as a state criminal. There was no evidence against him at all on this charge, other than the supposition that men claiming to be the Messiah sooner or later rose in rebellion – Messiah-claimants were usually packed off to the Roman authorities if they became troublesome enough. So Pilate was reluctant to convict but did so for political reasons. Hence Jesus was not stoned to death under Jewish law, but crucified by Rome.91 The circumstances attending Jesus’ trial or trials appear to be irregular, as described in the New Testament gospels.92 But then we possess little information about other trials at this time, and all seem irregular.

At that moment a word47 issued from the height. As Judas was standing there, he saw how the word came [down]. He asked the word, “Why have you come down?

Judas said, “How is the spirit disclosed?” The master said, “How [is] the sword [disclosed]?” Judas said, “How is the light disclosed?” The master said, “[It is disclosed] through itself eternally.

There is no weapon half so deadly as a Judas-kiss. Inconsistent professors injure the gospel more than the sneering critic or the infidel.

In all of the Gospels of the New Testament, Mary Magdalene is mentioned only one time during Jesus’ entire public ministry prior to his crucifixion, and in that one reference we are simply told that she was one of three women who accompanied Jesus and his disciples during his itinerant preaching ministry and who gave them the funds they needed to survive (the other two were Joanna and Susanna). That’s it! There are no references to her being a prostitute, having anointed Jesus (that was a different, unnamed woman), or having been the woman caught in adultery (that was yet a different unnamed woman)—let alone having been Jesus’ wife and lover. Where, then, do people get their ideas about the Magdalene from? From legends told about her many decades or even centuries after her death. These are stories that are made up—sometimes (for example, in the case of her having Jesus’ baby) made up in modern times by novelists or “independent researchers” who want to sell books.

The widespread notion that stories never should be changed but should be repeated without alteration every time is an innovation of modern written cultures. Before the creation of the printing press, this was not a widely shared view.

In his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul is upset for a number of reasons, mainly because the Corinthian Christians were misbehaving in lots of ways: he indicates that they formed cliques that contended with one another over which of their leaders was spiritually superior; their worship services had grown chaotic; there was rampant immorality, with some men visiting prostitutes and bragging about it in church (they were saved already, so why did it matter how they behaved?), and one fellow was living in sin with his stepmother.

For Irenaeus, salvation came by having faith in the death and bodily resurrection of Jesus; according to the Gnostics, salvation came by learning the secret truths that Christ taught concerning how to escape this world of the body. I should stress that these truths were not available to just anybody. Only those who had the spark of the divine within could receive them. Others—those without the spark—belonged to the god of this world, the creator who made matter and all the misery and suffering connected with it. These others could not know the truth because they were not from above. This made it exceedingly difficult to argue with Gnostics. If you claimed they were wrong, they could simply point out that you didn’t “know.” If you interpreted a passage of Scripture to counter their claims, they could smugly assure you that you misunderstood the passage. If you claimed that their interpretation violated that natural meaning of the text, they could say that the real meaning lies beneath the surface, there only for those with eyes to see.

Disagreement is simply something that scholars do.

Even though the apocalyptic character of Jesus’ message is clear in our very earliest sources, such as Mark, Q, and the sources behind Matthew and Luke, in our later sources there is little of the apocalypse that is retained. The Gospel of John, the latest of the canonical Gospels, does not, as a rule, put apocalyptic sayings on the lips of Jesus. Even later, in the Gospel of Thomas, Jesus preaches against an apocalyptic understanding of the world (e.g., in Sayings 3 and 113). Later Gospels have no apocalyptic message at all. When the end didn’t come, the followers of Jesus changed his message.

If this was the heart and core of Jesus’ proclamation—that someone called the Son of Man, a cosmic judge from heaven, was soon to arrive in judgment to establish God’s Kingdom—why don’t people today normally think of this as his message? The answer is not hard to find. The expected end did not come. 156 The Lost Gospel of Judas Iscariot Jesus died. Then his disciples died. And the end never arrived. As a result, the followers of Jesus started emphasizing other aspects of his message. His proclamation was reshaped away from its original apocalyptic emphasis. The Christian message became the preaching about Jesus, about his death and resurrection, rather than the preaching of Jesus, about the coming Son of Man. As later storytellers told and retold the stories of Jesus and his preaching, they deemphasized the apocalyptic character of the message. Jesus’ teachings, in effect, were deapocalypticized.

And so we have a theological spectrum. On one end is the apostle Paul, who saw Christ’s death and resurrection as the be-all and end-all. What mattered was that Christ died for sins and was raised from the dead. Everything else about Jesus was completely subservient to his Passion. On the other end is the Gospel of Thomas, for which the death and resurrection of Jesus had no bearing on salvation. The way to have eternal life was by understanding his secret revelations, the teachings that could liberate a person from the entrapment in this corpse of our existence, the material world and the human body.

The second-century theologian and teacher Marcion, for example, claimed that the disciples of Jesus, constantly upbraided by their master for failing to understand, continued to think that he came from the Jewish god in fulfillment of the Jewish law. Because they never understood that he was from the other God, the one who had not created this world or called Israel to be his people, Christ had to call another apostle to proclaim his message. That is why he appeared to Paul on the road to Damascus, to reveal to him the truth of the gospel. And that is why Paul regularly contrasted his gospel with the law. The gospel came from the God of Christ, the law from the god of the Jews. These two were irreconcilably at odds. This is why Paul had such heated arguments with Peter over whether Gentiles had to become Jews in order to be Christians (Gal. 2:11–14). According to Marcion, Paul had it right, Peter had it wrong: true faith in Christ renounced the god of the Jews, it did not worship him. The goal of true religion was to escape his clutches, not obey his rules.

As for the apostles, Luke tells us, once they had returned from their mission, they told him “all that they had done” (9:10a). One would like to have a record of this—and not least an account of what was said by Judas. Yet the verb Luke uses here is diēgēsanto (“they recounted”), a verbal form of the noun Luke uses to describe the genre in which he himself has written (diēgēsis), further strengthening our sense of his Gospel as a gathering of oral reports from participants or eyewitnesses.

The Gospels contain no hint that Judas had been a “mole” infiltrating the inner circle to plan this perfidy.