Why the Gospel of Judas is Important
Posted by Peter_Novak at 14:11, 12 Apr 2006The Gospel of Judas is important for two reasons. One, it contains new evidence that the early Church taught the binary soul doctrine, and two, it portrays Judas not just as the most special and advanced of Jesus' disciples, but as a holy, divine, and almost equal partner to Jesus. Now, there is one precedent to this. In all of early Christian literature, there is only one other instance in which one of Jesus' disciples is portrayed as being His equal or near-equal, and that is found in the Syrian/Indian tradition about the Apostle Thomas, or Judas Thomas, who wrote the Gospel of Thomas, and who was widely thought to be Jesus' biological twin brother and co-Messiah. Now we find a second gospel that says the same thing, that a disciple named Judas is His equal or near-equal partner. Obviously from these two recovered texts we learn that significant portions of the early church believed that Judas and Thomas were the same man, and this Judas Thomas was a co-Messiah alongside Jesus.
If one twin died and the other lived, that would also explain why the legend has persisted that Jesus survived and went on to sire a family line, such as has been argued in Holy Blood Holy Grail and The Da Vinci Code.
- Peter
Bookmark/Search this post with
- Peter_Novak's blog
- Login or register to post comments
Comments
15 March 2006
32 weeks 1 hour
As someone at one time very involved in mainstream Christian ministry, evangelism, and apologetics, I can tell you that the Book of Judas, if true, does something far more important that either of those things. It puts serious strain on the conventional view (dogmatically incorporated into the religion as holy doctrine) of who Jesus was and what he preached.
The idea of a "two part" soul is not terribley amazing. I was taught that every person had three parts: The soul, the spirit, and the body. I won't go into the relationship here, but, sufficive to say, a great many practicing Christians won't have trouble swallowing it as they've already been exposed to a "church-friendly" view of the idea.
The idea of a co-messiahship IS, however diametrically opposed to the conventional belief of Jesus' person and history. The only figures that come close to that status (and only in Catholic circles) are Mary and Peter. Judas has always been villified and derided as a sneaky, greedy, self-serving man. To think that he may have been fully aware of his part in the divine plan is more than most of them will be able to bear. Tell them he was Jesus' favored apostle and they'll flip.
Expect the book to be contraversial. The standard canon has been carefully constructed (several hundred years after Jesus' death and possible resurrection, mind you) to be as cohesive as it can be. Books that proved too divergent from that core beliefs were removed and labelled "apocrypha" and said to be heretical. The entire edifice of organized Christianity relies on followers being close-minded to other religious texts, ESPECIALLY apocryphal christian/gnostic texts. The introduction of "new" apocrypha is going to be attacked mercilessly from the pulpit. Expect accusations of forgery, of a conspiracy of secular powers, flat denial of its existance, book burnings in some more fundamental sections of the south, and piles of tenuous "evidence" of it's falsehood.
In short, there's too much as stake to allow it to go unchallenged.
24 June 2004
4 years 35 weeks
There's the Virgin Birth,the Son of God coming to earth to die for the sins of man.
The Annunciation.
Easter Sunday.Did Jesus rise from the dead because he was actually an identical twin and Judas appeared in his place?
It wont matter for those people for whom faith is the only criterion for belief.
But it sure puts the kybosh on church theology and millennia of Augustines and Thomas Aquinases et al and their analysis and subsequent proof of God become Man.
The fact that Jesus chose his own life and death is a doozy compared with what we were taught about him.
His plea to his father to remove this bitter cup.
The Merovingian Myths pale into significance, who cares if he fathered a line of kings or anything else.
If he was human it doesn't matter anymore.
If there were two of them, it seems a little like folie a deux to me.
I gotta tell ya, I'm disappointed in the church.
shadows