The *Gospel* of Judas?

According to information in the archives of the Orthodox Church and via our priest, the Orthodox Church has known about this document for many hundreds of years.

It seems the original document was written as early as AD 140-180. Discovered in 1970, this ancient papyrus document may be the same "Gospel of Judas" referred to by Irenaeus.

In the 180's AD, Irenaeus wrote extensively on ancient heretical groups. One of these groups, known as the Cainites, thought they were descendants of "Esau, Korah, [and] the Sodomites." Irenaeus wrote that "They produce a fictitious history of this kind, which they style the Gospel of Judas."

Writing fictitious gospels was the "in" thing in the second to fourth centuries AD. Numerous second to fourth century gospels and documents were discovered in 1945, including "The Gospel of Thomas." These documents, not including the Gospel of Judas, has been translated in a book called, The Nag Hammadi Library.

Anyone who has actually ever read the Nag Hammadi documents knows that they are usually so absurdly bazaar that they have virtually no claim to historical reliability-unless, of course, you think that women must become men in order to be saved, or that being female is a "defect," an "illness," or "madness" or that Jesus never suffered in any way and, in fact, was laughing at everyone while on the cross. Or perhaps you believe that the androgynous god "Death" begot seven androgynous female offspring named "Wrath, Pain, Lust, Sighing, Curse, Bitterness, Quarrelsomeness." Hmmmm, I wonder why no early church leaders considered these Nag Hammadi documents as part of their New Testament?

Still, the media is having a great time with this, partly out of their lack of knowledge and partly, no doubt, for ratings.

Feel free to forward this to anyone who may be interested.

Dennis Ingolflsand

So, this "Gospel of Judas" has been a fake for many hundreds of years. It isn't something new that has just been recently discovered. The Church has known about it for a long time.

It does seem quite odd that around holy times for Christians there is an unashamed effort to make us question our faith and devotion, and if the Christian is not steadfast and certain about what they believe is true and right, they will question their faith at every report they receive and believe fiction for truth and truth for fiction.

In being a Christian you cannot be a weak minded or weak spirited person, nor can you be so narrow minded that you do the very thing Christ speaks out against - judging our brothers (other people) when we do not know everything about them. The task, and it is a difficult one, is to gather all of the necessary information and proceed forward with faith and guidance of the Bible and the priest and our traditions to see us through to the proper course of action.

This so-called "gospel" is fiction. And, if you really look at it, you can see just how warped-sided it truly is. One of the allegations is that Christ told Judas to betray Him. If this was true then why did Judas commit suicide by hanging himself before seeing the reason as to why Christ had him do such a thing? And who did Judas tell before he committed suicide? He would have to tell someone who could write. There weren't that many people back then that could perform that most important task. And, how long did it take Judas to do this? He killed himself before the sun rose upon Christ's Crucifixion! It just doesn't make sense.