'Gospel
of Judas' to Be Published
By Stacy Meichtry
Religion News Service
The first translation of an ancient, self-proclaimed "Gospel of
Judas" will be published in late April, bringing to light what some
scholars believe are the writings of an early Christian sect
suppressed for supporting Jesus Christ's infamous betrayer.
If authentic, the manuscript could add to the understanding of
Gnosticism, an unorthodox Christian theology denounced by the early
church. The Roman Catholic Church is aware of the manuscript, which
a Vatican historian calls "religious fantasy."
According to scholars who have seen photographs of the brittle
manuscript, it argues that Judas Iscariot was carrying out God's
will when he handed Christ over to his executioners. The manuscript
could bring momentum to a broader academic movement that argues
Judas has gotten a bum rap among both historians and theologians,
as well as in popular culture.
The manuscript's owner says he has cut a deal with the National
Geographic Society to release the English translation with a
multimedia splash after Easter.
Monsignor Walter Brandmuller, president of the Vatican's Committee
for Historical Science, called it "a product of religious
fantasy."
In an interview, he said the manuscript would not have any impact
on church teaching.
"We welcome the (manuscript) like we welcome the critical study of
any text of ancient literature," Brandmuller said.
He said that despite some reports to the contrary, the drive to
improve Judas' reputation does not have the support of the
Vatican.
"There is no campaign, no movement for the rehabilitation of the
traitor of Jesus," said Brandmuller.
Brushed onto 31 pages of papyrus in Coptic, an Egyptian script, the
manuscript has become tattered after spending centuries buried
beneath the sands of middle Egypt and decades on the gray
market.
According to Mario Roberty, a Swiss lawyer who currently owns the
manuscript, the document, known as a "codex," has undergone
restoration and translation by a team of researchers headed by the
Swiss Coptic scholar Rodolphe Kasser.
"They've put each page under glass. It's incredibly brittle and in
bad shape," Roberty said in a phone interview from Geneva.
Results of the research, Roberty said, will be released after
Easter, when Christians around the world traditionally mark the
official version of Christ's death as told by Matthew, Mark, Luke
and John. Roberty would not discuss the contents of the codex and a
National Geographic spokeswoman in Washington, Mary Jeanne
Jacobsen, would not comment at all. But scholars independently
following the project have already begun to anticipate some of its
findings.
Working from photographs of the codex, Charles Hedrick, a retired
professor of Coptic studies at Missouri State University, has
translated six pages of the manuscript into English, including the
codex's title "The Gospel of Judas." Roberty confirmed that
Hedrick's photos were genuine
reproductions of the codex.
Some of the manuscript's passages echo descriptions in the New
Testament of Christ's arrest, recalling how Roman authorities aimed
to "seize (Christ) in the act of prayer" and how Judas "took some
money and he delivered (Christ) over to them," Hedrick said,
quoting from his translation.
Although Judas cooperates in the arrest of Christ, Hedrick said,
the codex does not depict him as a villain.
"Judas is not a bad guy in this text," Hedrick said in an
interview. "He is the good guy and he is serving God."
Hedrick and other scholars say the codex was produced in the fourth
or fifth century and reflects the theological traditions of a
second-century sect of Gnostics, a community that believed true
spirituality derived from a self-knowledge, or "gnosis." Figures
depicted as sinful in the Old
Testament, such as Cain and Esau, were typically extolled under
Gnostic theology.
As early as the year 178, St. Irenaeus of Lyons, a heresy watchdog
of the early church, targeted the community for declaring that
"Judas the traitor...alone, knowing the truth as no others did,
accomplished the mystery of the betrayal."
"They produce a fictitious history of this kind, which they style
the Gospel of Judas," Irenaeus wrote in "Against Heresies."
Scholars say it's possible Irenaeus was reading an earlier version
of the soon-to-be-published transcript, but that point is
speculation.
William Klassen, author of "Judas: Betrayer or Friend of Jesus?"
considers the forthcoming manuscript an asset to ongoing scholarly
efforts to rehabilitate Judas' historical image.
Many scholars believe Judas -- whose name literally means "Jewish
man" -- was a victim of anti-Jewish slander that pervaded early
Christianity in its struggle to break away from Judaism.
"It's important to look at this Gospel of Judas very carefully,
because this is evidence that in the late second century, in the
time of Irenaeus, there was a group who held up the banner for
Judas," Klassen said.
Other scholars are withholding judgment until the manuscript has
been publicly authenticated.
Michael White, director of the Institute for the Study of Antiquity
and Christian Origins at the University of Texas at Austin, said
researchers will be hard pressed to authenticate the codex if the
history of its discovery is not clearly documented.
"They have to file artifacts of that sort with the government's
archaeological oversight board," White said.
According to Roberty, such documentation is unavailable because the
codex was smuggled out of Egypt before he purchased it in
2001.
"The manuscript itself was illegally exported because it had been
stolen in Egypt," said Roberty, adding he planned to eventually
return the manuscript to Egypt. He declined to give further
details, citing his agreement with National Geographic.
James Robinson, a retired professor of Coptic studies at Claremont
Graduate University and general editor of the English edition of
the Nag Hammadi Library, vouched for the document's authenticity
based on his experience in trying to purchase the codex as early as
1983.
"I don't know of any scholar who thinks this is fake," said
Robinson, who is not involved in the National Geographic
project.
Although Robinson has never seen the manuscript firsthand, he
arranged a meeting in 1983 between Stephen Emmel, a Coptic scholar
at the University of Muenster in Germany, and John Pedrios, a Greek
dealer who was negotiating the sale of the manuscript.
In a report filed after the meeting, Emmel said he was able to
authenticate the codex as a genuine fourth- or fifth-century
manuscript. But he said the 30-minute meeting ran too short for him
to detect whether it contained the gospel.
Reached by phone in Cairo, Emmel confirmed his report but declined
to say whether the manuscript he saw decades ago is the forthcoming
gospel.
"I can say that the thought never crossed my mind that it was
anything but a genuine Coptic papyrus codex from the fourth or
fifth century," he said.