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God, Science and the Bible

News from the world of science about God and the Bible.

by Mario Seiglie, Tom Robinson and Scott Ashley

"The Gospel of Judas"—What's the real story?

In early April news organizations breathlessly reported the "discovery" of a new Gospel—"the Gospel of Judas," as it is being called.

Actually the discovery wasn't new, since the ancient papyrus codex—a small book written in the ancient Egyptian Coptic language—had been discovered sometime in the late 20th century and was offered for sale by an Egyptian antiquities dealer in 1983. What was new was that it had been translated and was now the subject of a TV program, magazine cover story and two books by the prestigious National Geographic Society.

Could this actually be a document authored by Judas, the disciple who infamously betrayed Jesus for 30 pieces of silver as recorded in the Bible? If not, what exactly is it?

An April 7 USA Today cover article stated, "The Gospel of Judas takes a whole different vision of the life, death and purpose of Jesus." And indeed it does. To a regular Bible reader, the text is so strange as to be virtually incomprehensible. Apart from a few names familiar to Bible readers, the manuscript is utterly foreign.

That's because "the Gospel of Judas" is one of a number of gnostic writings discovered in Egypt during the last century. Gnosticism, which takes its name from gnosis, the Greek word for "knowledge," was a movement that began in the first century and flourished for several centuries. This particular document has been dated to A.D. 220 to 340, when the gnostic movement appears to have been near its peak in Egypt.

Gnosticism emphasized special or secret knowledge (hence the name of the movement) involving mysticism, cosmology, the angelic realm and the soul. A basic (but heretical) premise of the "Christian" version of gnosticism was that Jesus was never a real flesh-and-blood human being like us, but only appeared to be human.

Read the full article at www.gnmagazine.org/issues/gn64/science64.htm


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