The Gospel of Judas

By Dan on Dec 21, 2006 | 5196 views

What is it? The Gospel of Judas is a second-century forgery invented to promote a Gnostic worldview. It doesn’t claim to be authored by Judas, but it is about Judas.

How was it discovered? In the 1970’s. Someone probably found it in a tomb near the Nile River in Egypt..

Who wrote it? We don’t know. We do know it was not written by Judas or any of his contemporaries.

When do liberals claim it was written? 130-180 AD.

When was it really written? 140-160 AD, according to the Christian Research Journal, Vol. 29, No. 05 (not available online at the time of this writing). It was definitely written before 180 since that was when Irenaeus referenced it.

So what’s the problem?

1. Late date. The “Gospel” of Judas was written much later than the canonical gospels..

2. It contains Gnostic themes. It won’t take you long to find them.

3. No apostolic authorship. Judas was not composed by an apostle or by a close associate of an apostle.

4. Inconsistency. The Gospel of Judas is inconsistent with the known, authentic, and earlier accounts of Jesus Christ.

5. Lack of church usage. The early church did not use the Gospel of Judas. Church fathers never referenced it authoritatively. Irenaeus wrote ”They produce a fictitious history of this kind, which they style the Gospel of Judas” in Against Heresies.

Additional Source:

Hoffman, Daniel. “The Fictitious Gospel of Judas and Its Sensational Promotion”. Christian Research Journal. Volume 29, Number 05.

6 comments

Comment from: Edgar [Member]

The History Channel & CNN are having a field day with Jesus TV Specials. And yes - the usual suspects are on TV: Bart D. Ehrman, John Dominic Crossan & Elaine Pagels. I feel kind of guilty though. I'm starting to like Crossan. He's kind of cool.

That said, ABC did manage to get Ben Witherington III on TV a week ago... At least one of us is out there...

Good work Dan.

12/21/06 @ 20:03

Comment from: Edgar [Member]

Incidentally, Moody Radio here in Chicago just had a show on the "Missing Books Of the Bible".

Listen to it:
The Missing Books.mp3

The link usually works for 3-4 weeks.

12/21/06 @ 20:23

Comment from: Dan [Member]

Wow! They actually got Witherington. I didn't realize a Christian was allowed to comment on these things. I'm sure they will balance him out with three Ehrman/Pagels types.

12/21/06 @ 21:56

Comment from: Edgar [Member]

MassTheology has a good write up on Dr. Pagel's interpretation of the Gospel of Judas. They also have an MP3 file from one of her recent lectures.

04/07/07 @ 21:16

Comment from: Edgar [Member]

Prof. April DeConick just blogged about her upcoming book on the subject:

""I didn’t find the sublime Judas, at least not in Coptic. What I found were a series of English translation choices made by the National Geographic team, choices that permitted a different Judas to emerge in the English translation than in the Coptic original. Judas was not only not sublime, he was far more demonic than any Judas I know in any other piece of early Christian literature, Gnostic or otherwise.”



DeConick contends that the Gospel of Judas is not about a “good” Judas, or even a “poor old” Judas. It is a gospel parody about a “demon” Judas written by a particular group of Gnostic Christians known as the Sethians who lived in the second century CE. The purpose of the text was to criticize “mainstream” or apostolic Christianity from the point of view of these Gnostic Christians, especially their doctrine of atonement, their Eucharistic practices, and their creedal faith which they claimed to have inherited from the twelve disciples.""

The Thirteenth Apostle: What the Gospel of Judas Really Says

05/22/07 @ 18:55

Comment from: tlumacz [Visitor]

I can believe Judas wrote his own gospel since most of people from those times who were held in higher esteem (i.e higher that the lower class) had actually written something, most of the time just some thoughts. Despite it, who would like to read verses written by The Greatest Traitor that ever lived? Regards to everyone!