The media didn't give us the straight scoop on the gospel of Judas story - I can't believe it . . .

Once again I find myself flummoxed and befuddled, dazed and confused, shocked and chagrined.

Last year there was a big hoop-de-do about the Gospel of Judas, a newly found third century religious text which shed "new light" on the Jesus story.  April D. Deconick summarizes why this was such big news:

The shocker: Judas didn’t betray Jesus. Instead, Jesus asked Judas, his most trusted and beloved disciple, to hand him over to be killed. Judas’s reward? Ascent to heaven and exaltation above the other disciples.

Well, now come to find out that's not exactly nor precisely what the document said.  We were told that the gospel of Judas makes Judas the hero. However, the play was reviewed, and after further review, the ruling on the field was reversed.  The ruling on the field was that number 87 for the team in white was guilty of holding, but it turns out that number 46 for the blue team was guilty of a chop block.  In other words, Judas is not the hero, he's a demon, according to the "gospel" that bears his name.  It appears that the National Geographic Society scholars who did the original translation committed some egregious errors. Here's Deconick again:

So what does the Gospel of Judas really say? It says that Judas is a specific demon called the “Thirteenth.” In certain Gnostic traditions, this is the given name of the king of demons — an entity known as Ialdabaoth who lives in the 13th realm above the earth. Judas is his human alter ego, his undercover agent in the world. These Gnostics equated Ialdabaoth with the Hebrew Yahweh, whom they saw as a jealous and wrathful deity and an opponent of the supreme God whom Jesus came to earth to reveal.

This is terrible - pretty soon I might starting doubting what I read in the newspapers or hear on the evening news - consider my bubble burst!

End of snark - Deconick's article in the NYT is a good read, particularly as she explains how the error in translation happened - it's a good report on how scholarship was compromised in pursuit of a journalistic scoop.

HT - Barlow Farms

Blogged with Flock

Tags: Religion, theology, Christian, Christianity, gnostic, gnosticism, gnostic gospels, Judas, Jesus, Jesus Christ, Gospel of Judas