The Gospel According to... Judas?

It has been suspected for a long time - that an unknown "Gospel of Judas" had been in ciruculation 150 years or so after Christ's death. The text is mentioned in Irenaeus' "Against Heresies," written around the year 180. Now the text has been found, and has been released to the world by the National Geographic Society.

In the new aprocryphal "gospel," Judas is portrayed as Jesus' friend and confidant, most honored among the twelve disciples. It is Judas that Jesus selects to betray him, knowing that he must be handed over in order for his work to be completed. Judas, as the strongest and best of Jesus' companions, is entrusted with this crucial task. The text, heavy with Gnostic theology, supposes Judas as the facilitator of Christ's great work on the cross.

If this plot sounds familiar, that's because it's been worked and reworked by modern scholars, writers, and film makers. Martin Scorsese's adaptation of The Last Temptation of Christ featured a very similar interpretation of the Judas character.

The new Gospel of Judas may not tell us anything new about Jesus, but it fleshes out the teachings Irenaeus condemned so fiercely. The early Church was anything but a monolith - this text just illustrates how the Church has struggled to know and understand its Lord through the centuries, and how the Holy Spirit has been active in that difficult process.