THE JUDAS GOSPEL

DOUBTS OVER THE JUDAS GOSPEL

A manuscript that it is claimed could rehabilitate Judas is really only a reliable guide to a breakaway Christian sect, some experts have said. The National Geographic Channel will screen a documentary this Sunday (9/4) on the Gospel of Judas, which has been reassembled and translated in the last five years. It is thought that the Gospel is a fourth century copy of a late second century work. It says that Judas was singled out from the disciples to receive mystical knowledge and claims that Jesus chose Judas to help him achieve his destiny by liberating him from his earthly body. But Prof Geza Vermes of Oxford University said “The document is of interest for the ideas of the gnos tics … it almost certainly adds nothing to our understanding of what happened 150 years before it was written”.

Sources: The Times (7/4); The Guardian (7/4); Daily Telegraph (7/4);

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-2122524,00.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/religion/Story/0,,1748968,00.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/04/07/njudas07.xml
 

Bible Society Newswatch April 2006