What Is the "Gospel of Judas"?

IN April 2006, newspapers worldwide carried the startling story that a team of scholars was releasing to the public the contents of a newly discovered ancient text entitled "Gospel of Judas."  These articles referred to scholarly claims that this text revolutionizes understanding of the figure of Judas, the disciple who betrayed Jesus. According to such claims, Judas was actually a hero, the apostle who best understood Jesus, delivering him for execution at Jesus' request.

Is this text authentic?  And if so, does it reveal some previously hidden knowledge regarding the historical figures Judas Iscariot, Jesus Christ, or early Christians?  Should it affect our understanding of Christianity?

THE DISCOVERY OF THE "GOSPEL OF JUDAS"

How the "Gospel of Judas" was discovered remains somewhat uncertain. Rather than  being discovered and documented by archaeologists, the document abruptly appeared on the antiquities market in the late 1970's or early 1980's.  It was likely discovered in Egypt in 1978 in an abandoned tomb, possibly with a cave.  It was one of four separate texts contained in a codex (a type of ancient book) written in Coptic (a language derived from ancient Egyptian).

Preserved for centuries in the dry Egyptian climate, the leather-bound codex was in a fragile and rapidly deteriorating state.  A few scholars were briefly shown the codex in 1983; but the asking price was exorbitant, and no sale was made.  Further years of neglect and improper storage led to accelerated deterioration of the codex. In 2000, it was purchased by a Swiss antiquities dealer. She eventually turned it over to an international team of experts  who, working under the auspices of the Maecenas Foundation for Ancient Art and the National Geographic Society, were charged with the complex task of restoring and reconstructing the codex, some of which had now deteriorated into small fragments. This team would also determine the age of the codex and translate and interpret its contents.

Carbon-14 dating authenticated the codex as likely coming from the third or the fourth century C.E. However, the scholars surmised that the Coptic text of the "Gospel of Judas" has been translated from its original Greek at a much earlier period. What was the original period setting in which the "Gospel of Judas" was compromised? 

Next time: What Is the "Gospel of Judas"? -THE "GOSPEL OF JUDAS -A GNOSTIC GOSPEL

From the jw.org publications