Judas Gospel won't shake Christian faith

First posted 05:59am (Mla time) April 09, 2006
By Randolf C. Flores, SVD
Inquirer



Editor's Note: Published on page A1 of the April 9, 2006 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

(The author is a professor at the Divine Word Seminary in Tagaytay, currently doing research at the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome.)

AMONG Filipinos, Judas, is perhaps the least liked character in the Bible.

Our Pasyon (the life of Christ in vernacular verse) scorns Judas as a hayop, tampalasan, puno ng kasakiman (beast, wicked, greedy), etc. His image is absent from the processions during Good Friday. When riding in jeepneys, we are warned: "God knows Hudas not pay."

As a priest, I have not had the occasion to baptize a child named Judas, although I have baptized children with names like Osama, Bin Laden, Saddam and Hitler.

I find the discovery of the controversial "Gospel of Judas"—made public Thursday in Washington DC by the National Geographic Society—as timely.

The Judas gospel will have its global premiere today-the start of Holy Week-on the National Geographic Channel. Holy Week is the time we Christians "weep" for Jesus and scorn Judas.

It also rides high on the economic success of "The Da Vinci Code," the book and soon-to-be-released movie. The novel, whose author Dan Brown has been acquitted of copyright infringement charges, claims that the Vatican has tried to cover up certain apocryphal texts.

The 31-page ancient manuscript written in the Coptic language, if authentic, will provide a text of what we know only from secondary sources, from the reports of the early Christian writers on a certain "Gospel of Judas." It will also shed light on how early Christians-the so-called Gnostics-understood Judas.

Egyptian language

Coptic was the language spoken in Egypt from A.D. 200 to 1000. The Christian Bible was translated into Coptic around A.D. 300, as Christianity spread in Egypt.

In the 2nd century A.D., religious movements began to challenge Christianity, especially in Egypt. These movements are called "Gnosticism" and its adherents are known as "Gnostics," although these terms were never used in that period.

Among the Church fathers, Irenaeus of Lyons (ca. 130-200) was the earliest to inform us of the challenges of the Gnostics. In his writings, he mentioned a sect calling themselves the Cainites (followers of Cain) and possessing a book they called the "Gospel of Judas."

Another writer, Epiphanius of Salamis (ca. 310-403), described the Cainites as boasting that they were relatives of Cain, the Sodomites, Esau and Korah. Those who know their Bible well will understand that these characters are biblical villains. And so naturally, the Cainites admired the greatest villain of all, Judas Iscariot.

Why Judas betrayed Christ

According to the Cainites, as reported by Epiphanius, Judas received heavenly knowledge and betrayed Christ for two reasons:

One, Judas knew that Christ was wicked because he "wanted to distort what pertains to the Law." One must remember that Jesus's teachings at the time often came into conflict with the Jewish understanding of the Law of Moses.

Two, Judas knew that the power of the "archons" (these are naughty and lesser deities in Gnostic cosmology) would be drained if Christ were to be crucified.

So Judas "bent every effort to betray him (Christ), thereby accomplishing a good work for our salvation," Epiphanius wrote.

The Cainites also argued that Christians should "admire and praise" Judas, "because through him the salvation of the cross was prepared for us and the revelation of things above occasioned by it."

In short, in the eyes of the Cainites, Judas helped Jesus save humanity by betraying him. He actually fared better than the rest of the disciples who did not understand that Jesus must suffer and die.

Good vs evil

In a positive sense, the story of Judas will allow us to rethink the problem of good and evil in the world. If Judas's betrayal of Christ was part of God's plan, did God intend evil in the world?

Dear to the Gnostics is the idea that God created a disordered and chaotic world. We don't even have to be a Gnostic to realize that the world, at times, is flawed. That's why the Gnostics adored villains like Judas. They were the epitomes of a disordered world.

Another controversy that could come out of reading the "Gospel of Judas" is the question on God's mercy and forgiveness. If God were indeed merciful, did he forgive Judas?

Two chances to retract

Traditionally, many have thought that Judas is probably in hell, because of Jesus's severe indictment of Judas: "It would be better for that man if he had never been born," as he says in Mark 14:21. But these words do not tell us of the fate of Judas.

There are two scenes from the Passion narrative which illustrate Jesus's compassionate attitude toward Judas. First, during the Last Supper, in the Gospel of Mark, Jesus announced to everyone that someone at the table was going to betray him. Although Jesus never identified the traitor, the Gospel writer wanted readers to understand that Jesus knew of Judas's evil plan. At that point, Judas could have retracted.

Another familiar scene is Judas's kiss on the Mount of Olives. Luke has this account: "He [Judas] approached Jesus in order to kiss him, but Jesus said to him, 'Judas, is it with a kiss that you are betraying the Son of Man?'" Judas was about to kiss Jesus but Jesus warned him, at the very last moment, to refrain from the evil act. Another chance was offered for Judas to retract.

In a similar spirit, St. Vincent Ferrer (1350-1419), an influential Dominican preacher, said in a sermon in 1391: "Judas who betrayed and sold the Master after the crucifixion was overwhelmed by a genuine and saving sense of remorse and tried with all his might to draw close to Christ in order to apologize for his betrayal and sale. But since Jesus was accompanied by such a large crowd of people on the way to the mount of Calvary, it was impossible for Judas to come to him and so he said to himself: 'Since I cannot get to the feet of the master, I will approach him in my spirit at least and humbly ask him for forgiveness.' He actually did that and as he took the rope and hanged himself, his soul rushed to Christ on Calvary's mount, asked for forgiveness and received it fully from Christ. He went up to heaven with him and so his soul enjoys salvation along with all elect."

Nonetheless, an evil act is always an evil act-no matter what the result may be. The end does not justify the means and early Christian writers saw to it that Judas's action was not worth emulating.

Tips on reading Judas gospel

The issues that will be raised in reading the "Gospel of Judas" are not new. Nor will they "shake Christianity to its foundations" as some press releases have suggested. Nevertheless, it makes for a relevant and interesting Holy Week read. As in other ancient literary works, however, critical reading is always prescribed. Here are some tips:

Be conscious that this is is a modern translation of a language that is no longer spoken, and that the manuscript available is one among other copies that got lost or yet to be discovered. The original may no longer be found. Those who copied the text could have added or deleted some lines, consciously or unconsciously. A good translation depends on a reliable text and a thorough knowledge of the original and target languages, in this case, Coptic and English.

The circumstances of any discovery of ancient artifacts or manuscripts are essential to their authenticity. Usually, an artifact that is found directly at the site by archeologists and not through some antique dealers gains immediately a certain degree of authenticity. The "Gospel of Judas" is in the possession of a private collector right now. National Geographic will have to explain the circumstances of its discovery and the private collector will have to allow independent experts to examine it.

Background literature is needed to understand an ancient text. For the "Gospel of Judas," the best background is the Passion narrative in the four Gospels and the account of the death of Judas in Acts 1:16-20. It is wise to remember that the gospels and the rest of the books of the Bible are the Word of God. Other writings, like the "Gospel of Judas," can help us understand the world of the ancestors of our faith, but they are not the Word from whom we draw our joy and hope.

hindi ako naniniwala ng mga judas gospel na 'ya. intriga lang 'yan ng mga judeo.

Yeah but The Gospel of Judas has been proven to be real, whats to say the 4 gospels now are "true-er" than the gospel of judas or any other gospel for that matter? Saying you believe the 4 gospels and not the gospel of judas for the sake of the 4 gospels came first would be idiotic.

Well, It is just one of the several hundreds of gospel that was written after the death of Christ (another twist to the popular or accepted gospel by Christians and Catholics)

It's real, but who's the author? Was he someone who can be trusted?

Just like the controversial "Da Vinci Code"

Church: "Gospel of Judas" should not affect the faithful

The Freeman 04/12/2006

The controversial Gospel of Judas, a text in an early Christian manuscript that has drawn a new picture of the disciple who betrayed Jesus Christ, does not have the blessing of the Church and should not affect Catholics' centuries-old faith, the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) said yesterday.

CBCP spokesman Monsignor Pedro Quitorio said the 26-page Judas text in Coptic that was reportedly discovered in the desert of Egypt was among the books considered by Vatican as "apocryphal, meaning probably not true but widely believed to be true."

"The gospel of Judas was an old issue. It was among those books which Fathers of the Church in the first 100 years had found to be not inspired by the Holy Spirit," explained Quitorio in an interview with The STAR.

The priest explained that a century after Christ's death, leaders of the Church examined and assessed books about Jesus to determine which ones had the "Blessing of the Holy Spirit." "As a result, it was found that only four Christian Gospels were found to be real and blessed. These were the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John," said Quitorio.

Quitorio said the four books were recognized by the Church after it was found that they were written by the disciples themselves. "They were written immediately after Jesus Christ died unlike Gospel of Judas which was written by an anonymous author after 200 years."

But the CBCP official stressed that not all the apocryphal books were denied as some were used for catechism. He specifically cited the Epistle of James, which "had accounts of the father of Mary." According to reports, the Gospel of Judas gives new insights into the relationship of Jesus and the disciple who betrayed him. In this version, Jesus asked Judas, as a close friend, to sell him out to the authorities, telling Judas he will "exceed" the other disciples by doing so. Though some theologians have long hypothesized on this, scholars who have studied the newfound text said this is the first time an ancient document defends Judas' betrayal of Christ, according to a report from New York Times dated April 6, 2006.

The National Geographic Society at a news conference in Washington announced the discovery in the desert of Egypt of the leather-bound papyrus manuscript and now its translation. The 26-page Judas text is said to be a copy in Coptic, made around A. D. 300, of the original Gospel of Judas, written in Greek the century before.

It was believed that the manuscript or codex could be the most significant ancient, non-biblical text to be found in the past 60 years.

The most revealing passage in the Judas manuscript begins, "The secret account of the revelation that Jesus spoke in conversation with Judas Iscariot during a week, three days before he celebrated Passover."

The account goes on to relate that Jesus refers to the other disciples, telling Judas "you will exceed all of them. For you will sacrifice the man that clothes me."

By that, scholars familiar with Gnostic thinking said, Jesus meant that by helping him get rid of his physical flesh, Judas will act to liberate the true spiritual self or divine being within Jesus. Unlike the accounts in the New Testament Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, the anonymous author of the Gospel of Judas believed that Judas Iscariot alone among the 12 disciples understood the meaning of Jesus' teachings and acceded to his will.

In the diversity of early Christian thought, a group known as Gnostics believed in a secret knowledge of how people could escape the prisons of their material bodies and return to the spiritual realm from which they came.

From: Philippine Star online:

From National Geographic .com

Here is the link:National Geographic.com

This is about the authenticity of the gospel

Since its first use in the 1940s radiocarbon dating has been the most accurate method of dating ancient objects and artifacts.

Radiocarbon, present in living organisms, decays at a constant rate in dead tissue. By measuring residual amounts of radiocarbon scientists can accurately date ancient specimens.

Accelerated Mass Spectrometry (AMS) is a specialized radiocarbon dating technique that allows scientists to date even very tiny pieces of material.

The National Geographic Society submitted five tiny samples of the Gospel of Judas for AMS testing at the University of Arizona's radiocarbon dating lab in Tucson—the same lab that dated the Dead Sea Scrolls.

The Judas fragments included four minute pieces of papyrus and a small bit of the book's leather binding with a piece of attached papyrus page.

No part of the ancient script was altered or damaged during this process.

The results allowed lab experts to confidently date the papyruses to between A.D. 220 and 340.

"The calibrated ages of the papyrus and leather samples are tightly clustered and place the age of the Codices within the third or fourth centuries A.D.," reported Tim Jull, director of Arizona's AMS facility, and research scientist Greg Hodgins.

Contexual evidence



Scholars are also able to date ancient manuscripts by analyzing their content and linguistic style.

Three leading scholars examined these aspects of the Gospel of Judas and compared them with other manuscripts from the same period.

Historian Rodolphe Kasser is a former University of Geneva professor and a leading translator of the ancient manuscripts found at Nag 'Hammadi, Egypt, in 1945. Bible scholar Marvin Meyer of Chapman University in Orange, California, and Stephen Emmel, professor of Coptic (Egyptian Christian) studies at Germany's University of Munster joined Kasser in evaluating and translating the documents.

The scholars agree that the codex's theological concepts and linguistic structure are similar to those of the Nag 'Hammadi manuscripts. That large collection of texts dates to the same time period as the Judas documents.

The Nag 'Hammadi texts also contain Gnostic writings similar to those found in the Judas codex. Gnostic writings are early Christian texts deemed heretical by Christian leaders of the first centuries A.D.

Emmel explains that the Judas manuscript, like the Nag 'Hammadi texts, contains a second-century Gnostic thought process that would be very difficult to falsify.

To fabricate such a document, "you would have to reflect a world that is totally foreign to any world we know today," Emmel said. "A world that is 1,500 years old … is very difficult for scholars—even who spend their lives studying these things—to understand, let alone to 'create' for other people.

"It would take a real genius to produce an artifact like this and personally I don't think it possible."

"I have no doubt whatsoever that this codex is a genuine artifact of late antique Egypt and that it contains evidence for genuine works of ancient Christian apocryphal literature," Emmel added.

didnt they said Jesus had a GF/wife & may be even a child

Some religious group claims that Mary and Joseph had even several children

Jehovah's witness

Kung hindi 'yan, eh 'yung katotohang si Hitler ay Katoliko?

What so you can say you can trust the bible - just because it's the bible? If you don't believe the gospel of judas, then why at all believe in the 4 gospels?

^^at least compared to the gospel of judas, the four gospels say only one thing about Jesus' life... The gospel of judas is only one. And besides, this gospel has been only discovered recently...

Yes, 4 gospels out of what? 30+ right? Why were those 4 chosen and not the rest? Also, OBVIOUSLY THE GOSPEL OF JUDAS IS ONE, the 4 gospels are made of 4 INDIVIDUAL GOSPELS - the INDIVIDUAL is the key here. And so what is the gospel has been discovered recently? At the days of when the Earth was said to be Round when everybody thought it was flat - would that mean it was blasphemy? No.

This was according to National Geographic site:




Scholars who study ancient texts are able to analyze handwriting and identify telltale scripts used by scribes.

Stephen Emmel, professor of Coptic studies at Germany's University of Munster, analyzed the Gospel of Judas and submitted the following assessment.

"The kind of writing reminds me very much of the Nag 'Hammadi codices," he wrote, referring to a famed collection of ancient manuscripts.

"It's not identical script with any of them. But it's a similar type of script, and since we date the Nag 'Hammadi codices to roughly the second half of the fourth century or the first part of the fifth century, my immediate inclination would be to say that the Gospel of Judas was written by a scribe in that same period, let's say around the year 400."

Emmel's says a modern forger would not be able to duplicate such a document.

"One would not only have to have genuine material—papyrus—and not simply any papyrus, but ancient papyrus," he said, "one would also have to know how to imitate Coptic script from a very early period. The number of specialists in Coptic that know that in the world is very small.

"You would also have to compose a text in Coptic that is grammatically correct and convincing. The number of people who could do that is even smaller than the number who could read Coptic," Emmel said.




Ink analysis

Physical evidence of the Gospel of Judas' age was found not only within the papyruses but also in the ink that was used to pen the ancient Coptic script. Analysis suggests that the ink may itself constitute a unique and important discovery.

McCrone Associates, a firm specializing in forensic ink analysis, conducted a transmission electron microscopy (TEM) test on samples of the document's ink.

The procedure uncovered the components used to create the ancient ink and found that they are consistent with ingredients in known inks from the third and fourth centuries A.D. The ink includes a carbon black constituent, in the form of soot, bound with a gum adhesive.

An additional procedure, Raman spectroscopy analysis, established that the ink also included a metal-gallic component like those used in third-century iron-gall inks.

McCrone Associates reports that the Gospel of Judas may have been penned with an early form of iron-gall ink that included a small amount of carbon black (soot). If so, it could be a previously unknown "missing link" between the ancient world's carbon-based inks and the iron-gall alternatives that became popular in medieval times.

Bcoz it need further studies...

And back to the topic... I said:


It's clear... I'm wondering who wrote this gospel... was he telling the truth? If he did, then no problem... I'll accept it. Lol if chances are Dan Brown is right lol then I don't care.. I don't care if Jesus had a wife named Magdalene blah blah... All I have is faith... uhmmm go at the AF Lounge. But the biggest question is "who wrote it." Period.

You need to go read my post over again before you reply back, dude.

Bcoz according to Brown, the rest speak of Jesus' humanity while the 4 gospels are about Jesus' divinity lol...

But ofcourse wouldn't putting in all the gospels give us a better aspect on jesus's history and with the 4 gospels, divinity? But gah, I dont want to argue, im off for the holidays so meh.

seriusly man...i dont really give a fukk about judas i only care about the teachings of jesus

grabe. gumamit ka pa ng curse words. biernes santos ngayon , uy!

It is almost Easter here in the Philippines and Maligayang Pasko ng Pagkabuhay!

From Wilkepedia:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel_of_Judas

There are roughly fifty works that purport to be gospels of the early church, [1] but there exists further information for only twenty of these gospels, four of which are the canonical gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. The Gospel of Judas is one of the sixteen other gospels about which some information has historically been preserved in early church writings. Of these twenty writings, however, the four canonical gospels were the only ones that the emerging early Christian orthodoxy considered to be inspired.

The only known manuscript that included the text of the Gospel, the Codex Tchacos, surfaced in the 1970s, after 1700 years in the desert of Egypt as a leather-bound papyrus manuscript. The papyri on which the Gospel is written are fragmentary, with some sections missing. In some cases, there are only scattered words; in others, many lines. This is most likely due to the wear and tear associated with the elements and the passage of time. According to Rodolphe Kasser, the codex originally contained 62 pages; but when it came to the market in 1999, only 26 pages remained because individual pages had been removed and put up for sale. From time to time, these missing pages appear and are identified.

The only known manuscript of the Gospel of Judas was radiocarbon dated to between 220 and 340 by Timothy Jull, a carbon-dating expert at the University of Arizona's physics center.

Due to textual analysis for linguistic quirks, such as arcane language features, and features that become lost in translation, most academics who have analysed the Gospel of Judas believe that it is probably a translation from an older Greek work dating to AD 130–170. For a comparison, the generally accepted dating for the canonical Gospel of John is only a few decades earlier in AD 95-110, and as well as the earlier estimates coming from a number of Christian scholars, several other academics have proposed later dates for the Gospel of John that overlap with those for the Gospel of Judas.

The early Christian writer Irenaeus of Lyons referred to the Gospel of Judas, presumably the same text, as early as 180, and so presents a terminus ante quem for its composition. Irenaeus is also one of the first people to extensively quote from the canonical Gospel of John; hence the ancient witnesses to the existence of Judas are no weaker than that of John. While it is clear that the author of the Judas was almost certainly not Judas Iscariot, the authorship of the Gospel of John has been questioned by a large number of scholars as well.

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Content
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Ancient Fragments
Irenaeus mentions a Gospel of Judas in his anti-Gnostic work Adversus Haereses, written in about 180. He writes there are some who:

declare that Cain derived his being from the Power above, and acknowledge that Esau, Korah, the Sodomites, and all such persons, are related to themselves… They declare that Judas the traitor was thoroughly acquainted with these things, and that he alone, knowing the truth as no others did, accomplished the mystery of the betrayal; by him all things, both earthly and heavenly, were thus thrown into confusion. They produce a fictional history of this kind, which they style the Gospel of Judas. [2]
This is in reference to the Cainites, a sect of gnosticism that especially worshipped Cain as a hero. The Cainites, like a large number of gnostic groups, were semi-maltheists believing that the god of the Old Testament—Yahweh—was evil, and a quite different and much lesser being to the deity that had created the universe, and was responsible for sending Jesus. Such gnostic groups worshipped as heroes all the Biblical figures which had sought to discover knowledge or challenge Yahweh's authority, while demonizing those who would have been seen as heroes in a more orthodox interpretation.

The text rediscovered in 2006 is similar to what is loosely termed Sethian forms of Gnosis. Jesus appears to be equated with Seth: "The first is Seth, who is called Christ" although this is in part of an emenationist mythology describing both positive and negative aeons. Gnostics were not averse to rewriting other people's scripture, as what was valuable to them was the deeply underlying teaching that was presented, and the effect of the Gospel on the mind of the listener/reader (c.f. koans), rather than being particular to the precise details of the narrative that framed them.

For metaphysical reasons, certain of the gnostics maintained that Judas acted as he did in order that mankind might be redeemed by the death of Jesus' mortal body. For this reason, they regarded Judas as worthy of gratitude and veneration. In this theory, it is suggested that Judas, who in common with the other disciples looked for a temporal kingdom of the Messiah ("the anointed one"), did not anticipate the death of Jesus, but wished to precipitate a political crisis and hasten the hour of triumph, thinking that the arrest of Jesus would provoke a rising of the people who would set him free and place him on the throne. In support of this, they point to the fact that, when Judas found that Jesus was condemned and given up to the Romans, he immediately repented of what he had done. These theories are at odds with those of mainstream church doctrine as derived from canonical scripture.

This Cainite group has always been one that historically was treated delicately by the orthodox church. The Christian church has always held that Jesus underwent his passion and death freely, because of the sins of mankind and out of infinite love, in order that all could have the opportunity to reach salvation. Thus, Judas' betrayal of Jesus, even from an orthodox viewpoint, can be looked at as only a personal betrayal of Jesus and a violation of Judas' position as an apostle and not as a doctrinal violation.

Indeed, the Gospel of John, unlike the synoptic gospels, contains the enigmatic statement of Jesus to Judas, as the latter leaves the Passover meal to set in motion the betrayal process, "Do quickly what you have to do." (John 13:27) (trans. The New English Bible). Some view this as a direct command to Judas to do what he did, while others cite the first portion of the same verse, in which it says that "Satan entered into him," leaving the possible interpretation of the passage to mean that Jesus was speaking instead to Satan.

Some two centuries after Irenaeus' complaint, Epiphanius of Salamis, bishop of Cyprus, criticized the Gospel of Judas for treating as commendable the person whom he saw as the betrayer of Jesus, and as one who "performed a good work for our salvation." (Haeres., xxxviii).

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Modern Rediscovery

This missing half page of the Gospel of Judas resurfaced in New York in February 2006.
Kenneth Garrett © 2006 National Geographic Society
The portion of the manuscript that could be translated by later scholars tells of Judas being the favorite disciple of Jesus, possibly intended to be interpreted as the beloved disciple. Like much gnostic writing, which was written only for those who had attained a certain level of initiation, the Gospel of Judas claimed to be a secret account, specifically "the secret account of the revelation that Jesus spoke in conversation with Judas Iscariot".

While over the ages many philosophers have contemplated the idea that Judas was required to have carried out his actions in order for Jesus to have died on the cross and hence fulfil theological obligations, the position was frequently condemned as heresy, and was not supported by any canonical account. However, the Gospel of Judas not only asserts that the actions of Judas were necessary, but that Judas was acting on the orders of Jesus himself.

The Gospel of Judas states that Jesus told Judas "You shall be cursed for generations." It then adds to this conversation that Jesus had told Judas "you will come to rule over them," and that "You will exceed all of them. For you will sacrifice the man that clothes me." [3]

Unlike the four canonical gospels, which employ narrative accounts of the last year of life of Jesus (three years in the case of John) and of his birth (only in the case of Luke and Matthew), the Judas gospel takes the less structured form of a collection of sayings attributed to Jesus and brief dialogues between Jesus and Judas without being embedded in any narrative or worked into any overt philosophical or rhetorical context. Though somewhat odd in the light of the New Testament, such dialogue gospels were popular during early Christianity, and the New Testament apocrypha contains several examples of the form, the most notable being the Gospel of Mary Magdalene.

Like the Judas portrayed in the canonical gospels, the Judas of the Judas gospel converses with the scribes looking to arrest Jesus and receives money from them after handing Jesus over to them. But unlike the Judas in the canonical gospels, who is portrayed as a villain, and excoriated by Jesus, "Alas for that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed. It would be better for that man if he had never been born," (Mark 14:21; Matthew 26:24) (trans. The New English Bible), the Judas gospel portrays him as a divinely appointed instrument of a grand and predetermined purpose. "In the last days they will curse your ascent to the holy (generation)."

Another part shows Jesus favoring Judas apart from other disciples, saying, "Step away from the others and I shall tell you the mysteries of the kingdom," and later "Look, you have been told everything. Lift up your eyes and look at the cloud and the light within it and the stars surrounding it. The star that leads the way is your star."

Muslim scholars point out[citation needed] that the discovery of the new manuscript is historical evidence of the Quranic narration that it was actually one of Jesus' beloved disciples—namely Judas—who was to die on the cross. They cite portions of the manuscript that describe Jesus praising Judas, "You will exceed all of them," Jesus says, and that Judas would "grieve a great deal" to enable him to ascend to the heavens. However, the Qur'an makes no mention of Judas, and the Gospel of Judas does not say that Judas was crucified.

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Rediscovery
[edit]
Origins

"The Kiss of Judas" is a traditional depiction of Judas by Giotto di Bondone, c. 1306. Fresco in the Scrovegni Chapel, Padua.No trace of the vanished writing had been known until a Coptic Gospel of Judas turned up on the antiquities "grey market", first seen under shady circumstances in a hotel room in Geneva in May 1983, when it was found among a mixed group of Greek and Coptic manuscripts offered to Stephen Emmel, a Yale Ph.D. candidate commissioned by Southern Methodist University to inspect the manuscripts. How this Codex Tchacos was found has not been clearly documented. However, it is believed that a now-deceased Egyptian antiquities prospector discovered the codex near El Minya, Egypt in the neighborhood of the village Beni Masar, and sold it to a Cairo antiquities dealer called Hanna.

Around 1970, the manuscript and most of the dealer's other artifacts were stolen by a Greek trader named Nikolas Koutoulakis, taken out of Egypt and smuggled into Geneva. Hanna managed to recover the codex by coordinating with antiquity traders in Switzerland. He then showed it to experts who recognized its significance, but it took him two decades to find a buyer who would pay the asking price of $3 million.

[edit]
Sale and study
Through the decades the manuscript was offered about, very quietly, but no major library felt ready to purchase a manuscript that had such questionable provenance. Eventually the 62-page leatherbound codex was purchased by the Maecenas Foundation in Basel, a private foundation directed by lawyer Mario Jean Roberty. Its previous owners now claimed that it had been uncovered at Muhafazat al Minya in Egypt during the 1950s or 1960s, and that its significance had not been appreciated until recently. It is worth noting that various other sites were mentioned in other negotiations.

The existence of the text was made public by Rodolphe Kasser at a conference of Coptic specialists in Paris, July 2004. In a statement issued March 30, 2005, a spokesman for the Maecenas Foundation announced plans for edited translations into English, French and German, once the fragile papyrus has undergone conservation by a team of specialists in Coptic history to be led by a former professor at the University of Geneva, Rodolphe Kasser, and that their work would be published in about a year. A.J. Tim Jull, director of the National Science Foundation Arizona AMS laboratory, and Gregory Hodgins, assistant research scientist, announced that a radiocarbon dating procedure had dated five samples from the 62-page leather-bound papyrus manuscript from 220 to 340 in January of 2005 at the University of Arizona.[4] This puts the Coptic manuscript in the third or fourth centuries, a century earlier than had originally been thought from analysis of the script. In January 2006, Gene A. Ware of the Papyrological Imaging Lab of Brigham Young University conducted a multispectral imaging process on the texts in Switzerland, and confirmed their authenticity.[5]

Over the decades, the manuscript had not been meticulously handled: some single pages may be loose on the antiquities market (one half page turned up in Feb. 2006, in NYC[5]), and the text is now thought to be less than three-quarters complete. "After concluding the research, everything will be returned to Egypt. The work belongs there and they will be conserved in the best way," Roberty has stated.[6]

I think a movie version will agian cause stir among Catholics here in the Philippines

nothing wrong with using curse words even jesus used some in his time.