The Bad Book
‘HISTORY has become whatever we want it to be. From TV shows unmasking the real often unlovely – person behind our favourite entertainers to David Irving denying the Holocaust, theres a growing industry in undoing historical truths.
|
|
|
Just good friends |
And now we read of the biggest project to date the attempt to turn Judas Iscariot into the good guy. The man accused of betraying Jesus Christ for thirty pieces of silver, his name a byword for deceit and treachery, was just misunderstood. And now, thanks to the lost Gospel of Judas, we get to see the man behind the myth.
The Times reports that an ancient Coptic manuscript found in the Egyptian desert claims that Judas sacrificed himself for the good of his master and all mankind.
The 26 pages written on 13 pages of papyrus in the 3rd or 4th century claim Judas was Jesuss closest ally.
Experts in such things ecumenical have scoured the text and ringed the passage: You will exceed all of them. For you will sacrifice the man that clothes me.
In another segment, Jesus tells Judas: You will be despised for generations.
As Craig Evans, Payzant Distinguished Professor of New Testament at Arcadia Divinity College in Nova Scotia says: The Gospel turns Judass act of betrayal into an act of obedience.
It also means that, if true, your Bible is out of date. But while the belated inclusion of this Judas Gospel will do wonders for Bible sales, James Catford, chief executive of the Bible Society, says theres nothing here to undermine what Christians have believed throughout the centuries.
Thats good. There are few things worse than having your beliefs scattered to the winds.
So while there remains a possibility that the Gospel is true, it should be viewed as nothing more than a curiosity, a book to be placed on a shelf next to Dan Browns Da Vinci Code, the Hutton Report and Jesus And Me: An Intimate Portrait of The Real Anthea Turner.’
Posted: 7th, April 2006 | In: Uncategorized Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
