The Gospel of Judas is being misunderstood

[BayCityProgressive]

From someone who believes far more in what the gnostics beleive/beleived people here are misunderstanding the newly unveiled Gospel of Judas. In all of the pre-christian and christian gnostic texts it is believed that the lesser god that controls this world is the demi-urge or the god who challenges us and keeps the light of the creator away from us. we all have a spark of the christ light in us and we must awaken that ourselves and become our own christ. Judas here is portrayed as a christ just like jesus. The gospel of Mary shows Mary Magdeline as a christ. The Mandeans (the oldest surviving gnostic cult) they live in Iraq by the way- saw John the Baptist as a christ.The origins of gnosticism lie in the pagan mystery cults. These Mystery Cults all believed in the divine spark, the sacrifice, the resurrection, and reincarnation as well. Many believe that like Kabbalah, Christianity was a Jewish mystery cult. This explained why the god of the old testement was not always all powerful and was jealous and cruel. The gods of human nature have control of our world...The Rebel and the Fool (i.e. organized religion that tells you you need someone else to save you, and that you must worship some deranged jealous entity). Many early gnostics didn't even view Jesus as a real person. I saw some posts saying that this new gospel would mean Jesus committed suicide. Even without this gospel that would be the case. Jesus could have easily saved himself if he really had the powers the new testament gives him but he chose not to.

**On Edit- The Demi-urge in gnosticism is not totally bad either. We are beings of free will by our own choice...we chose the tree of knowledge rather than the free handouts of ignorance from the tree of life. The only way we can be exactly like our creator is to have a force challenge us so that we can earn the light of our creator.

[aquart]

1. Suicide by Roman Empire.

[hedgehog]

2. At last

Someone who has some idea of what a Gnostic Gospel is. Although I totally disagree with your beliefs, it is a relief to see someone who understand that this is not a who-dun-it! Thank you for shedding some much needed light. I had an inkling that that this was a more accurate assessment, but I didn't know enough to make a proper statement on the subject.

[autorank]

5. See my post below, link to Burton Mack book-The Lost Gospel of Q

It's well worth the read, regardless of your views. It reduces the synoptic gospels plus Thomas to the common sayings. Quite remarkable.

[autorank]

3. Good point!

Well, there's another gnostic sympathizer here. I'm not enamoured by the heirarchy of gods but your point is correct. This is not an historical statement, it's another gnostic gospel. Marvin Meyer translated this and other Nag Hamadi texts. He and others make the point that the gnostic religious experience was extatic at times, it encouraged the direct communication with-communitionn with the gnosis. Gnostics were perfectly free, it is argued, to write their own gospels. Thomas is interesting since it fits into the Gospel of Q,
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0060653752/002-3561247-7647251?v=glance&n=283155
a hypothesized gospel from which Thomas and the synonptic accepted gospels derive based on the points of commonality found in all four (Matthew, Mark, Luke, Thomas).

Interesting stuff. The literalist take misses the point, there's a deeper understanding.

Thakns for the post.

Recommended.

Gospel of Thomas
http://www.webcom.com/gnosis/naghamm/gosthom.html
These are the secret sayings that the living Jesus spoke and Didymos Judas Thomas recorded.

1. And he said, "Whoever discovers the interpretation of these sayings will not taste death."

2. Jesus said, "Those who seek should not stop seeking until they find. When they find, they will be disturbed. When they are disturbed, they will marvel, and will reign over all. "

3. Jesus said, "If your leaders say to you, 'Look, the (Father's) kingdom is in the sky,' then the birds of the sky will precede you. If they say to you, 'It is in the sea,' then the fish will precede you. Rather, the (Father's) kingdom is within you and it is outside you.

When you know yourselves, then you will be known, and you will understand that you are children of the living Father. But if you do not know yourselves, then you live in poverty, and you are the poverty."

4. Jesus said, "The person old in days won't hesitate to ask a little child seven days old about the place of life, and that person will live.

For many of the first will be last, and will become a single one."

5. Jesus said, "Know what is in front of your face, and what is hidden from you will be disclosed to you.

For there is nothing hidden that will not be revealed. "

[Zen Democrat]

4. It's nothing so far-fetched as some are claiming.

I remember thinking as a child that if Jesus's death was necessary for salvation, then didn't Judas do a good thing? When he said, at The Last Supper, that one of those present would betray him, he asked the betrayer to go ahead and get it done -- it just seemed to me that there was some type of understanding between Jesus and Judas.

It seems illogical that Judas would have turned on Jesus for 30 pieces of silver. I'll never forget many years ago hearing a dipshit TV preacher screaming about how Judas was "cheap". "He couldda got more money! He couldda got a lot more money for Jesus. But Judas was cheap!" Honest. I saw and heard it myself. I think this must have been one of those "prosperity" ministries.

It really kind of shocks me that there is resistance among most Christians to receiving additional information from ancient manuscripts. Some people so quickly cry "heresy" - and that, to me, seems more a lack of an open mind and heart.

I've heard it said that God directed which gospels would be included in the Bible. IF that is true, and that's certainly moot, but if it's true, then why couldn't God reveal scripture over time. Who's to say that God isn't behind the revelations at Nag Hamadi?

[tocqueville]

6. Gnosticism

A lion-faced deity found on a Gnostic gem in Bernard de Montfaucon's L'antiquité expliquée et représentée en figures may be a depiction of the Demiurge.Like Plato, Gnosticism also presents a distinction between the highest, unknowable "alien God" and the demiurgic "creator" of the material. However, in contrast to Plato, several systems of Gnostic thought present the Demiurge as antagonistic to the will of the Supreme Creator: his act of creation occurs in unconscious imitation of the divine model, and thus is fundamentally flawed, or else is formed with the malevolent intention of entrapping aspects of the divine in materiality. Thus, in such systems, the Demiurge acts as a solution to the problem of evil. In the Apocryphon of John circa 200AD (several versions of which are found in the Nag Hammadi library), the Demiurge has the name "Yaltabaoth", and proclaims himself as God:

"Now the archon who is weak has three names. The first name is Yaltabaoth, the second is Saklas, and the third is Samael. And he is impious in his arrogance which is in him. For he said, 'I am God and there is no other God beside me,' for he is ignorant of his strength, the place from which he had come."
"Yaldabaoth" literally means "Child, come here" in a Semitic language. For example, the Hebrew word for "child" is "yeled", and for "go" is "bo". Thus, most probably "yalda" and "baoth" are declensions of "child" and "go", together meaning "child, come hither" (the language's identification as Hebrew itself is doubtful).

Gnostic myth recounts that Sophia (Greek, literally meaning "wisdom"), the Demiurge's mother and a partial aspect of the divine Pleroma or "Fullness", desired to create something apart from the divine totality, and without the receipt of divine assent. In this abortive act of separate creation, she gave birth to the monstrous Demiurge and, being ashamed of her deed, she wrapped him in a cloud and created a throne for him within it. The Demiurge, isolated, did not behold his mother, nor anyone else, and thus concluded that only he himself existed, being ignorant of the superior levels of reality that were his birth-place.

The Gnostic myths describing these events are full of intricate nuances portraying the declination of aspects of the divine into human form; this process occurs through the agency of the Demiurge who, having stolen a portion of power from his mother, sets about a work of creation in unconscious imitation of the superior Pleromatic realm. Thus Sophia's power becomes enclosed within the material forms of humanity, themselves entrapped within the material universe: the goal of Gnostic movements was typically the awakening of this spark, which permitted a return by the subject to the superior, non-material realities which were its primal source. (See Sethian Gnosticism.)

"Samael" may equate to the Judaic Angel of Death, and corresponds to the Christian demon of that name, as well as Satan. Literally, it can mean "Blind God" or "God of the Blind" in Aramaic (Syriac sæmʕa-ʔel). Another alternative title for Yaldabaoth, "Saklas", is Aramaic for "fool" (Syriac sækla "the foolish one").

Some Gnostic philosophers (notably Marcion of Sinope) identify the Demiurge with Yahweh, the God of the Old Testament, in opposition and contrast to the God of the New Testament. Still others equated the being with Satan. Catharism apparently inherited their idea of Satan as the creator of the evil world directly or indirectly from Gnosticism. Or, they may well have gotten the idea directly from the New Testament, which refers to Satan as "The God <'ho theos'> of this age" in Second Corinthians 4:4. Also, the NT asserts that the "whole world lies in the power of the evil one" in 1 John 5:19. Though nowhere in the New Testament is the creator of the world or the universe identified as Satan, although Yahweh declares in Isaiah 45:7 that He "makes good and creates evil . Nor in the old or New Testament is nature or earth created by the creator referred to as evil, unlike the so-called Gnostic "sectarians." (Unless one sees the attribute of Creatorship as inherent in the concept of "God," and therefore the title "The God of this Age" applied to Satan becomes a powerful indicator that Satan is indeed the creator. Other modern-day Cathars see a further indication of this in the epithet "Kosmokrator" which is applied to Satan in Ephesian 6:12, as a further indication of the creatorship of Satan and his identity with the Demiurge)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demiurge

[hedgehog]

7. Now , see, this is too complicated.

It's a lot easier and more fun to rant on about how Gnosticism is the authentic Christianity suppressed in order to empower

the Roman Empire

and/or

the Catholic Church

and/or

an anti feminist patriarchy.

All this God and Theos and Wisdom stuff is too boring for people to read about when they can watch a special on the History channel instead!

I really should be more charitable towards people, but it irritates me to see the Catholic Church attacked out of ignorance. The Lord knows, we Catholics have done enough bad things that we don't need people making up stuff to attack us about!

[roguevalley]

8. your body is your cross, the Christ is in all of us awaiting awakening.

we have been separated from the light and enlightenment. gnostics didn't believe in literal interpretation of these stories. the truth and beauty of Christ has been smothered by the literal interpreters. THis probably makes a lot of people uncomfortable, this challenge to the literal inerent bogosity that has been perpetuated for 2k years.

[hedgehog]

9. Well, we have a difference of opinion there but we do agree

that the Gospel of Judas is far more involved than a twist on a suspense thriller the way so many have played it the last few days. ("See, Jesus and Judas were really plotting together and....")

[roguevalley]

10. agreed. have you read The Pagan Christ by Tom Harpur, The

Jesus Mysteries and Jesus and the Lost Goddess by Freke and ? (Sorry. the second name escapes me.)

Also, Jesus the Heretic by Douglas Lockhart. Good stuff.

RV

[TallahasseeGrannie]

11. Wow. I'm impressed

with MYSELF! I had come to most of these conclusions all by myself!

Now, the Demi-urge thing. I think Demi is too weak a word for it!

[MemphisTiger]

12. The argument is that the Gospel of Judas is not gospel

at all since he didn't write it. He was dead before Jesus was. In fairness I'm not familiar with the demi-urge or the other things you have mentioned. Who allegedly wrote the book of Judas, it sure wan't Judas, but did one if his sidekicks write it?

[Solon]

13. Using that as a litmus test means the four canon gospels aren't gospels...

either. All four of those Gospels were written at least 40 years after Jesus's death, and possibly much later. The idea that any of the Apostles credited with writing these texts were even still alive to write them is questionable at best. In fact, the simularities between the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke are so obvious that many scholars now believe that they were copies of each other, rewritten and embellished in some cases, but copies nonetheless. Either that, or they all derived from the "Gospel Q" as many sources claim, though apparently that text didn't survive to the present day. The problem stems from the fact that, as far as any historian is aware of, no original sources of Jesus's teachings have survived in any shape or form. Also, you cannot use dates alone to verify if a Gospel is actual Canon or not, the Gospel According to Peter dates back to at least the same time period as the other four Gospels, though it isn't in the present Canon. Other Gospels, such as the Gospel According to Mary(Magdalene), and the Gospel According to Thomas may also date back to the same time period. Not to mention that Judas himself could have written the Gospel as a journal DURING Jesus's preaching, so yeah, it is TECHNICALLY possible that it was written by him, before his death, obviously, with ghostwriters finishing it up after his death. This would probably be similar to how the other Gospels were written, his Apostles probably wrote notes and Journals during his time on Earth, and later authors took those source materials, probably added a little flair, and boom, we have the present day Gospels.

[MemphisTiger]

14. Interesting take on it.

I also mentioned that the apostles sidekicks could have written them. I think it was Marks sidekick that wrote his if I remember my childhood sunday school lessons. It's possible that a sidekick of Judas like I mentioned could have written it, but the main idea that I am aware of is that God decied what was going to be in the Bible as sort of working through the council of Nicea. Judas could have also passed it down orally, which was thought to be the way the Torah was communicated "back in the day". I guess it really depends on your particular taste of religion.

[Solon]

15. Whether the Council of Nicea was divinely influenced is a matter of faith.

Though I will say, for the sake of accuracy, that "ghostwriter" should be used, instead of "sidekick" the reason should be obvious, most likely the original apostles never met the writers of the Gospels that have their names attached to them. Similar to Robert Ludlum books still being written today, though the author himself is dead, same idea, but the Ghostwriter in this example attaches his name to the work as well. Think of it as using the authority of the Apostles to push particular ideas.

One theory that I hold, personally, is that when the original churches were established, the early Messianic Jews, as they were probably known as, they passed around the notes and journals of the original Apostles. Obviously, over time, these letters and such began to fall apart, from use, misuse, and too much travel, so the few literate men in the area began copying them, and changing them to their own slant, embellishing the language, translating them etc. until, finally, the Gospels we are familiar with were written down in a "final" form, probably after 300 A.D. Not to mention the many schisms that formed, some Churches liked the Gospel of Matthew, others the Gospel of Thomas, others the Gospel of John, etc. so they changed even more, in some cases just to make them different, in others, to reflect the beliefs of particular churches held. Its all very confusing, and without any source materials, like the mysterious "Q" document, which may not even be a Gospel, we will never know for sure how Christianity developed in the first few decades.