The Gospel of Judas – Gnostic Fraud?

By Michael Austin SJ

The Gospel of Judas caused a media frenzy when the National Geographic Society first announced its existence in 2006. According to the marketing hype, this ancient document presented a sensational new interpretation of Judas as Jesus’ closest disciple and confidant. The hype was effective in causing disquiet among Christians and glee among the opponents of Christianity and especially of the Church. But is this truly the case?

Many notable scholars and experts in the heresy of Gnosticism have taken issue with this interpretation of the Gospel of Judas, criticising the scholars employed by National Geographic for gross mistranslations and misunderstandings of crucial parts of the Gnostic text.

National Geographic has announced the publication of a substantially revised edition of its Gospel of Judas. According to the advance promotional material, the new edition includes new readings and new interpretations and a thoroughly updated translation of the text.

In plain language, National Geographic is acknowledging that they have egg on their faces thanks to the flawed scholarship of their team with its sensationalised reading. One wonders why such a reputable organisation that has done such superb work in describing, photographing and interpreting the natural phenomena of our universe should have strayed into a mire so far from their usual turf. The lure of quick bucks, perhaps? How their reputation for thorough-going research has been tarnished by this foray into the falsehoods of Christian Gnosticism!

The First Pastoral Epistle to Timothy warns: “Avoid the godless chatter and contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge, for by professing it some have missed the mark as regards the faith” (6:20-21). In the italicised words we may identify a testimony to the beginnings of Gnosticism already recognised by the apostolic author.

Around the year 180, St Irenaeus was bishop of Lyons in France. He is principally remembered because of his monumental work Against The Heresies, in which he described the false teachings of heretics that were threatening orthodox Christianity. In this scholarly compendium, St Irenaeus used the same terminology as l Timothy, so-called knowledge, to characterise most of these heresies.

For the past 300 years, scholars have used the term Gnosticism, a term deriving from the Greek word for knowledge, gnosis, to describe these heresies. The term covers a wide range of religious beliefs and practices, but the essential distinguishing mark of Gnostic belief is the emphasis on knowledge, rather than faith or observance, as the basis for salvation.

Gnostics taught that this knowledge is essential for salvation and includes totally new interpretations on the customary Judaeo-Christian concepts of God, creation and humans, among others. In this theology, God is split in two: firstly, a transcendent, essentially unknowable God, and secondly, a lower creator god for the material world. They viewed the world as a prison in which human souls are held captive by a malevolent creator, and the human spirit as being imprisoned in a material body. All material creation was viewed as evil. True Gnosis revealed by the first God awakens the imprisoned spirit and enables it to escape the confines of this material body to return to its divine origins.

These theories are expressed in elaborate Gnostic myths attributed to various revealers. In Christian Gnosticism, the revealer of truth is our Lord Jesus Christ.

Until about 60 years ago scholars studying the various Gnostic movements had to rely on Irenaeus and other Fathers of the Church for descriptions of the heresy. Then in 1945 a remarkable find of a cache of Gnostic texts was discovered at Nag Hammadi on the banks of the Nile in Egypt. Some of these priceless sheets of parchment had already been used as kindling or wrapping for meat by the farmer who discovered them. They contain primary texts of Gnostic belief, both Christian and non-Christian, written in the Coptic language. Coptic is the most recent version of the language spoken by Egyptians prior to the Arab invasion. Thus the Nag Hammadi collection, as also the Gospel of Judas, are translations from the original Greek into Coptic.

Incidentally, in his work St Irenaeus refers to a fabrication which they [the Gnostics] call the Gospel of Judas. He states that certain Gnostics transform Judas and other biblical villains into heroes. For Irenaeus, this Gnostic portrait of Judas is a total fabrication. The Gnostic author transforms the most evil, dastardly betrayer into a hero! Judas is singled out and distinguished from the other disciples because only he recognised the truth.

At the beginning of the gospel, only Judas knows who Jesus is and where he comes from, namely the divine realm of the first God, Barbelo. The other disciples are ignorant (lacking gnosis) of this highest God and blindly worship the second god, Saklas, the creator of the lower material world. According to their belief, Jesus is the son of Saklas. Jesus simply laughs at their ignorance. The nub of the text purports to give the reason for Judas’ betrayal of Jesus. It will enable the spirit of Jesus to be freed from his material body so that it may ascend on high. Jesus desires this and so approves the action by Judas.

Three scholars were tasked with reconstructing and translating the text in secrecy, hence their inability to consult other better Gnostic scholars. M Meyer prepared the translation into English. Their errors and mis-interpretations have been revealed and well documented by a number of Gnostic scholars in the United States and Europe. It is for this reason that National Geographic commissioned a revised reconstruction and translation of the damaged Coptic text.

As one scholar in this revised edition of the Gospel of Judas observes, these late so-called gospels. do not tell us, if anything, about the historical Jesus. An editorial in the Biblical Archaeology Review does not mince words when it states: “The idea that his new gospel might be an accurate historical report of the reason for Judas’ betrayal of Jesus is arrant nonsense.”

And Fr Gerald Collins SJ of the Gregorian University in Rome commented: “The word gospel in English comes from the Greek word for good news; the Gospel of Judas is certainly not good news.”