Don Miller: More Gnostic secrets revealed in 'Judas'
The news Thursday that scholars unveiled a document at least 1,700 years old that purports to make Judas Iscariot a good guy might be considered one of those "aha" moments we of the modern world like to seize upon.
Kind of like the missing-link fish also introduced this week that suddenly explains human existence and upholds the scientific dogma of evolution.
The Judas document gives a whole new retelling to the relationship between Jesus of Nazareth and his wavering disciple, Judas.
In this "secret" relationship, Jesus tells Judas that the man long seen as a betrayer "will exceed" the other disciples. "You will be cursed by the other generations, and you will come to rule over them," Judas is told.
In another passage, Jesus reveals to Judas that to him only will be revealed the "mysteries of the kingdom."
Jesus asks Judas to help him shed his mortal flesh: "You will sacrifice the man that clothes me," he tells him, indicating that Judas is only doing what Jesus wanted him to do: get rid of Jesus' cumbersome, illusory, earthly body.
The story of how this so-called "gospel" — the word means "good news" — came to be declared this week reads like a chapter from a modern-day piece of Gnosticism, the best-seller, soon-to-be-a-a-smash movie, "The Da Vinci Code."
The papyrus was discovered in 1970, later kept in a safe-deposit box, and began rapidly deteriorating, before scholars intervened and began to assemble more than 1,000 pieces. The 26-page Coptic-language text is believed to be a copy of a Greek Gnostic document that was referred to by a Christian church father, Irenaeus, more than a century before.
"They produce a fictitious history of this kind, which they style the Gospel of Judas," wrote Irenaeus in 180 A.D.
The name comes from the Greek word "gnosis," which means "knowledge."
The most famous Gnostic "gospel""'-- there are many — is the "Gospel of Thomas," discovered in Egypt in 1945, and the subject of best-selling books by Elaine Pagels, a Princeton University professor.
Pagels has argued that the Gnostic gospels show early Christianity was hardly monolithic, and that although the movement was quickly tagged as heresy, "the people who loved, circulated and wrote down these gospels did not think they were heretics."
Gnostics believed humans were fundamentally spiritual beings imprisoned in physical bodies and that salvation was attained through mystical, "secret" knowledge, rather than through Jesus' death and resurrection.
Unlike the canonical gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John in the Bible, all written in the first century, the Gnostic documents were written in the second century and afterward.
Some scholars were saying this week that the Gospel of Judas will be talked about for years to come and that it might reveal some long-hidden truth about the historical Jesus.
The Judas document sheds more light on the Gnostic version of God, that this evil world was the product of a bloodthirsty, foolish lower God, as revealed in the Old Testament, rather than the higher, true God who sent Jesus Christ, who, in turn, was not human, but a divine agent sent to rescue humanity from the tyrant God. There was no need for him to die and be raised up, since the need for redemption, or rescue, was inconceivable.
This, obviously, isn't the place to delve into the history of heresies in the early Church — there were many — but to note that Gnosticism is still with us.
Gnosticism was around in other forms before Jesus, even in the Garden of Eden; many believe it later surfaced in Islam, where the Prophet Muhammad was given new knowledge, that included the startling "revelation" that Jesus did not die on the cross; instead it was, guess who?, Judas who took the ... fall.
Gnosticism is around today in much New Age thinking, including books such as "The Celestine Prophecy" and "Course in Miracles." Conspiracy theories that depend on secret knowledge, such as "The Da Vinci Code," show how pervasive Gnosticism truly is.
Modern-day scholars love the Gnostic gospels because it gives them another weapon with which to attack the Church and the Bible.
Many "Christians" fall under its sway, causing dissension in churches and among weaker believers with their whispers of so-called divine secrets that cannot be revealed publicly.
The Apostle Paul, who wrote much of the New Testament, dealt with Gnosticism — "a hollow and deceptive philosophy" — in the book of Colossians, where he taught that in Christ, "all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form" Col. 2:9. John in his first letter insists that this Jesus " ... was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and touched with our hands." 1 John 1:1.
And here's the main problem: Gnostics believe that knowledge is necessary for salvation. The New Testament, which many Christians believe is inspired, teaches that grace — God's undeserved favor given through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ — is not only the means of deliverance the word means the same as salvation but the beginning of true healing.
Or, as Paul wrote, "Knowledge gnosis puffs up, but love builds up." 1 Corinthians 8:1
Don Miller is the Sentinel's managing editor. He can be reached at
dmiller@santacruzsentinel.com. Please keep responses to 150 words or less, and include a full name and address.
