Gospel of Judas

The Gospel of Judas is an early Christian text that was discovered in the late 20th century. Scholars were previously aware of an ancient Gospel of Judas, but no known copy had survived. In his book Against Heresies (ca. 180 CE), Bishop Irenaeus of Lyons mentioned a group of Christians who glorified Judas Iscariot, the man who betrayed Jesus to the authorities according to the New Testament. Irenaeus said that these Christians claimed that Judas was the only one who knew the truth of Jesus' message and that they wrote a text called the Gospel of Judas to back up their claims. The recovered Gospel of Judas is believed by many to be the same Gospel as the one mentioned by Irenaeus.

The Gospel of Judas came from the antiquities black market, so the details of its discovery are somewhat unclear. It was found in the 1970s in Middle Egypt near Al Minya, in a fourth-century CE papyrus book that contained three other Christian texts. The texts are described as Gnostic, and the Gospel of Judas is typically assigned to the Sethian school of Gnosticism. The Gospel is a fourth-century copy of an earlier Greek text. It was written in Coptic, a form of Egyptian written with Greek and Demotic characters. The Greek original likely dates to the second century; if this is the same Gospel of Judas as the one mentioned by Irenaeus, then it was certainly written before 180 CE, probably around 150 CE.

Dealers tried for years to sell the book but were unsuccessful until 2000. The Gospel was in such a poor physical condition by this time that it took 5 years for experts to restore it and translate the [Page 480]text into English. In 2006, the Gospel of Judas was finally released to the public. However, not everyone agreed with the restored text and translation. The many holes in the text leave much of the Gospel unclear and open to speculation, and its unusual contents allow for multiple interpretations. Prominent scholars have produced alternative translations, disagreeing over key words such as daimon, which some translate as “spirit” and others as “demon.” There is also a division over the Gospel's stance toward Judas. One side reads the Gospel as favorable to Judas, saying that it portrays him as the only disciple who truly understands who Jesus is. Judas's betrayal is seen as obedience to Jesus' instructions. However, the other side argues that this interpretation relies heavily on Irenaeus's description and claims that a careful reading of the text shows that it actually vilifies the figure of Judas.