April 07, 2006

Gospel of Judas discovered. The verdict? Jesus was just all right with him. Neato. NYT, reg, &c.
posted by middleclasstool 18 years ago
  • It's a Cainite Gnostic document. Nothing earthshattering.
  • Judas was all right on his first couple of albums, when he was doing hardcore tunes like "Stick and Iscariot" and "Well-Hung," but I think declining critical attention in recent years have led to this blatant pandering to popular opinion and a desperate attempt at mainstream acceptance. It's a shame to see the writer of "30 Pieces of Silver (Up Yer Butt)" and the classic concept album "Iscariot of Fire" doing what can only be seen as...well, selling out.
  • Judas is the new Lando.
  • No, dude, no. Hessian and loincloth + body odour cannot compete with Lando Calrissian's silk Pimp Cape, bitch.
  • B..but Jesus, these Roman dudes arrived just before you did...
  • But Jesus did have a Wookiee. THat's right there in the Bible. I remember, cos he was played by John Huston in the movie.
  • Yeah. All that stuff about St John being dressed in furs is just a mistranslation from the Greek.
  • Yup. Those Greeks were more interested in anal sodomy than proper transliteration, & no mistake.
  • The penny dropped for me when I re-read the bit about St John tearing the arms of Labbaeus, who was surnamed Thaddaeus, out of their sockets after a disappointing game of holo chess.
  • Now, I have not doubt that I'll be corrected on this, but I thought Catholic teaching wasn't that Judas was a traitor, but that his act was necessary to the whole coming-back-from-the-dead-thing, that Judas had to do what he did in order for Jesus to go forth and do what He did. Or at least, that's how it was explained to us by our grade ten religion teacher. Before I started asking uncomfortable questions about Free Will, and all discussion was shut down.
  • Capt. R: That's one of the teachings, but it does lead us down the road of predestination vs. free will. The other (mainstream Christian) road is that Judas is a rat bastard of a traitor, but that's equally knotty because of the (as you say) necessity of the act. I think the reasons people are excited about this document is that a) it represents a reasonable third option (that some modern theologians have already theorized, apparently) and b) documents this old are really cool in and of themselves. (Of course, another third road is the idea that even the most evil of acts can be co-opted by the good, the whole 'no cloud without a silver lining' thing.)
  • In a many dark hour I've been thinkin' about this That Jesus Christ Was betrayed by a kiss But I can't think for you You'll have to decide Whether Judas Iscariot Had God on his side. -B. Dylan
  • The article talks about that whole issue toward the end. I think the new element that this text intoriduces is the idea of whether or not Judas was aware of the role he was playing at the time, the thought of Jesus taking him into his confidence about it.
  • Jesus was a confidence man?
  • I read that last sentence way too quick, put 'Jesus' and 'confidence' together, had an image of Jesus as a confidence man, out hustling at Three Card Monty. "Find the lady in black! Find the lady in black! Daddy needs a new pair of sandals! -- OOOOOH! You lose again!"
  • Or what un- said. Whatever.
  • "represents a reasonable third option (that some modern theologians have already theorized, apparently).." The sect behind this is old, predating regular church doctrine. It seems new to us because the catholic church completely eradicated all the communities that practiced such unusual forms of christianity before the middle ages, along with their documents. :D There were widely divergent christian sects with radically different beliefs clustering in the mid east in century 1-3, no cohesive central text or doctrine, when this document origates. It's not totally clear how the four gospels were chosen out of all the other stuff in circulation to be official, probly popularity. Obviously this Jesus guy was more than just a fad, there were lots of people writing about him. He was an underground hit, it seems, because no contemporaries write about him at all, despite his era being full of enthusiastic literates. One such variant Gnostic christian scripture probably lead to the foundation of the Albigensian or Cathar christian sect in the South of what is now France, at apex 8 centuries later. This group of European christians were all ruthlessly killed in the early crusades, genocide by order of the Pope. That the current Catholic Church establishment greets this document as evidence of some kind of cultural vibrancy within christianity is in stark contrast to the ruthlessness with which its ancient counterpart hunted down & destroyed such variance.
  • MCT I was thiiiis close to posting this yestiddy whent I seent it on CNN. Anyway here's what links I'd done dug up: Overview News article from Jan'yary beacoups de linkes full text?
  • No, it doesn't break new theological ground, but if I understand correctly, this is the first gospel we have that specifically supports such beliefs. Which makes it a major historical find.
  • Are you mentally divergent...friend?
  • Planet Ogo is real. Jesus is not.
  • I have heard this argument before, that in actuality Judas, far from being a villain, is the most heroic figure (besides Jeebus) in the NT, since it is his act that brings about the events that were necessary for eternal salvation to occur. Or slightly differently, that we wasn't a traitor because he HAD NO CHOICE--it was ordained that Jesus be sacrificed to his bloodthirsty father, and Judas was simply the implement. Therefore, in either event, Dante's putting him in the mouth of Satan seems a bit harsh. But then again, when you are omniscient and all-fore-knowing, and you know that if you put the tree in the garden those silly kids won't be able to resist, but then you go ahead and put the tree there anyway and those silly kids don't resist, just like you knew they wouldn't be able to because you know everything... Still, that's their fault, right? Damn those kids. Didn't Nikos Kazantzakis and Scorcese hit this theme in The Last Temptation of Christ
  • I've never actually saw that movie, strangely enough, but I pretended to in order to iritate a wanker.
  • They didn't show it in Arkansas, but then when it came out on vhs it was in every rental establishment around, which is how I saw it. My high school newspaper staff wanted to do a road trip to Memphis to see and review the flick, but too many parents said no, and the school sponsor was iffy about it too, so it didn't happen.
  • Oh, and I meant to say, I thought it was very good and thought-provoking, and in many ways a lot more Christian a movie than, say, The Jesus Chainsaw Massacre.
  • Dude, it wasn't even Jebus. It was some Quidnunckian guy who couldn't be dissuaded, so Judas "the knife" said, "Dig, yo, I'mma drop tha dime on pinky there" and the brothers were all like "Awww shit" and then everybody skeedaddled. That's why John denied knowing him three times. 'Cause he didn't.
  • It was a different guy altogether.
  • Roger.
  • OK, I am royally confused...Who in the Bible got frozen in carbonite?
  • I think it was Lazarus. That's why they named the laser gun after him.
  • This is nonsense! All true Christians know that Jesus got betrayed by a scoundrel whose true character the Lord couldn't predict at the time he was recruited.
  • So did America.
  • Did the Judas papers tell the truth about Stained Class?
  • Oy vey.
  • This thread should be eeked because it's apocryphal.
  • I had to look ^it up.
  • Judas want it off the main page.
  • That's a testament to your stupidity.
  • Kiss off!
  • Hey, who's up for some fish & chips? Dinner's on me!
  • > It's a Cainite Gnostic document. Nothing earthshattering. well, except that it's been missing for 1.7 millenia. that's a long long time.
  • Preeeeecisely. I've never actually saw that movie, strangely enough, but I pretended to in order to iritate a wanker. You really should see it, IMO. It's an absolutely gorgeous film.
  • except for the first scene. I really . . . I really coulda done without it. No, no really. It was awful. Like, Mel Gibson awful. And that's saying something. But Willem DaFoe be all'at. However I disagreed with the scene about "now I come to bring an ax" or some such. I never bought that bit anyway. Unless you want to argue that Big J and his brother were working on dispatching the Romans through violent revolution. You could make that case. I wouldn't buy it, but you could make it. in order to iritate a wanker. Would that be a wankerprank? (tm all rights reserved)
  • I really liked it. The most controversial part -- when Jesus imagines the more worldly life he could have lived, complete with getting busy with Mary Magdelene -- was just awesome. And I just loved the oddness of having Harvey Keitel play Judas.
  • It's not totally clear how the four gospels were chosen out of all the other stuff in circulation to be official, probly popularity. On the contrary, we have a pretty good understanding of how they were chosen, since it was part of the process of developing the official Roman state religion of Christianity.
  • when Jesus imagines the more worldly life he could have lived, complete with getting busy with Mary Magdelene -- I recall that was what brought up most of the brouhaha when it premired, what caused it being banned in many places. When, years later, I saw it, that was very tame, compared to everything else in the film.
  • That and the disciples kissing, which somehow created a "they made Jesus gay" stupid-ass rumor spread like a brush fire.
  • "On the contrary, we have a pretty good understanding of how they were chosen, since it was part of the process of developing the official Roman state religion of Christianity." The four gospels were already in use by the early church before any of the conclaves under Constantine (if that's what you refer to), was my understanding. As I understood it, Irenaeus circa 200AD promoted the synoptic gospels as transmitted wisdom from god, but they were already in general use. I'm not an expert, & I seem to have read several different takes on this, so I could be wrong.
  • MonkeyFilter: That's a testament to your stupidity.
  • Most fiction writers have reams of paper with abandoned plotlines and the extended development of minor characters which has to be lost because of length restrictions or other considerations. This work of fiction is no different. Find a lost chapter of The Wasp Factory or Mad Shadows and I'll get excited.
  • I remember being taught that Judas wasn't punished and vilified for betraying Jesus, because that was his ordained role, but for killing himself later, because that's a mortal sin. He gave in to the sin of despair, instead of staying alive (ah-ah-ah-ah) and enduring manfully.
  • But which way did he die? Did he hang himself or jump off a cliff?
  • I'm afraid the significance of the crucifixion, and quite what it had to do with a universal forgiveness of sins, eludes me; so I can't even get started on the righteousness or otherwise of Judas.
  • It's the cross, st00pid.
  • plegmund- are you saying you don't understand the mosaic laws, or moreso just the metaphysical logic behind it all?
  • Several aspects, really, Wedge. The whole concept of atonement doesn't seem to make sense to me except as an approximation to compensation or punishment. But even if we take atonement as read, why would Jesus's death serve the purpose when thousands of human deaths, many of them more painful and unpleasant than his, made no difference? And how can someone who isn't guilty (especially God) atone for something they didn't do? And if it was atonement, shouldn't it have been a voluntary suicide, rather than the incidental result of a miscarriage of Roman justice? And if the atonement was due to God (but why, since nothing actually harms Him?) how can God perform it, and why would he need to? Cleverer people than me have accepted the whole thing, so maybe there's a cogent and logical account - but it eludes me, however sympathetically I approach it.
  • Sorry about the length, here, but I thought I'd take a whack at your questions. I think this is less about atonement (because, as you say the Christ is without guilt) and more about sacrifice. A theologian could (obviously) argue this better than me, but lots of religions have the concept of sacrificing animals or humans. The Old Testament Jews sacrificed animals (and there's the old story of God telling Abraham to sacrifice his son, and then replacing his son at the last minute with an animal, which probably speaks to a history of human sacrifice that had fallen out of favor), as did classical Greeks and Romans. Some Celts practiced human sacrifice, as have some types of tantrism in India. Some religions even have the concept of the sacrifice of the god. Odin hung on a tree for nine days to gain wisdom (while pierced by a spear, no less), and the Egyptian Osiris is a god who dies cyclically along with the earth and then is resurrected, allowing the earth to come back to life as well (the Greek Persephone also completes this cycle, though there's never really a sense that she actually dies so much as just goes to hang out in the underworld). Christian mythology has a lot of parallels with older stories. Jesus hangs on a tree for many days in order to transition from man/god to pure God (Odin, and to some degree the Buddha who had to hang out under a tree), he does this near Spring Equinox (Osiris, Persephone, etc.). He names himself the sacrificial lamb, replacing and ending the practice of Jewish animal sacrifice, and most probably knowingly replacing traditions of human sacrifice as well. In every tradition that used sacrifice, the better the thing being killed, the bigger the bang you got out of it. You weren't supposed to kill the sick or the old, but those things (people or animal) in their prime. Under this logic, the sacrifice of someone who is not only a man in his prime but a "king" and a god has a pretty huge bang for your buck, here. This is presented as the end all, be all of sacrifices, the one big bang that ends the need for sacrifice. Another important aspect of most traditions that practiced human sacrifice is that the sacrifice must be made voluntarily. The gods (or god) will only accept something given freely. In Christian mythology the Romans are the structure around which the story occurs, and it's assumed (or known, depending on your standpoint) that Jesus could have escaped or refused at any point if he had wanted, but went willingly. Now to the idea of harm, and I'm going to have to stick to the Christian mythology because I'm pretty shaky on other traditions here. Christianity is a religion built around relationships: people's relationships with each other, and the relationship between people and God. The purpose of the sacrifice was to repair the damage done by human sin. This damage was not done to God (who, as you say, can't be harmed) but to people. In this tradition, sin is defined as that which harms the relationship between people and each other and/or people and God, creating distance between people and God, which hurts people (in fact, in mainstream Christianity the concept of evil and/or the devil is less an active presence and more the absence or distance from God). So this sacrifice was not about fixing God but about fixing people and their relationship to God. This becomes not about people saying "We're sorry, we want to fix this" and more about God realizing the relationship to people has become fundamentally fractured and taking all of (or most of ) the steps to fix things. It's kind of a sacrifice in reverse, I guess. These ideas aren't so much logical (as in purely rational, what religion is?), but they are rooted in a lot of older human tradition. I can see their lack of originality being a block to people, but the more I learn about these connections the more things make sense to me. I'm an historian, what can I say :)
  • Thanks for a thoughtful response, meredithea. I'm afraid the whole thing still lacks logic to me (and for me, that's a problem, though I take your point on rationality and religion generally). You make some good points, and I'm sure you're absolutely right (as was Wedge) to try to put the issue in the context of tradition and history - it'a there that it comes closest to making some kind of sense! Maybe the same is true of Judas's role.
  • Interview with Elaine Pagels about the Gospel of Judas.
  • Gospel Truth Oops.