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| Photo courtesy of www.kingjamesbibleonline.org |
Written for over a period of 1600 years by about 40 human
contributors, the Holy Bible is divided into two main parts, the Old Testament,
a story of a nation, for the most part originally written in Hebrew and the New
Testament, a story of a Man, Jesus Christ, written in Koine Greek. The Bible’s
unanimity is due to the fact that, ultimately the book has only one author, GOD
himself. The human authors wrote exactly what GOD wanted them to write and the
result was the perfect and holy word of GOD. (Psalm 12:6 : 2 Peter 1:21)
There are sixty-six (66) different books that comprise the
Holy Bible, Old and New Testaments as its main parts and several divisions such
as the books of law, Levicitus and Deuteronomy, historical books such as Ezra
and Acts, books of poetry and wisdom such as Psalms and Ecclesiastes, books of
prophecy such as Isaiah and Revelation, gospels such as Matthew, Mark, Luke and
John and Epistles (formal
letters).
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| Photo courtesy of e-school.kmutt.ac.th |
According to the National Geographic website, the discovery of the Gospel of Judas is “one of the most significant biblical finds of the last century’s lost gospel that could challenge what is believed to be the story of Judas and his betrayal of Jesus Christ”.A research study by history author Matt Slick on the subject enforces the fact that the Gospel of Judas is a Gnostic manuscript whose contents consist the conversation between the Apostle Judas Iscariot and Jesus Christ. The Gospel of Judas was developed in the second century A.D. and was originally written in Greek in around 130 -170 A.D. This affirmed the fact that this manuscript was written by Gnostic followers of Jesus Christ and not by Judas himself. The whole story of how the gospel of Judas was found is chronicled in the new book titled The Lost Gospel by Herb Krosney.
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| Photo courtesy of Wikipedia.org |
The leather bound papyrus codex,
believe to have been translated from the original Greek to the Coptic language in
300 A.D. was found in a cave in a desert near Al Minya, Egypt in the 1970’s. It was then circulated among the antiquities
traders from Egypt to Europe to the United States. The codex was kept in a safe
deposit box in New York for 16 years before it was bought by a Zurich- based
antiquities dealer Frieda Nussberger-Tchacos in 2000. Alarmed by the manuscript’s deteriorating state and the failure to resell
the manuscript as well, Tchacos transferred it to the Maecenas Foundation in
Basel Switzerland for conservation and translation.
One of the world’s leading Coptic
scholar Rodolphe Kasser was commissioned to reconstruct, transcribe and
translate the Gospel of Judas (Euangelion Loudas) manuscript which claims to be
the story of Jesus’ death, from the view point of Judas. According to Kasser, the codex now called the
Codex Tchacos has 66 pages in length and
contains not only the Gospel of Judas, but
likewise a text titled “James” known as the First Apocalypse of James”, a
letter of Peter to Philip and a text called the “Book of Allogenes”.
With the discovery of the Gospel
of Judas, an ancient text claimed to be lost for over 1,600 years, many
contradicting stories surround the life of Judas as a disciple of Jesus have
been debated.
The Gospel of Judas depicts Judas
as Jesus’ most trusted disciple by doing GOD’s work when he betrayed Jesus to
the Jewish religious leaders. The scholars who believe in the authenticity of
the Gospel of Judas further fortified
their belief by stressing the translated texts of the secret account of the revelation
that Jesus spoke in conversation with Judas, as follows;
“ You will exceed all of them,
For you will sacrifice the man who clothes me. Step away from the others and I shall tell you the mysteries of the
Kingdom.”
“ Look, you have been told everything. Lift your eyes and look at the
cloud and the light within it and the stars surrounding it. The star that leads
the way is your star”.
The believers of the Gospel of
Judas continued to emphasize that Judas Iscariot was chosen to aid liberate the
spiritual self by helping Jesus Christ get rid of his physical flesh. According
to the gospel, the betrayal of Jesus Christ at the hands of Judas is the
fulfillment of His mission which will lead to the His crucifixion and allow the
Christian movement to set forth. The Gospel of Judas added that “ Judas is not
the “betrayer” but the favored
disciple of Jesus Christ and His best
friend”. The powerful point in the Gospel of Judas is that “without Judas completing “God’s mission”, Jesus
Christ would not have died in Golgotha and therefore mankind could not have
been absolved from its sins.
According to the gospel, Judas
died in a much different way than what the other disciples had written. In the
text, Judas was stoned to death by the followers of Jesus Christ, far from what
the Biblical gospels said that Judas
went and hanged himself from a tree, out of remorse for what he had done.
On the other hand, the Biblical
version, particularly in the gospels of Apostles Mark and Luke who are under
the direction and guidance of Apostles Peter and Paul, presented Judas Iscariot
as a traitor who betrayed Jesus Christ into the hands of His accusers for 30
pieces of silver.
Dr. Herbert Lockyer, a religious researcher,
writes “There are 40 verses in the New Testament in which there is reference to
the betrayal of our Lord, and in each of them the dastardly sin of Judas is
recorded. (All the Apostles of the Bible, page 100).
In Matthew 26:48-49, the betrayal
of Jesus by Judas was considered as callous” Now he was betraying Him gave them a sign saying, “Whomever I
shall kiss, He is the one: seize Him.” And immediately Judas went to Jesus and
said, Hail Rabbi! and kissed Him.”
In his work titled “Refutation of
All Heresies” ancient writer Ireneaus (130 -202 AD) stated that
the Gospel of Judas was a fictitious history. The followers of this theory
believed that the Gospel of Judas falls into the category of pseudepigraphal writings which simply
means that the manuscript is not authentic but a false one, the fact that it
was not written by Judas himself but by the Gnostic sect in support of Judas.
What if the Gospel of Judas is
true such that Judas betrayed Jesus because Jesus wished him to? Attempting to deliberate on the Gospel of
Judas, many will be inclined to ask a lot of questions that will create confusion
and uncertainties on both sides of the opposing theories.
Maybe the main question we have
to be concerned most as Christian believers would be as to what extent will the
discovery of the Gospel of Judas affect the perspective of our faith as Christians?
Surely, most Liberal Christians will
gain interest in the Gospel of Judas create a broad range of diversities in interpretation
and convictions.
As we observe the Lent season and
approach the Easter celebration, it is essential that we fortify our faith in
God who sent His only Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, who died in the Cross to
absolve the sins of mankind. No matter what uncertainties that we will
entertain in our minds, let us keep that faith burning with hope and trust in the
power of Almighty God.
In the New Testament : Matthew, Chapter 21…
18 Now in
the morning as He returned to the city, He was hungry.”
19 And seeing a fig tree by the road, He came to
it and found nothing on it, but leaves, and said to it,
“Let
no fruit in you grow ever again.” Immediately, the fig tree withered away.
20 And when the disciples saw it, they marveled. saying “ How did the fig tree withered so
soon?”
21 So Jesus answered and said to them, “
Assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what was done to the
fig tree, but also if you say to this mountain, “ Be removed
and be cast away into the sea, “ it will
be done.”
Observe the Lent
Season and advanced Happy Easter.
Written on Sunday, March 3, 2013
at Fresno, California
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