The Secrets Of Judas
The Story Of The Misunderstood Disciple And His Lost Gospel
James M. Robinson
Preface
The Gospel of Judas, a long-lost second-century fictional account that elevated Judas to hero status in the story, has been rediscovered! But it has been kept under wraps until now, to maximize its financial gain for its Swiss owners. The grand exposé is being performed by the National Geographic Society, timed for the greatest public impact, right at Easter. Those on the inside have been bought off (no doubt with considerably more than thirty pieces of silver), and sworn to silence on a stack of Bibles—or on a stack of papyrus leaves.
But it is amazing how much can be known about it by those of us on the outside looking in. This little book that you have in your hands has been written by an outsider who is not privy to the details about how The Gospel of Judas is being published. Many of you will read my book because you have read, or heard about, or seen on television, what the National Geographic Society is doing.
But there is a distinct advantage that I have over you, which is why, after all, you must read this book if you want to know what is really going on with The Gospel of Judas. For my narration is not expurgated, sanitized, cleaned up to make it an appetizing story. What has gone on in this money-making venture is not a pleasant story—about how all this has been sprung upon us, the reading and viewing public—and you have a right to know what has gone on.
I write as a scholar, and, as you will see as you read my narration, I have been involved to a very large extent over the past generation in this adventure. Yet you will also see me, in my capacity as scholar, expressing dismay, even disgust, over much of what has gone on. I lay it all out, with as much documentation as I can muster, for you to see for yourself.
I cannot promise you happy reading, but I am sure it will be exciting reading!
THE GOSPEL OF JUDAS
You can decipher the title at the bottom using the photograph that faces the first page of the Preface. The most obvious thing in the picture is a hole in the papyrus about the size of a penny. Just to the left of the hole, you can read, if you try hard, the Greek letters PEUA. In Coptic, they used the Greek letters, and indeed often used Greek loan words when they didn’t have an appropriate Coptic synonym. So, if you can remember the shape of the Greek letters found on the fraternity and sorority houses of college campuses, you are ready: ignore the P, since that is just the Coptic definite article The. But what follows, EUA, is the beginning of the Greek word for “Gospel,” EUAGGELION, familiar to us from our verb evangelize. (When U is between two vowels, it is treated as a consonant, so we transcribe it v; and since double-G was nasalized, i.e., pronounced ng, we transcribe it that way, “ng,” and so: “evangelize”.) Then comes the hole, where once there was papyrus with the letters GG. Just to the right of the hole, you can see (if you look hard) ELION. So we transcribe the first line of the title PEUA[GG]ELION, The Gospel.
The second line of the title, the bottom line of the papyrus page, has the letters NI in a dark patch you cannot read, then OUDAS. The N is the Coptic genitive preposition, meaning “of.” The I before the diphthong OU is a consonant, so we translate it “J.” We translate the diphthong OU as a single vowel “u.” And so there you have it: Judas. See, in just five minutes you have translated the title, The Gospel of Judas, and even learned a little about Coptic!
ONE
The Judas of the New Testament
Judas Iscariot is, if not the most famous, then surely the most infamous, of the inner circle of Jesus’s disciples. He was one of the twelve apostles who stuck with him through thick and thin to the bitter end, until it became time to deny him three times before the cock crew twice, or tuck one’s tail between one’s legs and run for life back to Galilee, or, if you must, betray him. Is Judas just fulfilling biblical prophecy, implementing the plan of God for Jesus to die for our sins, doing what Jesus told him to do? Why else does he identify Jesus to the Jewish authorities with a kiss, just for thirty pieces of silver? What do the Gospels inside the New Testament—and then what does The Gospel of Judas outside the New Testament—tell us about all this?
JEWISH AND GENTILE CONFESSIONS
In order to be able to understand the presentation of Judas in the Gospels of the New Testament, it is first necessary to understand the Gospels themselves, as products of their own time, serving the purposes of churches in the last third of the first century. They were not primarily historical records, but rather were Christian witnesses to Jesus, “Gospels,” “Good News.” They were written for evangelizing rather than simply to inform. The Evangelists worked hard to formulate the traditions they recorded in such a way as to convey the evangelizing point they had in mind.
Since most of what we know about Judas is found in these Gospels, we must first become familiar with this evangelizing procedure of the Evangelists, before we can move back behind them half a century to talk about the historical Judas himself.
Jesus’s own “public ministry” was largely confined to Jews, and his disciples were Jews. Those who had the Pentecost experience of receiving the Spirit after Easter were Jews from all over the ancient world. They had gathered in Jerusalem to celebrate a Jewish festival. And Judas was a part of this very Jewish context out of which Christianity was born.
Judaism was (and is) a very impressive ethical monotheistic religion, appealing not only to Jews, but also to Gentiles. They admired the high ethical standards of the Jewish community, and appreciated the form of worship they practiced throughout the Roman Empire: a religious ser vice without the outdated trappings of a temple with animal sacrifice (confined to the temple in Jerusalem), but rather with an edifying, uplifting reading from their holy scriptures in Hebrew, followed by its interpretation in the everyday language of the audience. Gentiles liked to attend these ser vices in Jewish synagogues, a Greek word that means “assemblies.” But few of them were actually willing to convert to Judaism, to become Jews, “proselytes,” by undergoing circumcision and accepting strict conformity to the Jewish lifestyle. Judaism meant abstaining from much of the desirable social life of their community! They preferred to attend the synagogue on the Sabbath, but live their normal lives the rest of the week. These Gentiles who attended the synagogue were called “God-fearers,” but not “Jews.”
In the Jewish synagogues where Paul preached, these God-fearers were those who were most sympathetic to his message, for he offered them precisely what they wanted from Judaism: the high ethical ideal without animal sacrifice or outdated restrictions on their social relations. Baptism was much better than circumcision! And so the Gentile Christian Church blossomed, far surpassing in numbers what was left of Jesus’s disciples in Galilee, the withering Jewish Christian Church.
Barnabas had enlisted for his mission in Antioch the most prominent convert from Judaism since Easter: the Pharisee Paul, from Tarsus on the southern coast of modern Turkey, a Jew raised out there in the Gentile world (Acts 11:25–26).
Paul and Barnabas took Titus, a Gentile convert to Christianity, with them to Jerusalem to convince the “pillars” of the Jewish Christian Church there that this Gentile, though uncircumcised, should be recognized as a fully accredited Christian (Gal. 2:3). The Jerusalem Church conceded the point (Acts 15:19–21), and reached a working arrangement with Paul and Barnabas: the original disciples would continue their mission limited to Jews, but gave the right hand of fellowship to Paul and Barnabas to continue converting uncircumcised Gentiles (Gal. 2:7–9). Paul in turn agreed to make a collection in Gentile churches for the poor of the Jerusalem Church (Gal. 2:10; Acts 11:29–30).
This fine ecumenical solution ratified by the Jerusalem Council proved difficult to implement back in the mixed co
ngregation of Antioch, for Paul and Barnabas had in practice given up their Jewish custom of eating only among Jews to retain their ceremonial purity. Instead they ate together with all members of their mixed congregation. The Lord’s Supper could not be segregated! Even Peter, there for a visit from Jerusalem, went along with this tolerant Christian practice. But Jesus’s brother James, who by then had taken over the leadership of the church in Jerusalem (Acts 15:13), sent delegates to Antioch to insist that Jewish Christians should eat only at a table with Jews, to retain their ceremonial purity, even if the congregation included Gentiles (Gal. 2:12). So Peter himself withdrew to a Jews-only table, and even Barnabas went along with this segregation (Gal. 2:11–13). But Paul stood his ground, denouncing this reliance on Jewish purity as a condition for salvation (Gal. 2:14–21), and from then on did his missionary work without the support of the church of Antioch or of Jewish Christianity.
From Paul’s time on, this alienation between the Jewish and Gentile branches of Christianity only got worse. The ecumenicity of the Jerusalem Council gave way to the dominance of the more numerous and prosperous Gentile Christian Church, which “returned the favor” by rejecting the small Jewish Christian Church as heretical.
By the fourth century, Epiphanius, bishop of Salamis on Cyprus, wrote against the Jewish Christians, calling them heretical sects of “Ebionites” and “Nazarenes.” The first term means “the poor,” the second “from Nazareth.” Both were originally names for Jesus and his disciples! All these Jewish Christians were doing was continuing their Jewish lifestyle, as had Jesus, while being Christians as well. Surely, we would not call them heretics today!
JEWISH AND GENTILE GOSPELS
In the generation after Paul, each side had collected their treasured recollections of Jesus into Gospels, the Jewish Christians into their Sayings Gospel Q, and the Gentile Christians into their Narrative Gospel Mark. One main reason that the Sayings Gospel Q did not become a book within the New Testament is that the New Testament is the book of the Gentile Christian Church, not the book of the Jewish Christian Church. We know about the Sayings Gospel Q only because, as a last expression of that ecumenism, both confessions decided to merge both the Sayings Gospel Q and the Narrative Gospel Mark into a single Gospel, each from their own perspective, of course. Matthew did it from the perspective of the Jewish Christian Church, Luke from the perspective of the Gentile Christian Church. So it is possible to reconstruct rather accurately, as a team of scholars I organized for that purpose have done,1 the Sayings Gospel Q, though no manuscripts have survived because it soon ceased to be copied by the Gentile Christian Church.
The Sayings Gospel Q made no reference at all to Judas, but the Narrative Gospel Mark, followed by the other Gospels in the New Testament, presented the familiar picture of Judas leading the Jewish authorities to the Garden of Gethsemane to arrest Jesus. But it is precisely this familiar story that needs to be reexamined, in the context of the emergence of The Gospel of Judas. Indeed, before The Gospel of Judas was rediscovered, a distinguished Mennonite scholar had already undertaken just such a reexamination: William Klassen’s 1996 book Judas: Betrayer or Friend of Jesus? did just that.2 All of this now calls for our own reexamination, if The Gospel of Judas is to be correctly understood. But first we must familiarize ourselves with the Gospels of the New Testament themselves, from which our quite understandably hostile feelings about Judas, as well as an emerging more tolerant attitude toward Judas, are both derived. We begin with the first Gentile Christian Gospel, the Gospel of Mark.
THE GENTILE GOSPEL OF MARK
Mark presents the inner circle of Jesus’s disciples as being very ignorant about Jesus, as to who he was and what he was trying to do. You really have to wonder why they followed him at all—or you have to wonder why Mark portrayed them that way! So let’s see how he did portray them, and try to figure out why.
After telling the Parable of the Sower, which even I can understand, Jesus asked the disciples with amazement (Mark 4:13):
Do you not understand this parable? Then how will you understand all the parables?
A whole chapter of parables follows, which Jesus has to explain rather pedantically to them (Mark 4:33–34):
With many such parables he spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it; he did not speak to them except in parables, but he explained everything in private to his disciples.
Yet the disciples seem still in the dark (Mark 4:40–41):
He said to them, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?” And they were filled with great awe and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”
They still don’t seem to understand who Jesus was.
When the disciples in the boat see Jesus walking on the water toward the boat (Mark 6:50–52):
…they all saw him and were all terrified. But immediately he spoke to them and said, “Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.” Then he got into the boat with them and the wind ceased. And they were utterly astounded, for they did not understand about the loaves, but their hearts were hardened.
Looking back on the feedings of the multitudes, Jesus asks (Mark 8:17–21):
“Why are you talking about having no bread? Do you still not perceive or understand? Are your hearts hardened? Do you have eyes, and fail to see? Do you have ears, and fail to hear? And do you not remember? When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you collect?” They said to him, “Twelve.” “And the seven for the four thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you collect?” And they said to him, “Seven.” Then he said to them, “Do you not yet understand?”
It is not surprising that Jesus knows just how unreliable the inner circle is (Mark 14:27–28):
And Jesus said to them, “You will all become deserters; for it is written,
‘I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered.’”
How many of this inner circle of the Twelve does Mark portray as being with him at the end, at the foot of the cross? None! Jesus knew quite well that none would die with him, but that they would do a quick retreat to Galilee, as Jesus told the faithful women at the tomb (Mark 16:7):
But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.
In the Garden of Gethsemane, the inner circle had been out of it completely (Mark 14:37–41):
He came and found them sleeping; and he said to Peter, “Simon, are you asleep? Could you not keep awake one hour? Keep awake and pray that you may not come into the time of trial; the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” And again he went away and prayed, saying the same words. And once more he came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were very heavy; and they did not know what to say to him. He came a third time and said to them, “Are you still sleeping and taking your rest? Enough! The hour has come; the Son of Man is given over into the hands of sinners. Get up, let us be going. See, the one giving me over is at hand.”
With this, the antihero Judas walks across the stage. But, as our survey of Mark’s presentation of the inner circle indicates, none of them are really much better in Mark’s presentation than Judas! Some have thought that such a scoundrel as Judas could not possibly have been chosen by Jesus as one of the Twelve, and admitted into the innermost circle. But, from Mark’s point of view, he would have fitted right in!
At least Peter should be presented favorably, since after all it is he who is the rock on which the church is built. But not in Mark—that is Matthew’s effort to clean up Peter’s act (Matt. 16:18)! In Mark, Peter’s confession to Jesus at Caesarea Philippi, “You are the Messiah” (Mark 8:29), takes another turn (Mark 8:31–33):
Then he [Jesus] began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priest, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and
began to rebuke him. But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”
Peter, not the rock, but Satan? What is going on? “Get behind me, Satan!” might fit Judas, but to refer to Peter?
On the Mount of Olives, Jesus had predicted the Twelve would abandon him (Mark 14:27–31):
“You will all become deserters; for it is written, ‘I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered.’ But after I am raised up, I will go before you to Galilee.” Peter said to him, “Even though all become deserters, I will not.” Jesus said to him, “Truly I tell you, this day, this very night, before the cock crows twice, you will deny me three times.” But he said vehemently, “Even though I must die with you, I will not deny you.” And all of them said the same.
So did Peter stick by him to the bitter end? Not according to Mark! Instead, Mark tells us (Mark 14:50):
“They all forsook him, and fled.”
When Jesus was being interrogated by the high priest, Peter followed him “at a distance” (Mark 14:54). Then Peter cops out completely (Mark 14:66–72):
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