The truth Behind the Gospel Of Judas

A lot is being said these days about the Gospel of Judas, and the believer is perplexed at the new revelations that come each day. In this article I’ll try to clarify the doubts about this Gospel of Judas.

After the Death of Jesus, his followers started to spread Christianity among people. The popularity of Christianity, spread very fast and the Romans who were ruling at that time, began to persecute the followers. In spite of these persecutions, these early Christians met in groups at homes of the followers and conducted prayers and helped each other. Now we must realize that there was no bible at this time and stories of Jesus and his works were passed on from word of mouth. Various versions of the works of Jesus were passed on among different groups and many of these were written down. Now by the end of the 2nd century and beginning of the 3rd there existed almost 30 gospels. Some of the famous Gospels being The gospel of Mary, Gospel of Thomas etc. Its has to be understood that although these Gospels carry the names of the followers of Jesus viz. Mary, Thomas etc, they were not written by them but were written later by various authors. Similarly historians don’t attribute the authorship of the four Gospels i.e. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John to them. This is because Early Christians tended to link the gospels with one of the 12 apostles. These gospels were probably written by some one, close to the disciples or some close friends of Jesus. Now with so many Gospels circulating it was difficult for the followers to follow any single Gospel. Another problem that arose was, many of these gospels were written by Gnostics. Before we proceed it is better we know something about these Gnostics.
Gnostics were followers of Gnosticism, a esoteric religious movement that flourished during the 2nd and 3rd centuries A.D. and presented a major challenge to Christianity. Most Gnostic sects professed Christianity, but their beliefs sharply diverged from those of the majority of Christians in the early church. The term Gnosticism is derived from the Greek word gnosis (“revealed knowledge”). To its adherents, Gnosticism promised a secret knowledge of the divine realm.
Although most Gnostics considered themselves Christians, some sects assimilated only minor Christian elements into a body of non-Christian Gnostic texts. The Christian Gnostics refused to identify the God of the New Testament, the father of Jesus, with the God of the Old Testament, and they developed an unorthodox interpretation of Jesus' ministry. The Gnostics wrote apocryphal Gospels (such as the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Mary) to substantiate their claim that the risen Jesus told his disciples the true, Gnostic interpretation of his teachings: Christ, the divine spirit, inhabited the body of the man Jesus and did not die on the cross but ascended to the divine realm from which he had come. The Gnostics thus rejected the atoning suffering and death of Christ and the resurrection of the body. They also rejected other literal and traditional interpretations of the Gospels.
Now Coming back to the early Christians , There was a lot of confusion as to the exact scriptures that had to be followed and a lot of Christians were being persecuted and were dying for the Lord. During this period came a very eminent figure among the early Christians and his name was Irenaeus. Today called as St Irenaeus. Iranaeus was the Bishop of Lyon and was held in high esteem by the church. Irenaeus was Against the Gnostics, as he believed they corrupted the church. He wrote many books against the Gnostics and was responsible for destroying many of the Gnostic work.
Now Irenaeus understood that the faithful had no proper text to follow and many of them were being killed by persecution and were dying without knowing the reason for their death. So Irenaeus Chose four gospels, of the many that were circulating that time and asked the faithful to follow them. These were Matthew, Mark Luke and John. The gospels we follow today. No one knows why he selected four, but the books he chose were easy to understand and written in simple language.
The famous dead sea scrolls, which were found near Nag Hammadi In Egypt, are all writings of these Gnostics. The Gospel of Judas has been confirmed to have originated from the same time as the Nag Hammadi scrolls and the writings are in similar style as the Nag Hammadi writings. Since the gospel of Judas was first discovered in an area close to Nag Hammadi, the people who worked on the restoration of the gospel of Judas believe that it may have been written by the same sect that wrote the Dead sea scrolls.
Now many of the works of these Gnostics had been called Heresy by the early church and destroyed and banned. The writings that have been discovered recently like the Dead sea scrolls and The gospel of Judas are a few surviving remnants of the works that escaped destruction. For us as believers there is no truth in what these works say. They are merely writings of a extinct sect. Historically they are important as they give some information about the people who lived during those times. Remember the Gnostics exist no more, but the church still lives on and continues to grow.
The Gospel Of Judas: The work it self was discovered in Egypt in the late 70’s and was stolen from an antique dealer. No one knew the significance of the work then. The dealer got back the work and kept it in a Vault in New York because he did not get the expected price for the work. It was recently purchased by a team, that was looking for this work and they had it restored and translated.
The work itself says little about historic Jesus, and speaks through Judas, the disciple who betrayed Jesus. Since the Gnostics did not believe in the suffering of Jesus, the work does not contain any of it and ends after Jesus is betrayed. In the work Jesus tells Judas that he will receive the secrets of heaven, and will know much more than what others will know. This is what exactly the Gnostics believed in. They thought that the divine knowledge was given to them. And finally the work that is found was written in the 3rd century and is a copy of a earlier work. So it was written nearly 300 years after the death of Jesus, compare that with the Gospel of Mark which was written around AD 70.

In the bible, we have been given enough information about the life and work of Jesus. The four Gospels are from trusted sources and have enough in them to make us Good children of God. We do not need to go to these questionable sources and create doubts in our minds. People turn to all types of gimmicks to make money. Please do not be misled by them.
I have written this article from whatever sources I had with me, if you have more information or have any doubts please write to me