Evangelion Judas
I was planning to go on a cruise for the lent holidays but hell every seat was taken and guess I will be holed up at home again for the rest of the weekend. There was an interesting documentary that aired on the national geographic channel for lent though.
Something to think about this lent
The life of jesus is told in the gospels of mark, mathew, luke and john of the new testament. But in addition to what christians preach, there exists a dozen more hidden gospels that never made it to the new testament 2000 years ago. Some of these were the gospels of thomas, thaddeus, philipp, mary magdalene and one gospel in particular, from the celebrated traitor of all time, the gospel of judas.
In a nutshell
Early Christianity around 100 AD was an underground religion and romans persecuted these christians because of their faith. Christianity was preached sporadically with anonymity during those ages and it became diverse with each preacher, each preaching according to the gospel at his disposition.
St. Ireneaus of Lyon decided to define the teachings of christianity to what it is now by narrowing down to stories of the gospels to the versions of mark, mathew, luke and john because for whatever reasons they saw them fit. And moreover if these christians were to die a martyr under the romans, the least is that they have a common dogma in their faith unto their death.
In fact St. Ireneaus did denounce the existence of the gospel of judas, though no copy was ever found.
1974, a farmer finds the only papyrus codex to the gospel of judas under the desert caves of Egypt. The codex finds its way to a couple of antique dealers and collectors for a couple more years until in 2000 when its significance was realized and reconstruction and interpretation of the whole codex was made. Authenticity was beyond doubt. It wasn’t til april 6 that this ancient document was made public. Hence the curiosity of yesterday’s date (see last post) and it was about time too that we heard judas’ side of the story.
It must have been tough for judas to be branded as the icon of betrayal by the christians, but after 2000 years, the revelation of his gospel said otherwise. Im even planning to buy a book about it at amazon.com. It did interest me a lot knowing it breached the bible and challenged the christian faith, or simply I have a penchant for misunderstood villains.
What is it all about?
Contrary to the 2000 year old christian doctrine, the revelation from the gospel of judas discloses that judas betrayed jesus because jesus asked him to do so.
Knowing that Judas was reflecting upon something that was exalted, Jesus said to him, “Step away from the others and I shall tell you the mysteries of the kingdom. It is possible for you to reach it, but you will grieve a great deal. [36] For someone else will replace you, in order that the twelve [disciples] may again come to completion with their god.”
“But you will exceed all of them. For you will sacrifice the man that clothes me”
“And then the image of the great generation of Adam will be exalted, for prior to heaven, earth, and the angels, that generation, which is from the eternal realms, exists. Look, you have been told everything. Lift up 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.”
If he never betrayed jesus, the crucifixion never took place, lent never took place, and everybody could still be eating meat this weekend.
What if the gospel of judas is not true? Then what makes the other gospel so true. Then that what faith is all about, believe in what you want to believe.
Something to think about this lent
The life of jesus is told in the gospels of mark, mathew, luke and john of the new testament. But in addition to what christians preach, there exists a dozen more hidden gospels that never made it to the new testament 2000 years ago. Some of these were the gospels of thomas, thaddeus, philipp, mary magdalene and one gospel in particular, from the celebrated traitor of all time, the gospel of judas.
In a nutshell
Early Christianity around 100 AD was an underground religion and romans persecuted these christians because of their faith. Christianity was preached sporadically with anonymity during those ages and it became diverse with each preacher, each preaching according to the gospel at his disposition.
St. Ireneaus of Lyon decided to define the teachings of christianity to what it is now by narrowing down to stories of the gospels to the versions of mark, mathew, luke and john because for whatever reasons they saw them fit. And moreover if these christians were to die a martyr under the romans, the least is that they have a common dogma in their faith unto their death.
In fact St. Ireneaus did denounce the existence of the gospel of judas, though no copy was ever found.
1974, a farmer finds the only papyrus codex to the gospel of judas under the desert caves of Egypt. The codex finds its way to a couple of antique dealers and collectors for a couple more years until in 2000 when its significance was realized and reconstruction and interpretation of the whole codex was made. Authenticity was beyond doubt. It wasn’t til april 6 that this ancient document was made public. Hence the curiosity of yesterday’s date (see last post) and it was about time too that we heard judas’ side of the story.
It must have been tough for judas to be branded as the icon of betrayal by the christians, but after 2000 years, the revelation of his gospel said otherwise. Im even planning to buy a book about it at amazon.com. It did interest me a lot knowing it breached the bible and challenged the christian faith, or simply I have a penchant for misunderstood villains.
What is it all about?
Contrary to the 2000 year old christian doctrine, the revelation from the gospel of judas discloses that judas betrayed jesus because jesus asked him to do so.
Knowing that Judas was reflecting upon something that was exalted, Jesus said to him, “Step away from the others and I shall tell you the mysteries of the kingdom. It is possible for you to reach it, but you will grieve a great deal. [36] For someone else will replace you, in order that the twelve [disciples] may again come to completion with their god.”
“But you will exceed all of them. For you will sacrifice the man that clothes me”
“And then the image of the great generation of Adam will be exalted, for prior to heaven, earth, and the angels, that generation, which is from the eternal realms, exists. Look, you have been told everything. Lift up 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.”
If he never betrayed jesus, the crucifixion never took place, lent never took place, and everybody could still be eating meat this weekend.
What if the gospel of judas is not true? Then what makes the other gospel so true. Then that what faith is all about, believe in what you want to believe.
posted by Lib at 4:01 PM
1 Comments:
I saw that feature, I don’t think that the gospel refuted anything about Jesus being crucified, it only stated that Judas was never a traitor but actually was just a good disciple. For me it doesn’t really matter, the fact remains, Christ died for us, he died to cleanse us of our sins, and to show us the way to salvation.
Nice blog
10:45 PM
Post a Comment
<< Home