 |
|||
The Gospel of Judas
✦ Scholars recently translated the ancient text of the Judas Gospel. ✦ Early Christian Writings quotes Dr. Bart Ehrman (Distinguished Professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill): ...it portrays Judas quite differently from anything we previously knew. Here, he is not the evil, corrupt, devil-inspired follower of Jesus who betrayed his master; he is instead Jesus’ closest intimate - a friend, the one who understood Jesus better than anyone else, who turned Jesus over to the authorities because Jesus asked him to do so.✦ This ancient manuscript suggests the arrest of Jesus in Jerusalem was of human design and not the traditional form of supernatural destiny. ✦ Ryan Fleming speculates in Hail Judeas Caesar that the arrest sequence was pre-arranged between Jesus and Judas. Jesus’ statement, “one of you will betray me”[1] was either supernatural pre-cognition or human direction. The Gospel’s account of Judas leading an arresting party to a wilderness location (Garden of Gethsemane on the Mount of Olives) in the middle of the night hints at preplanning. The Garden of Gethsemane is outside the fortified walls of Jerusalem and about one mile’s walk from the traditional `upper room’ of the Last Supper. Luke 22:39 and John 18:2 state the Garden of Gethsemane was a place that Jesus and his disciples frequented, but was it during the day or in the middle of the night? A custom meeting place seems reasonable for the day, but odd in the middle of the night. And after having been in Jerusalem for only one week? If Judas left during the Last Supper (as the story goes), how could Judas be certain that Jesus and the disciples would leave the confines of the city after the supper unless it was preplanned? The Judas Gospel provides written documentation from that time period that directly supports the obvious conclusion of pre-arrangement. ✦ Of course, there are any number of reasons the arrest would have been pre-arranged. Fleming speculates a formal arrest would eventually place Jesus in the protective custody of Roman authority and away from the increasing threats against his life in the streets of Jerusalem. ✦ The wildly different accounts of Judas’ `suicide’ in the Canonical Gospels adds to the strangeness of the betrayal story. ✦ In the Judas Gospel, Jesus laughs when entering a pious gathering of the disciples. Why? |
|||
 |
|||