the disciples as misguided idiots, people who don t have access to the truth. really jesus treats them as a lost cause. in the gospel of judas the other disciples are praying and venerating in ways that makes jesus laugh at them. why are you laughing at the thanksgiving? and they seem to be leading people astray. it is what is right. i am not laughing at you! nor are you doing this by your will but rather it is by this that your god will be praised. the gospel of judas pictures the disciples as clueless. this image of the disciples and of judas is the key to unlocking the true meaning of the gospel of judas. the disciples, they re accused of despicable acts. they are clearly the villains of this text. and the author drives the
judas iscariot, the man who betrays jesus. the question is, why? does judas know what he s doing? does judas resent jesus, or is he just disillusioned, or is he just confused? we don t know what made judas do what he did. i can imagine a lot of different motives. in the gospel of matthew, judas betrays jesus for 30 pieces of silver. for me, greed doesn t work as a motive because judas spent the last one to three years traipsing around the judean desert and galilee presumably for no money. so why now all of a sudden is this person greedy? so why else would cause judas to double-cross jesus? i am with jesus of nazareth and can bring him to you. some experts think that judas
subject of intense debate and interest. in 2006, nearly 30 years after its discovery, the gospel of judas is finally revealed to the world. this is a new gospel. it tells a new story of the last days of jesus christ. it s a dialogue between jesus and judas. it is the only known copy of a text originally written in the second century a.d. the actual author of the gospel of judas remains unknown. it s not the gospel according to judas. so all the other gospels that we have are always according to one disciple or the other. but this is not necessarily judas s view. this is a text that s about judas. the gospel uses the familiar scene of the last supper to paint a very different picture
he s a real person with real emotions. he s a person who had great hopes in jesus. those hopes were dashed. he colossally overreacted. and so he leads the jewish authorities to jesus in the garden of gethsemane. but that s not the end of the story. we don t really know what happened to judas after he betrays jesus. does he follow jesus through the trial scenes just to see what happens? does he see pilate condemn him to die? does he perhaps watch the flogging? had to feel the reality of what he d done. when it becomes clear that they re not just going to do away with jesus, but they re
judas crime is so easy to understand and at the same time so terrible. he betrayed his friend. along comes a bombshell, a newly translated ancient manuscript. just 25 tattered sheets of papyrus written in the ancient coptic language, the lost gospel of judas. it challenges our contempt for judas character, but now will missing fragments of text complete the gospel and force us to reconsider judas role in the story of jesus? the story of jesus, the story of the crucifixion is not so much a whodunit, it s a whydunit. why did judas betray jesus? that s really the biggest question in the entire gospel.