Sermon Notes Sunday June 25, 2006

The Gospel of Judas

This past April the National Geographic Society published (with much fan fare) “The Gospel of Judas.” This Gospel is a dialogue between Jesus and Judas in which Judas is described as the favorite disciple who is given the most important assignment of all, to give him up to the authorities so that he can die.

Dead Sea Scrolls
First discovered in 1947, discoveries continued into the 1950’s
Primarily Hebrew writings. Give details about the Jewish monastic group called the “Essenes.”
“The DaVinci Code” mistakenly refers to these as Christian writings. The Essene community pre-dates Jesus.
Display of these manuscripts coming to the Pacific Science Center for a exhibit beginning September 23rd.

Nag Hammadi Library
Discovered 1945 near Nag Hammadi, Egypt
Coptic texts
Apocryphal Gospels, Gospel of Thomas, first translated into English in 1977

The Gospel of Judas
Discovered sometime in the early 1970’s by a local man near El Minya, Egypt.
Was sold to an antiquities dealer in Cairo who demanded $3 million for the books.
First viewed by scholars in 1983 who were unable to meet the demands of the seller.
Eventually the books were left in the safety deposit box of a bank in Hicksville, NY where the remained for 16 years.
In 2004 scholars in Geneva announced that they had an ancient book called “The Gospel of Judas.” This is what has been published this past April.

You can read the “Gospel of Judas” in a few minutes, its not a very long book. Immediately you will recognize that this book comes from a different religious tradition than our own. That religious tradition is “Gnosticism.”

Gnosticism
The root “gnosis” means knowledge. Gnostics believed that Spiritual fulfillment came through the right knowledge. In the first century as Christianity grew Gnostics began to fit this new religion into their religious system.
Some basic Gnostic beliefs:
Salvation comes through right knowledge; salvation releases the self from the flawed physical body.
Jesus was a teacher of true Gnosis
Jesus’ resurrection was the release of his spirit.

Gnosticism also held women in high regard. Gnosticism lifted up women as true disciples and many of the Gnostic texts are attributed to women who were followers of Jesus.

Was Judas a Friend or Foe?

Many commentaries note the similarity of the name Judas and the name Jew or Judah. Throughout much of Christian history Jews have been persecuted and aligned with Judas for betraying and killing Jesus.

Perhaps we should quit looking at Judas as a greedy enemy and we should spend more time recognizing when we are like Judas. When are we too zealous for the cause and end up missing the point? When are we more worried about money than about blessing God? When are willing to sell out our friends in order that our goals, our plans might be achieved? How often do we end up reaching out for Jesus after we have tried to ignore or destroy him?