The Gospel of Judas: Introduction
Introduction:
The Gospel of Judas was found in the third tractate of the papyrus book called the Tchacos Codex. A codex is an ancient book with folded pages, bound to one side. The Judas Iscariot sections was located between pages 33-58. This archaeological find was discovered in middle Egypt, along the Nile River between Cairo and villages of Nag Hamadi near Al Minya. Legend has that the book was found inside a box that was inside a burial cave. Sometime in the 1970s a copy of this gospel was translated from second-century Greek into Coptic.
In the year 2000, the codex was bought by a Zurich-based antiques dealer, Frieda Nussberger Tchacos. An international team worked to restore what was left of the document in Switzerland. For dating and authentication purposes the team used radiocarbon dating, ink analysis, multispectral imaging, contextual evidence, and paleographic evidence.
The find was made public in 2006 by the National Geographic Society.
Historically, this gospel’s existence was also known because of a document called Against Heresies, written by Bishop Irenaeus of Lyon around 180 AD. The Gospel of Judas was mentioned by Irenaeus by name. It therefore became one of the heresies that in time became buried and suppressed. The gospel itself was likely to have been written around 150 AD by an unknown author.
In general, the Judas gospel reveals conversations and discussions that took place between Jesus, Judas Iscariot, and the other 11 disciples. According to the text, These meetings were done over an eight day period, ending just three days before Passover, and thus three days before Jesus‘ entry into Jerusalem.
All four of the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) reported that Jesus anticipated his own death (Matthew 16:21-23 and 20:17-19), (Mark8:31-33), (Luke 19:47-48) and (John 12:23-24; 27-33). The Gospel of John suggests that even Jesus himself not only knew about what was to transpire, but was also complicit in the unfolding of these events before his execution. Within this background, the contents of the Gospel of Judas unfolded.
In this gospel there is very little biographical information about Jesus. There is no mention of his arrest, the passion, execution and resurrection. Instead the focus in upon what Jesus reveals to Judas in the few days leading up to his crucifixion.
Translations:
Not surprisingly there are several translations, into several different languages, of this gospel over the years. My summary and commentary on this post is based upon the translation and book by Elaine Pagels and Karen King. Reading Judas: The Gospels of Judas and the Shaping of Christianity Penguin Books: 2007