New Gnostic gospel found - scholars believe it says Jesus instructed Judas to betray

No such luck, my friend.

My beliefs came from a process, not a few key bits of information. So here's the process:

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I knew from the beginning I wasn’t interested in emotion-based, feel good religion. I’ve always been an academic, and since my early teens, a cynic. I went to church as a child, but by the time I was 13 I was having serious doubts and becoming increasingly disillusioned with the church itself. A combination of marriage issues and difficult life circumstances in my mid-20s motivated me to answer this God question once and for all.

I decided to start with the concept of God and go from there, seeing as how all things religious seem to hinge on that singular belief. In other words, I figured I’d find out if there was a God at all first. Then if there was, I could try to figure out who He was (or which religion, if any, had it right).

The logical place to start seemed to be science and nature, seeing as how those seemed to be such a fierce yet foundational topic of debate between the religious and non-religious. I listened to, watched, and read as much as I could find (that I could understand) from the realms of astrophysics, natural history, biology, and physical science. I studied probability theory, Darwin’s theory of evolution and some of the newer variations of that theory, as well as the Principle of Irreducible Complexity, the theory of Intelligent Design, and Biblical Creationism (later I investigated non-Judeo/Christian creation accounts, but they were mainly artistic in nature and didn’t offer me much in the way of answers).

I found no single piece of information I could hang my hat on, but after sifting through and examining everything I had at that point, I was able to boil the origin of the universe into two main arguments: The Big Bang Theory (or everything from nothing), and what I guess one might call The Eternal Evolution Theory (or everything has always existed, just in ever-changing forms). The remarkable thing I realized was that from a strictly logical, scientific point of view, neither of these theories seemed possible, let alone plausible, standing on their own. Even though the Big Bang is by far the most widely accepted, given an infinite time frame it does not explain how even the most basic innate materials and energies (from whence the “bang” originated) came into being. The idea of eternal evolution (that being the natural history of the universe is infinite, and has eternally recycled itself) at least presents an alternative, if not an explanation, to explain the origin of the universe – it simply doesn’t have one. I wasn’t comfortable with that position, but I couldn’t rule it out, either.

Then I started examining the possibilities of completely random assemblies of energies and matter, the most basic building blocks of the physical realm. What I found interesting is that while no source I ever found could unequivocally state that the randomly spontaneous assembly of these energies and matter were impossible. However, even given an infinite time frame the probability figures for it happening were so incredibly remote, it might as well be impossible. I’m talking numbers that are measured in three and four digit scientific notation. Ironically, the scientific community was asking me to take an enormous leap of faith in order to accept their position.

To be fair, I weighed what secular science had to offer against the theory of Intelligent Design and the Principle of Irreducible Complexity. My study of the tremendous complexity of even the simplest forms of matter – let alone sophisticated life forms – seemed to advocate Intelligent Design much more than what amounts to chaos theory and spontaneous random collisions resulting in the same. As I continued my study into ever increasingly complex forms of matter – both innate and living – the support for Intelligent Design and later Irreducible Complexity continued to grow stronger, to the point that disregarding them seemed to require a measure of bias I was trying to avoid for the sake of objectivity.

The other interesting factor was that neither side could completely rule out the other. But of the two, the secular scientific sources seemed more biased in that there was no scientific argument against Intelligent Design theory – they simply ignored it or when asked point blank, ridiculed it. That being the case, I could only conclude there are no absolute answers either for or against the existence of God. There is only positive evidence and alternative evidence, but no negative evidence (other than the lack of sensory confirmation, which is far from iron-clad).

That was what I had to base my decision on. Neither side has the ability to prove its case absolutely, so each side is asking for an act of faith. I found the shortest leap, objectively speaking, to be toward the existence of God.

Now would be a good time, I think, to say that I was less than motivated to choose to believe in God. During the previous seven years, I had front row seats to watching the three people I loved most in the world, in succession: die horribly from cancer, suffer incompetence and irreparable brain damage from a stroke, and be completely ravaged by a disease I’d never even heard of before. And that’s not even including the bad taste I still had in my mouth from several negative experiences I’d had with churches and Christians from early childhood. At that point in my life, if there was a God He wasn’t on my Christmas card list. But even so, I couldn’t deny that nearly everything I’d found in more than a year of research supported the existence of God. So as objectively as I could, I chose to believe.

The next task was to figure out who He really was, which I will explain tomorrow.

 

I need to check in on this forum more often, I seem to be missing out on the fun.

I haven't read much of the material exerpts from the Gospel of Judas yet, but what little I've heard in theological circles is that it is clearly a Gnostic document. I read/heard someone say that one of the early church fathers, Irenaeus, I believe, referred to the Gospel of Judas as a Gnostic writing. I do know that Irenaeus spent significant time fighting to keep Gnostic theology out of the Christian cannon, so that would fit. Also, Egypt was one of the areas where Gnosticism flourished (wasn't this codex found in Egypt?).

If the Gospel of Judas is Gnostic in its theology (again, I've not looked at it much at all yet), then the issue from a Christian perspective is not whether or not it is a true account of Jesus' instructions to and relationship with Judas. Rather, the big issue is the concept of Jesus it presents. The one phrase I've heard in conversations that points to Gnostic theology is Jesus instructing Judas to hand Jesus over to authorities so that Jesus may "free himself from this man who has clothed me." In other words, Jesus seeks Judas to help Jesus rid himself of the flesh that restrains him from who he really is.

Gnostics, as many of you are likely aware (but in case some are not aware), believed two primary doctrines that have historically been rejected by the Church, both Catholic and Protestant.

First, they believed that the spirit or soul is divine, and the physical or flesh is evil. I'm not certain, but I think they asserted that Jesus did not really die on the cross, but rather, for lack of a better term, ascended into his true, divine form.

Second, they believed that Jesus revealed a secret knowledge that leads to Salvation. In Gnostic writings, you will find lots of coded language, and Jesus choosing to reveal "Truth" to some and hiding it from others.

There are several problems with the first item. First, the Gospels that were included in the Biblical cannon assert that Christ was fully God and fully human. Second, flesh is not necessarily sinful. Yes, I know, Paul frequently referred to fleshly desires as sin and instructed us to resist the desires of the flesh. But Gnostics saw more than sexual desires as evil. They saw being in a physical state, of having to eat and breathe as being opposite to divineness. We are created in the image of God. Further, Christ was fully human, yet was without sin. Both of these theological concepts cannot coexist in the same theological framework (or worldview, if you prefer) with Gnostic understanding of spirit and flesh.

The second item is also problematic from a Christian theological perspective. The accepted books of the Christian cannon assert openly the Truth of Christ's Gospel. Yes, there are instances in the Gospels in the Bible where Jesus instructs people (and demons he casts-out of people) to keep silent about who Jesus truly is, but such instances are often accompanied by the language of Jesus' time having not yet arrived (the Passion, Crucifixion, and Resurrection that we celebrate this week in Holy Week). The way to salvation in the traditionally accepted Christian writings is through acceptance of the grace of the Cross, and then the living of a sanctified life (love of God and love of others, particularly the poor, sick, and incarcerated). Gnostics asserted that the way to salvation was through knowing the secret that Jesus taught, and that salvation and sanctification came through that knowledge alone.