News-Record.com

What I find most interesting about this story is how Christian authorities are so quick on discounting this find. I've heard "It was obviously a fabrication, because it was written in the second century." They completely fail to mention just how shaky their "canonized" text is, at least as historical records.

I'm going to guess this will join the other "heretical" gospels in the shelf of curiosities that are ignored by mainstream believers. Maybe soon, the full translated text will be up on the web, just as are the Gospels of Thomas and Peter. What a rich, strange history Christianity has... and how woefully ignorant many if not most believers are of that history!

The four canonical Gospels are not at all shaky, although there are variations in some particular pericopes and story lines; but nothing that affects any doctrinal essential. Their variant readings only serve to show the consistency of the Gospel tradition and that they did not copy one another; although there may have been both oral and manuscripted proto-Gospel material available to the writers.

The pseudepigrpha all have a feel and slant very different from both the Johannine and synoptic Gospels. In one of the pericoples cited in the article from the Judas document, for example, Jesus is quoted as saying to Judas, " . . . you will sacrifice the man that clothes me." This is a heretical view of the incarnation known as docetism - that the human body of Jesus only seemed (dokeo)human.

The document seems typical of the gnostic pseudo-Gospels that didn't really care about historical accuracy, but only to protray thier own mystical and occult takes on Jesus. The ancient world was rife with such views, which opposed the open, freely-offered salvation of grace of Christianity. Everything is "secret" in thier systems, just as in the mystery cults.

The document is interesting as an example of this false,speculative literature, but cannot compare with the overall consistency and incarnational potency of the canonical witness.

I am still wondering why those texts were not "worthy" enough to be "canonized" by the Council of Nicaea. I truly believe that some on that Council had an agenda, much like most of us today. Yet, in this instance, we fail to fully recognize the importance that these "non-canonized" text have in the fuller picture of scripture.

Makes me say "hmmmmmmmmmmm."

Shalom

"Everything is "secret" in thier systems, just as in the mystery cults."

This, coming from a guy who thinks that he has special knowledge of the meaning of the Bible because a sky spirit reveals to him things that aren't plainly evident in the text. Bloody hilarious!

I just LOVE the Onion! Here's what they have on this in their "American Voices" section:

Rick Fender,
Electronics Salesperson
"First Mary Magdalene's not a whore, and now this. I'm sick of changing my entire belief system every time they find a scrap of papyrus in the middle of the desert."

Why don't you guys read some serious literature on the subject of manuscript veracity, rather than voice baseless quips and jocular absurdities.
Better yet, read the pseudepigraha alongside the canonical Gospels - night and day.

The obvious reason that the councils didn't canonize the spurious literature was that the true, apostolic writings were already well established by time and usage, and conformmed to the rule of faith.

The reason for all the anti-biblical garbage that is coming out now is so obvious. It is a political agenda, driven by the Democtratic losses over the past decade: neutralize a large enough segment of the Christian voting block and reestablish secularist/Marxist Democratic control so that the radical humanist agenda can fully supplant the establishment Christian MO. But you guys already know this.

"The obvious reason that the councils didn't canonize the spurious literature was that the true, apostolic writings were already well established by time and usage, and conformmed to the rule of faith."

In other words, the Gospels were "true" because the majority rules, is that it? Is this the core of "gospel truth" then? If you get enough votes in an Imperial forum, then you must have the truth? I don't know, mon. Sounds mighty shaky to me. I think the jocular absurdities make as much sense as your "time and usage" standard.