Thinking about the Gospel of Judas
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This morning I continue to write my book on the Gospel of Judas for a general audience. I have provisionally entitled it Judas the Apostate: What the Gospel of Judas REALLY Says.
When I first read the text in Coptic, it really took me aback. Its language is heated and polemical. Jesus is a Jesus who mocks everyone in the story. I didn't really like the text that much and didn't think it had much to add to our knowledge of Gnosticism and Christianity in the second century.
But as I have come to work on it so intensely, the text has come to change my mind. It is an extremely sophisticated text (and argument - yes there is an argument in it) and it is an extremely important early Gnostic text (and not for any of the reasons that scholars have published so far). I hope to finish my analysis this month.
When I first read the text in Coptic, it really took me aback. Its language is heated and polemical. Jesus is a Jesus who mocks everyone in the story. I didn't really like the text that much and didn't think it had much to add to our knowledge of Gnosticism and Christianity in the second century.
But as I have come to work on it so intensely, the text has come to change my mind. It is an extremely sophisticated text (and argument - yes there is an argument in it) and it is an extremely important early Gnostic text (and not for any of the reasons that scholars have published so far). I hope to finish my analysis this month.