Judas’ Kiss: The Gospel of Judas

 

Judas’ Kiss: The Gospel of Judas 

Brett A. Todd

We have talked several times about other Gospels that did not make it into the Bible.  The Gospel of Judas is one of those Gospels.  Yes, you heard me correctly, The Gospel of Judas.  We are talking about none other than Judas Iscariot, the disciple who betrayed Jesus with a kiss for thirty pieces of silver.  However, in this Gospel story, it is not so much about betrayal, as it is about a kiss of love and obedience. In this story, Judas is not the villain, he is the hero.

The Gospel of Judas emerged in the ‘70s in Egypt.  It is a leather-bound papyrus manuscript written in the ancient Egyptian Coptic language and may have been originally written in Greek.  There are 16 chapters, and all-in-all, most people would not understand what the author was writing about because it is a Gnostic book filled with secrets that only the enlightened would understand.  However, it might intrigue you to know that in 2006, National Geographic produced the first English translation of The Gospel of Judas, which is easily available to those who would like to read it.

This 2nd-century Christian Gnostic gospel contains the conversations between Jesus and his disciples before the celebration of the Passover.  In these conversations, Jesus revealed his secret revelation to his disciples that only Judas seemed to understand.  We will not spend time unraveling this secret revelation until another time. 

Different from the four Gospels found in the Bible, in the Gospel of Judas, Jesus gives Judas the honored charge to betray him.  This is what Jesus said to Judas, “But you will exceed all of them. For you will sacrifice the man that clothes me.”  The words sound strange, but basically what Jesus was referring to was his death on the cross, the death of his material body.  By Judas handing Jesus over to the Jewish religious leaders, Judas was faithfully executing the true God’s plan which freed Jesus from his body.

Indeed, the Gospel of Judas stands in stark contrast to the four Gospels found in the Bible.  In the Bible, Judas is a traitor, who betrays Jesus because of his greed and the evil (Satan) inside him.  But in The Gospel of Judas, Judas is a faithful servant of God.

Bible scholars agree that The Gospel of Judas, holds no relevance to the teaching of the historical Jesus, but what it does reveal to us is the great diversity found in early Christianity.  Scattered about, there were many Christian groups with different perspectives and different beliefs.  There was no one true orthodox faith.

In our next study, we will ask the question: How many times did the cock crow when Peter denied knowing Jesus?