Greetings.
The newly discovered 'gospel of Judas' Iscariot has amazing information, including the quote from Jesus to Judas: "You are a good friend who will help me shed this earthly husk." (...something like that.)  If Judas' role was to help a friend, God's role in directing their lives and deaths seems even stronger, since even the 'traitor' Judas was fulfilling God's role for him. Both men had free will but their souls stayed true to the roles God had set for them.
I thought--hoped--it got easier.  Guess that shows I'm farther back on the trail than I'd hoped.
In USA TV shows the  'Gospel of Judas'  tonight.

There was another reply here when I fisrt read this that has been removed. That reply reflected an understanding not based on reading the information about the find. Here is a link to an article on the find that should answer questions about the find.

http://www.boston.com/news/world/middleeast/articles/2006/04/07/a_new_judas_emerges_from_rediscovered_gospel/?page=full

Many years ago, when a lot younger and more foollish, I joined the military (you want more proof of young and foolish?), and during the paperwork phase (that's the part that preceeds the standing in line and waiting phase) some friends and I gave our "religious preference" (for our dogtags) as "St Judas Church of Reformed Agnosticism". Life is definitely strange!

d  

You know, for some reason, I've always had a soft spot in my heart for Judas and never knew why. :o

Love, Mairlyn ;-)

:) Life is like a woven blanket with different colour threads that weave in and out together forming one whole.

That is a good name Dave!

Marilyn another confirmation that happens naturally in us .. hey.  Its wonderful and beautiful.

:)

The New Age ghetto here is so myopic that it sees no need to listen to acknowledged experts in the fields about which it opines.  The Gospel of Judas is a late Gnostic Gospel, apparently composed by the "Cainites" (so Irenaeus AD 1.31.1).   It is too late to contain reliable oral tradition.  I would love to believe what it says about Judas because I've always viewed him as more of a tragic figure than an evil figure.  But ask yourself why a remorseful Judas would commit suicide after Jesus' crucifixion if he had not betrayed Christ (Matthew 27:1-8 independently confirmed by the Book of Axts)..

Don

Greetings,
I have asked myself why Christ's 'accomplice' would commit suicide and all I could come up with is that the flow of his (Judas') faith experienced a severe ebb, without Christ's presence there to console him. Since John is generally considered the favorite of Christ, putting Judas into the spotlight must have been rather sudden, possibly setting up a rather unstable situation.

I have also questionned how long was the time between the crucifixion and Judas' suicide? Since Judas role was secret before the betrayal, who all did he have time to tell his story to before he ended his own life?  Can you help with this, Don?

I am not necessarily out to make Judas a hero--perhaps he was chosen for his deed because of what we would call character flaws, rather than strengths. But I do think new and valid discoveries are possible, exciting, and add to the depth of a great and wondrous story.
bets

Don,

"But ask yourself why a remorseful Judas would commit suicide after Jesus' crucifixion if he had not betrayed Christ (Matthew 27:1-8 independently confirmed by the Book of Axts)..'

People commit suicide because they're clinically depressed, for one reason. How does depression prove guilt?

How many innocent people have offed themselves because they were accused of something they knew they would never be able to live down?

And no, Don, since you seem to favor fallacious reasonsing at the moment, no one has to prove Judas didn't betray Jesus. That would be quite an unreasonable expectation, not to mention asking us to prove a negative.

If all of us say you're full of doo doo, and you get depressed about it and kill yourself, does that prove us right?

"(Matthew 27:1-8 independently confirmed by the Book of Axts)"

Were you implying here that because they are separate books (although chosen by the same church) the authors are objective/unbiased? That they didn't share oral traditions and such? Please!

Ask youself how suicide proves guilt.

Rob

Hi Ive always thought that Judas hung himself after he betrayed Jesus because he could not live with what he had done. Ithink Judas thought when he told the sanhedrin were Jesus was ,he really thought in his head that he was helping Jesus ,because Judas trusted the sanhedrin and did not realise that the sanhedrin was just using him to find were Jesus was . Just my thoughts.God bless juditha

I suspect that if my job were to turn Jesus over to the CIA for interrogation in Gitmo' I'd be clinically depressed, even if I thought I understood what was happening.

Jesus put it a bit differently, that "these things must happen" but that it would be better for them who cause them that they had never been born. Judas had some karmic obligations here too - as did Paul etc.

d

Hi All. Why didn't jesus just turn himself in? After all, it was he who preached not harming your fellow human beings in any form or another. If he knew judas was to turn him in, then he would have known judas was going to suffer agony and commit suicide. Causing someone to suicide(knowing beforehand) and not trying to stop it, is a definate no, no, especially for the 'son of god?' who taught love, peace, non-violence, etc, etc....Regards. Spice.

Probably because Jesus didn't want to interfere with Judas's karma which was being played out/balanced in his act of betrayal, if it was betrayal. If he was an accomplice, then he still felt so badly that he took his life.

Love, Mairlyn ;-)

Rob et al,

You just don't get it.  First, both Matthew and the Book of Acts are first century Gospels still within the range of eyewitness testimony and authentic oral traditon.  The author of the Book of Acts is Paul's travel companion Luke.   Luke's sources include "the disciples and other eyewitnesses (Luke 1:2)."  Luke travelled with Paul to Jerusalem where they contacted the apostles and Jesus' brother (Acts 21:18).   Paul himself consults the Jerusalem apostles on a few occasions (e.g. Galatians 1L18-19,  2:1-2).

Secondly, the Gospel of Judas is a 2nd century Gnostic work and there is no evidence that any Gnostic work contains a shred of authentic material from oral tradition.   In fact, there is no clear evidence of Christian Gnosticism in the first century, period.  The Coptic Gospel of Thomas may contain some new authentic sayings of Jesus.  But it is encratite, not Gnostic, and a sayings collection (114 sayings), not really a Gospel.   In any case, the misnamed Gospel of Thomas cannot even be confidently traced to the first century.

Thirdly, it is clear from first century Gospel tradition that Judas commits suicide in response to his betrayal (Matthew 27:4-8).  Mark is Peter's interpreter in Rome and composes his Gospel on the basis of Peter's teaching notes.  Papias verifies this from his conversations with the apostles and those trained by the apostles.  Peter speaks affectionately of Mark's role in Rome (1 Peter 5:13).  Also, Mark grew up in his mother's Jerusalem house church where the apostles and Jesus' family members were available for consultation (Acts 12:12).   More than once, Peter makes it clear that Jesus was betrayed by Judas and was grieved by this betrayal (Mark 14:18-21, 41-45).  Such testimony with an eyewitness connection cannot be nullified by a 2nd century Gnostic Gospel with no historically reliable pedigree.  

Hi All. Thanks Marilyn and Don for your interpertations..Regards..Spice

Don-

I think the problem is that logic does not work very well in the new age environment.  

After all, new agers claim that everyone living today had past lives.  Mathematically, of course, that is simply impossible.  

So, they then claim that people didn't necessarily have past lives on earth.  They say, with absolutely zero documentation, that they lived on other planets in other solar systems.

The new age mindset is impenetrable.  It's like when people were absolutely convinced that the earth was flat.....no amount of logic would convince them otherwise.  

But if I say I had a vision of my deceased dog with its feet up on a footstool, smoking a pipe and reading a book from its well stocked library...well, certain folks accept that in a heartbeat.  

I guess that's what makes the world go round....or flat as the case may be.

Roger,

You eloquently illustrate the tempting danger of making one's position unfalsifiable in principle and therefore meaningless.  This trap can ambush anyone who seeks an answer for every troubling aspect of his position.  There is only one solution.  One must learn to tolerate the discomfort of leaving loose ends in the coherence of one's position and to humbly confess, "I just don't know,"
more frequently.

Don

*GOSPEL OF JUDAS Online English:
http://www9.nationalgeographic.com/lostgospel/_pdf/GospelofJudas.pdf

*GOSPEL OF JUDAS Online Tertullian.org (Scroll Down to English
Translation):
http://www.tertullian.org/rpearse/manuscripts/gospel_of_judas

*GOSPEL OF JUDAS Online Coptic:
http://www9.nationalgeographic.com/lostgospel/about_coptic_text.html

Don,

I take it then that you dismiss Brian Weiss, M.D., a psychiatrist, graduate of Columbia and Yale Med, and Chairman Emeritus of Psychiatry at the Mount Sinai Medical Center, as a New Age whatever whose mind is in a ghetto?

That's just one source.

Well?

Rob