Gospel of Judas

You may remember last year there was a lot of media hoo-haa about the so-called Gospel of Judaas which supposedly cast Judas as the good guy in the life of Jesus rather than the betrayer that the Bible says he is. The sub-plot in the "Da Vinci Code" era was that this document was furhter proof of how the church has conspired to deceive people for two millennia.

Of course there wasn't much qestioning of whether one account or another was historically true. The way the media portrayed it was if somebody's written it down it must be right (apparently they've never heard of fiction, or journalism for that matter). Of course this rule doesn't apply too the Biblical bokos which are assumed to be false and deceiving- even though they are also written down.

Well it turns out that the text which the National Geographic Society released was badly translated- even to the point of omitting the word "not" at one point.

Here is the report from the SMH:

Judas as hero is a false path to unity


Amid much publicity last year, the National Geographic Society announced that a lost third-century religious text had been found, the Gospel of Judas Iscariot.

The shocker: Judas didn't betray Jesus. Instead, Jesus asked Judas, his most trusted and beloved disciple, to hand him over to be killed. And what was Judas's reward? Ascent to heaven and exaltation above the other disciples.

It was a great story. Unfortunately, after re-translating the society's transcription of the Coptic text, I have found the actual meaning is vastly different.

While National Geographic's translation supported the provocative interpretation of Judas as a hero, a more careful reading makes it clear that Judas is not only no hero, he is a demon.

The rest of the story is here