A calm piece on the Gospel of Judas
Another thing I have not yet had time to look at much: the Gospel of Judas. Religious discoveries like this get more or less the same kind of media coverage as politics-- lots more heat than light, and then, pfffft, the next thing comes along.
A calm and useful piece on the Gospel by Prof. Larry Hurtado of the University of Edinburgh appears in Slate today. He recounts the history, such as is known, of its discovery and how it has now come into the light.
Not too much on its contents, but Prof. Hurtado puts it in the class to which it belongs, Coptic codexes from 4th Century Egypt like those from Nag Hammadi (including the more famous and definitely significant Gospel of Thomas) which reflect a particular strain of (non-orthodox) Christianity.
A calm and useful piece on the Gospel by Prof. Larry Hurtado of the University of Edinburgh appears in Slate today. He recounts the history, such as is known, of its discovery and how it has now come into the light.
Not too much on its contents, but Prof. Hurtado puts it in the class to which it belongs, Coptic codexes from 4th Century Egypt like those from Nag Hammadi (including the more famous and definitely significant Gospel of Thomas) which reflect a particular strain of (non-orthodox) Christianity.
The Gospel of Judas has genuine historical value—as one of several bits of evidence showing the diversity of early Christianity. . . . All of us interested in early Christianity are grateful for this text and the others in the codex. And if we're lucky, this won't be the last ancient Christian book to reappear.Calm.
posted by ChiTom | 9:24 PM
2 Comments:
I believe the Catholic Church has already declared it a Gnostic heresy. Still, there may be useful things to learn, even from heresies. In fact, I kind of enjoy being heretical.
Right, from what I have seen I think the Gospel of Judas, as we have it, does come from a Gnostic Christian circle. Of course in those days, it had not yet been quite settled who got to be "orthodox" and who got to be "heretics". Everybody called their opponent a heretic, using the old your-mother-wore-army-boots kind of logic.
Being heretical is fun-- believe it or not, I agree!
Once, in my "Evangelical" days, I was called a heretic by some church leaders who wouldn't have known a real, classic heresy if it hit 'em in the eye. Most popular Evangelicalism has a heretical Christology: they believe that Jesus was "truly God", but not really that he was also "truly human"; the Nicene Creed states paradoxically that both are true, as you know. In my mind, the lack of a "truly human" side is why they don't need to be concerned for the physical, concrete wellbeing of other humans or the world at large. The "truly human" means that the physical created world matters to God.
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