The Gospel of Judas is no longer “new” and is out of the news coming from the popular press.  However, it retains a place of importance, if we keep it in right context.

As radical as its thesis seems to us in this Century, this gospel’s revelation just a dozen years ago fits right in with many discoveries in the last 75 years or so, and the great significance they hold for our understanding of how Christianity formed and grew in its first two to three centuries.  In this article, after some important context, I’ll give only a very short review of Reading Judas: The Gospel of Judas and The Shaping of Christianity” by Elaine Pagels and Karen L. King.  They both are highly accomplished scholars of the New Testament, early Christianity and its milieu.

So how is it that, after nearly two millennia, discoveries have been made in recent decades which profoundly affect our picture of Christianity’s origins and early nature? Were historians and archaeologists not searching in earlier times? Certainly they were.  And they made important finds in various periods.  Some significant ones were in the latter part of the 19th century, particularly in Egypt, others mid-twentieth century.

Luck (or “providence” or “synchronicity”) may have played a part.

For example, Bedouin explorers happened upon, without knowing what they’d found, the treasure trove we call the Nag Hammadi library (a good number of bound volumes dating to early centuries of the Common Era, buried in a vessel in a remote area of Upper Egypt).  That was 1945. Like the Gospel of Judas, these volumes were in the Coptic of the area, having been translated from Greek originals in many cases.

We can’t very precisely date the Gospel of Judas, but we know something by this title existed during the 2nd century, and with some amount of circulation, because it is named and opposed by the proto-orthodox Irenaeus, writing around 180 C.E.  The assumption (it being very likely) that this is the same book places its composition within less than 100 years of our four Gospels of the New Testament, probably within roughly 50 years of the Gospel of John.

However, in the few-to-several decades that are likely between this gospel and the canonical gospels, and which is roughly a century past the writings of Paul, things changed… a lot in some areas.  Among the most critical of these is increased persecution of Christians, parallel with their increased separation from Jewish (fully or partially “observant”) followers of Jesus in the first few decades after his death.  The latter generally could benefit from a “Jewish exception” the Romans allowed to the typically-required worship of the Emperor, earliest Christianity being primarily a Jewish sect rather than a new religion apart from Judaism.

Returning to the context and importance of the Gospel of Judas, it involves this: As the Romans had begun persecution of certain Christians, particularly leaders, various Christian groups were reacting differently.  According to Pagels and King, this document particularly reveals the internal “family” tensions and acrimony over how to react. Literally, lives were at stake.  Anxiety must have been high, to say the least.  This drives at least much of the emotion and invective found in this short volume.

There were worldview differences in addition to the martyrdom issues driving the counter-narrative of Judas as the most loyal and “getting it” disciple of Jesus.  But a similar kind of hostility is evidenced within the other gospels and epistles of the New Testament, whether toward “the Jews” or other break-away Christians (as seen in 1 John).

Analyzing the content further, as to the beliefs involved, becomes difficult.  This is made worse by there being substantial missing pieces in the manuscript due to physical decay and damage.  Textual damage aside, the range of novel expressions of Judaism, emerging Christianity and pagan or “classical” (e.g., Platonic) religious views makes understanding many documents of this period particularly challenging.  Determining if and how the Gospel of Judas may fit in with the broad range of Gnostic documents we now have (mostly since 1945) is a specialized process with debated conclusions, beyond even summarizing here (and beyond my more detailed areas of study).

Here’s why this relatively short and quite accessible (for non-scholars) book on the Gospel of Judas is of particular importance, in my view: It analyzes this recently-discovered document in relation to the broader religious and societal issues of its period, one in which we have relatively few documents outside of those preserved by the gradually-developed orthodoxy of the late 2nd century and beyond (particularly works that became our New Testament and a number of works largely harmonious with them).

The very fact that only in the last century or so have we discovered numerous “Gnostic” (this label being hard to define or delimit) or other heterodox texts indicates the powerful effect of winning doctrinal battles.  With dominance it was, in that day, possible to almost completely “bury” opposing viewpoints (or force their burial by those hoping to preserve them).  One of the key things strongly confirmed by their unearthing is the broad diversity of early Christianity.

Seeing this reality undercuts the “received” narrative pushed by Luke in Acts of the Apostles (placed right after the Gospels in our NT) that a single and relatively unified “church” developed from the first weeks after the death of Jesus.  Per Luke, this simple Spirit-led development continued at least until the unspecified “ending” he gives to Acts around the time of Paul’s final imprisonment and journey to Rome.  (In this, conveniently ignoring the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE and its massive impact on both Judaism and Christianity.)  After Luke’s story, unwritten legend takes over for a lengthy period.  It isn’t until Constantine and his hired “historian”, Eusebius, early 4th century, that anyone picks up on Luke’s beginning and tries to create the picture of continuity of authority and orthodoxy going straight back to Jesus and his original Apostles.  Among other key documents from this over-two-century period is the Gospel of Judas.

If the Gospel of Judas or this work by Pagels and King on it is unfamiliar to you, I highly recommend reading their book.  It is well written and moves one along without bogging down in details of a scholarly nature.  Still, it is well footnoted with scholar references as well as good added explanations, so I recommend at least perusing these (special notes section, actually).

The introduction section is strong and certainly not to be skipped.  Then follows four chapters about the setting and contents of the Gospel.  After that is an English translation of the text with notation of the places where some of the text is missing or has been reconstructed, if suitable.

Wrapping up, before “Notes” (see above) and indices is “Comments on the Translation”.  This is not technical, as it may sound, but important commentary that is definitely not to be skipped….  As long as one has read this far, silly to miss the meaty stuff included here.

If you are, like me, doing “catch up” reading (years after publication), or are merely interested in the history and nature of how our most widespread world religion developed in its early days, I think Reading Judas: The Gospel of Judas and the Shaping of Christianity” is worth your time.