Friday, April 07, 2006

Gospel of Judas

National Geographic announcement of the discovery of the gospel of Judas has put to question a lot of the assumptions on which Christianity is based on.

Judas who is believed to have betrayed Jesus, was actually acting on his instructions. The gospel of Judas along with those of Thomas and Mary Magdalene were deemed as gnostic and heretical by the early roman church and most copies were destroyed.

However with these revelations, the whole theory that jesus acts were based on divine intervention is put into doubt. This also lends more credibility to the theories put forward by the authors of 'Holy Blood Holy Grail'.

Some of the more sensational theories were that Jesus and Mary Magdalene had a child (giving rise to the Merovingian dynasty) and that Jesus staged his own crucifixion.

Though none of these theories should affect christianity as it is based more on principle, but it does question the motives of the church and possibility of fraud perpetuation for personal gain.

On a personal note, since I'm against all organized religion, hopefully we soon see the fallacy of basing life on religion.
Karl Marx once said 'Religion is the opium of the people'.
It's time to stop looking for our fix.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think you're reaching on this one. Keep in mind that just because an ancient document was found doesn't make this document gospel...pun intended.

This account, just like all the others that exist and had existed in those times, was written from the perspective of a particular person, or more appropiately their later followers. The gospels weren't written until well after not only the death of Jesus, but also his disciples. They were written from whatever writings and stories had survived these people. This "Gospel of Judas" was written between two and three hundred years after the death of Mr. Iscariot and (of course) framed to support the beliefs of the given group that wrote it and followed principles based on it.

This doesn't mean what this document says is wrong, no more than it means other gospel accounts that were destroyed were wrong or those that survive are right. The various answers probably lies in between them all. I'm of the belief that the surviving gospels contained more accuracy point by point than the other lost gospels. But are they 100 percent historically accurate? It isn't too likely. What's more, they're of course the perspective of that particular person -- and whomever compiled it many years later.

But to look at this as a problem plaguing organized religion is a little much. And waiting for its downfall? Well, don't hold your breath. :)

What was found is another very interesting historical discovery which sheds added light on the time it speaks of and presents interesting rhetorical questions for the religious -- always a good thing.

bluesman said...

Well said.

I'm glad that gnostic gospels labelled as blasphemous by the early church fathers and the nag hammadi scrolls can be viewed more objectively in today's time.

Unfortunately I know that religion will not go away :)