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Pretty fascinating.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/06/sc...E4yx1vteAJWCoA
The Gospel of Judas seems to indicate otherwise.
Pretty fascinating.
The study of Gnostic writings is interesting. The idea that this is something that will shatter orthodox theology is blown out of proportion, though.
It would be one thing if we had an epistle attributed to, say, the apostle John, saying this about Judas. But we don't. What we have is a book written by Gnostics, which we've already known for centuries, obviously long before it was discovered, was denounced by Irenaeus.
The NYT pulls its typical editorial BS, in what are supposed to be "news" stories, when it says that these texts have produced an entire "generation" of Christians who deny divine inspiration of the Bible. They're the typical liberals, with an agenda against evangelical Christianity to push, and they're using this newly discovered Gnostic text to push it.
What the else is he supposed to say?
I wouldn't argue the do ents authenticity but believing it to be an accurate and truthful accounting of events is another story.
Well said.
Well said.
Funny. You don't give credit to what the actual scholars who discovered and authenticated the text say, but some dude far removed from the discovery with little to no training in religious studies (but excellent googling skills nonetheless) on some message board calls it bull and you agree wholeheartedly.
I think it certainly calls into question the manner in which the Bible was constructed.
If one ever needed such a question posed to begin with.
Logic 101 here.
Man is fallable.
The Bible was written by man.
The Bible is therefore fallable.
If this newly discovered text were true, and Jesus did in fact ask Judas to betray him, would it change the validity of Christianity?
well said
Ummmm. No.
As I see it the credibility is with Judas not with those that authenticated the do ents.
Authenticating the truthfulness of the content of the do ents is the problem.
True. What's particularly interesting about the Gospel of Judas is that, although its existance was known to us, knowledge of it only came from quotes of Church Fathers such as Ireaneus and Tertullian (both lived in the second half of the 2nd Century, therefore scholars date this Gospel in the early to mid 2nd Century). Now we actually have a pretty complete copy which scholars are dating from the late 3rd Century.
Expect the National Geography Special on Sunday night to be similar. They will probably claim this discovery will revolutionize religion, or maybe they'll claim that the Catholic Church has been hiding this do ent for Centuries because if it's ever exposed, the Church will lose all its power . . . Maybe Dan Brown can write his sequal.
Most credible scholars say exactly what ES stated. What is your point, aside to trying to use anything you can against Orthodox Christianity?
And I doubt ES had to google much. He knows his when it comes to religion.
Care to explain how?
If the text were to be true, probably. But as I said before, there are many apocryphal gospels. This one is simplyone more. Given that it is believed to have been written approx. 150 AD, it was certainly not written by Judas.
From what I've read, it has all the characteristics of a gnostic writting, a "christian" movement that claimed to have special knowledge (gnosis) about Christ (which only they had) and appeared in the early to mid second century.
Given that the Canonical Gospels were written between 60 and 90 AD, the Gospel of Judas is probably innacurate at best.
Another clueless poster who will do anything to push his anti-Christian agenda.well said
Do you know how the canon of the Bible was compiled and why some books were included and some left out?
Do you what kind of doctrine the gnostic gospels, such as the newly "discovered" gospel of Judas, teach?
If you knew the answers to this questions, you would know why what ES wrote is pretty much true.
oh, I see. It has to be discredited by the evangelicals so the followers don't start acting all crazy and questioning authority. pwnt.
It seems like Corso is a Coptic heathen.
Christianity = moving target.
damn, all I said was "well said", meaning I thought OG had made an interesting point. Regardless of what you might think, I'm not out to get the Christian religion, so chill the out!
From a scholarly standpoint, finding this text is a big deal. They've been aware of its existence for a long time because church fathers have referred to it and denounced it. Discovering it must be very exciting. But it's still a Gnostic text, and Gnostic theology is well understood.
The past few years, Gnosticism has been popular in scholarly circles. It's kind of a fad. As heresies go, it's really interesting, in part because it emerged so early. Even in the New Testament, some of the episltes preach against a form of proto-Gnosticism. But it's not a new tack on Christianity, but rather a very, very old deviation from it.
So how can this "revolutionize" Christian theology? Gnosticism isn't new. These ideas might be new to journalists, but even I was exposed to them, as a very young man, years ago, before they became trendy. The progression of canon development isn't new, either. You can go even to a conservative Baptist seminary and learn that stuff.
The idea that the Bible isn't divinely inspired but rather is a politically developed tome of men who maybe interacted with with God isn't a new idea, either. Liberal theologians have been arguing that for a hundred years.
And there are Biblical scholars from every spectrum of belief, from fundamentalist to evangelical to moderate to liberal to agnostic to atheist.
But yet you have the New York Times presenting its usual slanted perspective that this is a "groundbreaking" text that will "shatter" traditional Christian belief. Why, exactly? These are liberal journalists. In no way are they Biblical scholars. How is this different from other Gnostic writings that we've known about for 1800 years? How is it different from the Gospel of Thomas in that regard?
It's interesting to think about how God may have used Judas, even from an evangelical perspective. We believe Jesus CHOSE to die for the sins of mankind, that it was the Father's will, that Jesus as man struggled with his charge in the Garden of Gethsemane but ultimately submitted to the will of the Father. Romans 9 presents the idea that God uses even lost sinners for his purposes.
But this text preaches dualism. It preaches that the human and divine natures of Jesus Christ were separate. This is a very basic and very old heresy. Claiming that it is something new and revolutionary is every bit as stupid as if I were to present to you a drinking glass as a new invention.
Who are the "evangelicals" discrediting the text? ES and myself?
Look, it's not that difficult to understand. A text that claims to be written by Judas (or at least written by somebody who recieved the gnosis from Judas of Jesus' secret teachings) written more 100 years after these events occured, cannot be compared with the accuracy of the 4 Canomical Gospels, which were written by people who knew Jesus, Matthew and John, or were close acquaintances of people who knew Jesus, Luke and Mark, only 30 to 60 years after Jesus' Crucifixion.
And another thing. This particular text (and all other gnostic text) were being denounced by the disciples of the Disciples as heretic. The latter were the guys who knew Jesus and his teachings, remember? And they were the guys who teached the true doctrine to St. Ireaneus, for example, who denounced this particular gospel 1,835 years ago.
So it's not just "evangelicals" (which I am not one of) discrediting the text but any form of Christianity, from Roman Catholics to Fundamentalists, from Greek Orthodox to Calvinists.
Interesting point?
All he did was downplay ES' post, which happens to be pretty accurate.
Maybe you can explain to me what's so interesting about OG's post, because he hasn't been able to explain it yet.
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