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The Gospel of Judas Revisited |
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by
Jared L. Olar |
More than two years ago, the world witnessed the National
Geographic Society's sensational unveiling of the long-lost Gospel of Judas Iscariot,
an ancient text that-so the headlines and news reports breathlessly
claimed-would bring about "a radical makeover for one of the worst
reputations in history." Through the news media and a "Gospel of
Judas" cottage industry of books that immediately sprang up, the public
was led to believe that this new-found Gospel presented Judas Iscariot not as a
traitor, but as the closest friend and confidant of Jesus Christ, who
supposedly asked Judas to have Him killed so Jesus could be liberated from His
human body.
In
Dec. 2006, Grace &
Knowledge took a look at the Gospel of Judas in an article by
editor-in-chief Doug Ward, "Irenaeus Was
Right: The Real Significance of the Gospel of Judas." But as indicated
by the title of this article, since 2006 it has become necessary to revisit the
subject of the Gospel of Judas Iscariot, due to the eruption of a scholarly
controversy regarding the proper translation and interpretation of the spurious
Gospel. The "heroic Judas" interpretation presented two years ago has
been subjected to an onslaught of criticism and contradiction from numerous
expert scholars of Gnosticism, early Christianity, and the Coptic language in
which the text of the Gospel is written. According to these scholars, not only
is the portrait of Judas Iscariot found in the Gospel of Judas that of a
traitor, but it is a darker and more villainous portrait of Judas than that
found in the New Testament. Experts in Coptic have also alleged that the
translation of this text was executed hastily and incompetently, resulting in
the erroneous rendering of several key passages.
Leading
this onslaught of criticism is April D. DeConick, a professor of biblical
studies at Rice University who is a scholar of Gnosticism and an expert
Coptologist. She first aired her concerns in a New York Times column,
"Gospel Truth" (1 Dec. 2007). In that column, she wrote, "While
National Geographic’s translation supported the provocative interpretation of
Judas as a hero, a more careful reading makes clear that Judas is not only no
hero, he is a demon."
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What
does the Gospel of Judas really say? |
In her column, DeConick listed several passages where she says the
National Geographic team of scholars mistranslated the text. For example, the
2006 National Geographic translation had Jesus tell Judas, "O 13th spirit, why do you try so hard?"
Similarly, Karen King and Elaine Pagels (an academic whose books have bestowed
on her an unwarranted reputation as an expert in Gnosticism) rendered that
passage, "O 13th god, why do you
try so hard?" But DeConick countered that the passage actually means,
"O 13th demon, why do you try so
hard?" The Gospel of Judas is a Gnostic text, and in Gnostic literature
the word "daimon" is always rendered into English as
"demon," said DeConick.
In
another place, the 2006 National Geographic translation said Judas has been
"set apart for the holy
generation," but DeConick said the Coptic really means Judas was "separated from the holy
generation." Again, the 2006 National Geographic translation said Jesus
reveals the mysteries of the kingdom to Judas because "it is possible for
him to go there," but DeConick wrote that in fact "(h)e receives them
because Jesus tells him that he can't go there, and Jesus doesn't want Judas to
betray him out of ignorance. Jesus wants him informed, so that the demonic
Judas can suffer all that he deserves."
But
for DeConick, the single worst error was that the 2006 National Geographic
translation had Jesus say to Judas, "They will curse your ascent to the holy generation." In
fact, DeConick said, the Coptic means, "You will not ascend to the holy generation." "To its credit, National Geographic has
acknowledged this mistake, albeit far too late to change the public
misconception," DeConick wrote.
"So
what does the Gospel of Judas really say?" DeConick asked in her column.
"It says that Judas is a specific demon called the
`Thirteenth.' In certain Gnostic traditions, this is the given name of the king
of demons-an entity known as Ialdabaoth who lives in the 13th realm above the
earth. Judas is his human alter ego, his undercover agent in the world. These
Gnostics equated Ialdabaoth with the Hebrew Yahweh, whom they saw as a jealous
and wrathful deity and an opponent of the supreme God whom Jesus came to earth
to reveal. . . . Because Judas is a demon working for Ialdabaoth, the author
believed, when Judas sacrifices Jesus he does so to the demons, not to the
supreme God. This mocks mainstream Christians' belief in the atoning value of
Jesus' death and in the effectiveness of the Eucharist."
Far
from presenting Judas Iscariot as the only apostle worthy to receive salvific gnosis, the Gospel of Judas Iscariot was
written by a Gnostic heretic as a vicious attack on and mockery of
Christianity, presenting all of the apostles as fools and wicked men, with
Judas the worst of them all. That point is underscored not only by DeConick,
but by another scholar who independently came to very similar conclusions about
the Gospel of Judas, Birger A. Pearson ("Judas
Iscariot Among the Gnostics-What the Gospel of Judas Really Says," Biblical
Archaeology Review, May/June 2008). Like DeConick, Pearson is very critical
of how the National Geographic team translated various passages. In one
passage, the 2006 National Geographic translation had Jesus say to Judas,
"You will exceed all of them [the Apostles], for you will sacrifice
the man that clothes me," but according to Pearson, that should be
rendered, "You will do worse than all of them, for the man that
clothes me, you will sacrifice him."
In
the Gospel of Judas Iscariot, the apostles are portrayed as ignorant of the
true identity of the God they worship. The apostles think they worship God, but
Jesus reveals that they are really worshipping Saklas or Yaldabaoth. When the
apostles "give thanks" over bread (cf. the Eucharist,
"thanksgiving"), Jesus laughs at them and says they are under their
god's spell. The Father of Jesus is not the god whom the apostles worship, the
Gospel claims. The Gospel condemns the apostles not only for offering bread to
Saklas, but also for sacrificing their children and their wives to
him-apparently an attack on Christians' willingness to die rather than offer
incense to false gods, something that many Gnostics did not object to. In this
context, DeConick and Pearson argue, the actions of Judas Iscariot would be
seen as sacrificing Jesus to Saklas, something that the Gnostic author of this
Gospel would have seen as far worse than anything the other apostles did.
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Where
did the National Geographic team go wrong? |
But how could the National Geographic team of scholars, all of them
credentialed and reputable, have gotten it so wrong? According to DeConick and
Pearson, part of the problem was the great difficulty of reconstructing an
incredibly damaged papyrus text, and another part of the problem was the haste
and the secrecy that characterised the translation work. The National
Geographic team members were sworn to secrecy to prevent inaccurate rumors from
leaking out before their work was done, but also to protect National
Geographic's "scoop." If the process had been open to other voices,
the critics argue, they probably would have avoided the erroneous translations
and the faulty interpretation of the "heroic Judas."
DeConick
suggests that a commendable impulse to oppose anti-Semitism was probably also
at play. In the past, many Christians interpreted Judas Iscariot as the
quintessential Jew-unfaithful, treacherous, money-grubbing. A "heroic
Judas" would help to exorcise that anti-Semitic demon, so the readiness
with which many embraced the "heroic Judas" interpretation was
understandable and praiseworthy to the extent it was motivated by opposition to
anti-Semitic bigotry. The trouble is that it prevented the correct
understanding of this text.
Another
key reason the original team went astray, DeConick and Pearson insist, is that
they were misled by St. Irenaeus of Lyons, who around A.D. 180 briefly
described a spurious Gnostic "Gospel of Judas Iscariot" that,
according to the general scholarly consensus, apparently is the same as the
Coptic text translated by the National Geographic team. The relevant passage
from St. Irenaeus' Against Heresies was quoted in our Dec. 2006 article,
"Irenaeus Was Right." Here it is again, from the classic Ante-Nicene
Fathers translation:
"Others again declare that Cain derived his being from
the Power above, and acknowledge that Esau, Korah, the Sodomites, and all such
persons, are related to themselves. On this account, they add, they have been
assailed by the Creator, yet no one of them has suffered injury. For Sophia was
in the habit of carrying off that which belonged to her from them to herself.
They declare that Judas the traitor was thoroughly acquainted with these
things, and that he alone, knowing the truth as no others did, accomplished the
mystery of the betrayal; by him all things, both earthly and heavenly, were
thus thrown into confusion. They produce a fictitious history of this kind,
which they style the Gospel of Judas."
Pearson
quotes the same passage in his BAR May/June 2008 article, but uses the more
recent Foerster-Wilson translation:
"Others again say that Cain was from the superior
power, and confess Esau and (the tribe of) Korah and the Sodomites and all such
as their kinsmen. They were attacked by the creator, but none of them suffered
any ill. For Sophia snatched away from them to herself what belonged to her.
This Judas the traitor knew very well, and he alone of all the apostles
recognized the truth and accomplished the mystery of the betrayal, by which
everything earthly and heavenly is dissolved, as they say. And they produce a
fabrication, which they call the Gospel of Judas."
Pearson
then comments, "Although this language is sometimes opaque and ambiguous,
it is nevertheless clear that Irenaeus is telling us that certain Gnostics
transform Judas and other Biblical villains into heroes." However, the
Gospel of Judas Iscariot found in the Codex Tcachos presents Judas Iscariot as
the worst of all villains, not a hero at all. If the spurious Gospel mentioned
by St. Irenaeus is the same as the Tcachos Gospel of Judas Iscariot, then St.
Irenaeus was wrong. After all, we can't be sure where St. Irenaeus got his
information about a "Gospel of Judas." He obviously made an extensive
study of Gnosticism and read many of their texts, but it's not known if he had
read this particular Gnostic gospel or rather was relating information at
second hand. Pearson and DeConick suggest that St. Irenaeus had such a strong
bias against Gnosticism that he was careless or unwilling to investigate this
matter fairly or honestly. DeConick goes so far as to allege that the early
Church Fathers had no qualms about deliberately lying about heretical sects,
but that allegation is itself an indication of bias and unfairness on her own
part. ("I tend to be extremely skeptical of the testimony of the Church
Fathers on these sorts of issues for the sheer fact that the Fathers saw the
Gnostics as their opponents and they did everything they could to undermine
them, including lying," she has said.) There are no grounds for accusing
St. Irenaeus of lying, especially when the general accuracy of his depiction of
the myriad strains of Gnosticism is strongly supported by the Naj Hammadi
library and other Gnostic texts. It is quite possible that he made an honest
mistake based on secondhand reports.
However,
a few important considerations must also be kept in mind. First, the Codex
Tcachos is a Coptic papyrus from about A.D. 300 or later, no less than a
century after the writing of Against Heresies. The Tcachos Gospel of
Judas Iscariot is a translation of an earlier, lost Greek version, and we
simply cannot be sure that the Coptic translation is entirely faithful or
accurate. Even more, we can't be sure that the original Greek Gospel of Judas
Iscariot with which St. Irenaeus was familiar wasn't reworked at some point by
a later editor-our Coptic text could represent such a hypothetical later
recension, perhaps produced by a different kind of Gnostic who adapted the
earlier recension to his own sect's version of Gnosticism. It is interesting
that the "Cainite" Gnostic mythology mentioned by St. Irenaeus
apparently is not found in the Coptic Gospel of Judas-though there are lost
pages that could have mentioned Cain, Esau, Korah, and the Sodomites. In any
case, the mythology of this text is distinctly "Sethian" (i.e.,
Adam's son Seth plays a prominent role in the cosmology) rather than Cainite,
which may indicate that this is not the Gospel of Judas mentioned by St.
Irenaeus.
Finally,
it must also be said that, contrary to Pearson's assertion that it is
"clear that Irenaeus is telling us that certain Gnostics transform Judas
and other Biblical villains into heroes," we cannot be sure that St.
Irenaeus actually said that the Gospel of Judas presented Judas Iscariot as a
hero. That is certainly the prima facie meaning of his words, the
meaning that everyone had believed was correct. But with the discovery of the
Coptic Gospel of Judas and the revelation that it presents Judas as a villain,
it is now possible to take a different look at what St. Irenaeus said. If the
Coptic Gospel is substantially or identically that to which St. Irenaeus
referred, it is quite possible to read his words as describing actions that
even a Gnostic might think of as evil. Look again at the words: "Sophia
was in the habit of carrying off that which belonged to her from them to
herself. They declare that Judas the traitor was thoroughly acquainted with
these things, and that he alone, knowing the truth as no others did,
accomplished the mystery of the betrayal; by him all things, both earthly and
heavenly, were thus thrown into confusion." Could it be that the words
"Judas the traitor" reflect not St. Irenaeus' opinion of Judas, but
are a reference to the way Judas is portrayed in the spurious gospel that St.
Irenaeus mentions? Admittedly this is not an obvious interpretation, especially
in the context of the reference a few lines earlier to Cain, Esau, Korah, and
the Sodomites, but St. Irenaeus' comments are summary in nature and there could
be any number of reasons why he may have decided not to elaborate on what he
knew about the Gospel of Judas Iscariot.
Although
these subsequent developments in "Gospel of Judas" scholarship have
required Grace & Knowledge to re-examine and alter several of the
observations and conclusions reached in our previous article on this subject,
nevertheless the overall picture of Gnostic heresy and its relationship to
apostolic Christianity that is presented in "Irenaeus Was Right"
remains valid. Gnosticism was an aberrant development that led many early
Christians astray, and the truth claims and forged "Gospels" of the
uncountable, contradictory rival Gnostic sects could never withstand the
critical scrutiny of the early Church.
Nevertheless,
in the end we cannot offer a definitive answer to the question in the title of
this article. Was Irenaeus right? We just don't know, but it is quite possible.
However, we can be much more confident about the lessons we should draw from
the saga of the translation of this long-lost text. The unveiling of the Gospel
of Judas in April 2006 (not coincidentally timed for the Paschal season) was a
media sensation, orchestrated to draw attention and interest. Small wonder that
serious lapses of sound scholarship were committed. The layman must always keep
in mind that no matter how talented and gifted a scholar may be, he is still
fallible and can be prone to let bias and sensationalism and a yearning for
book sales get in the way of the pursuit of truth. The layman also must remember
that the first word said by scholars of the Bible or Christianity is never,
ever the last word, and often enough is not the true word.
EDITOR'S NOTE: To learn more about the critical reaction to the 2006
National Geographic translation of the Coptic Gospel of Judas, see
and Thomas Bartlett's article, "The Betrayal of
Judas" (Chronicle of Higher Education, 30 May 2008).
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