The Gnostic Gospel of Judas: first impressions

ladyattis posted a link to this extensive online article about the newly published Coptic Gnostic Gospel of Judas, which includes a link to the entire English text (it's not very long, as the gospel is fragmentary). Thank you!

The manuscript dates to the same era as the Nag Hammadi Gnostic Library and contains a lot of the same terminology. My impression upon first reading is that it has language which is strongly reminiscent of Valentinian literature -- although interestingly it contains smatterings of Sethian language too, and has cues which remind me of the Gospel of Thomas, which the Valentinians mostly avoided. So it is something of a confusing hodgepodge, like a quilt sewn together from several clashing fragments.

In this text, Jesus is shown laughing at the disciples for their ignorance of Gnostic secrets. Also, he is shown predicting that most of the people who worship in his name will be immoral hypocrites -- child slayers (abortionists?), fornicators, and homosexuals. Jesus tells his disciples that the way they can avoid this fate is to turn away from religious practices such as sacrifice, a prominent theme in the Gospel of Thomas.

There is an unusually bitter, sectarian, and moralistic tone here, reflecting mistrust of others within the church and showing strong identification with the disciple labeled traitor and betrayer -- which most likely reflects the experience of the author, as a Gnostic dealing with rejection by the church as a whole.

This leads me to believe that the text was probably written quite late, when disputes between mainstream and Gnostic Christians had reached a high pitch. earlychristianwritings.com (cited by davidould) dates the text to 130-170 AD; i personally suspect it may have been written significantly later than that.

In this text, Jesus is shown speaking to the disciples of their "stars" as personal guides; these seem akin to the guardian angels described in other Valentinian texts; it is also reminiscent of the astro-mysticism common in esoteric texts of late antiquity.

As with other late "patchwork" texts cut-and-pasted by Gnostic redactors, there is an awkward break in the narrative so that Jesus can reveal to Judas the Gnostic creation story, and tell him about the Archons, particularly Saklas, the arrogant misguided demiurge named in the opening of the Hypostasis of the Archons. Jesus claims that worship that will be offered in his name will actually going to Saklas -- an assertion, essentially, that a church which worships Jesus has been taken over by the demiurge and given over to evil.

As for the allegation that Judas is a knowing collaborator in a plot with Jesus to bring about his crucifixion... this practically follows from the Gospel of John, where the passion is shown as a carefully scripted event in which nothing, not the smallest detail, is insignificant or happens simply by chance. If this is so, then it is impossible to imagine that Judas was not playing a role in a cosmic script written by God; that Judas is a knowing collaborator is not a far leap.

(no subject)

From a locked post on the friend's list:

Dubya in Free-Fall

More entertaining than World of Warcraft. For a while, at least.