The role of Judas is similar to the role of pharoah in the Sufi tradition. It’s a tough job but somebody’s got to to do it. Indeed this is the role of Shaitan in the manifestation: somebody has to occupy the position farthest from God. Somebody has to define the limit. Who could take this on but the most devoted worshipper?
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You said,

“...The Gospel of Judas will in all probability teach us a lot more about the Gnosticism of the second century, than about the public ministry of Jesus, or sayings of Jesus, or Holy Week, or the like.”

The question that the Gospel of Judas should raise is why we have thought the texts we have accepted as true stories of the life of Jesus were written in any different way, with any more truth to them, than the Nag Hammadi texts, or this one. It seems that the truth of the texts has been established on the basis of ideological reasons, not from any evidence that might be brought to their positions.

That is, you may say that this Gospel of Judas was written later, that Judas could not have written it, but it is doubtful that any other person who could have witnessed the life of Jesus wrote any of the accepted Gospels. Isn’t this true?

I suspect the arguing about what constituted a part of a true account of Jesus had to do with what texts presented a consistent story, and what texts did not include uncomfortable gnostic ideas.

I guess I am not against trying to build a story out of parts that when they go together present a consistent and understandable story. But, there would then be more to assessing whether any piece belonged to a more comprehensive story of the life of Jesus than consistency. I would include considerations of what we might think of as philosophical considerations.

So, why should christianity be a religion involving life after death when it is supposed to be based on Judaism that opposed such an idea? What happened that justified this change in position? I believe it has to do with how Christianity is based on philosophical views that are quite different than older Judaic ideas.

I think the important question about the Gospel of Judas, or of any of these texts, is whether they help us understand this and other related questions.

What other questions? I think we could compare this story in the Gospel of Judas with another I think is closer to the traditional Christian one. Look at the parable of the absent landlord, where God is compared to a landlord that’s been on vacation for a long time. Eventually he sends his son to check up on the farmers he’s rented his estates to, and to impressupon them with his desires. Of course, the farmers decide they could get the farm for their own if they intimidate the landlord. They kill the landlord’s son and emissary. Of course, then, God is displeased.

The similarities between these stories include the idea that the son is an emissary or representative of the landlord/ God. Somehow, salvation has to do with this son, in both stories. The Gospel of Judas tells us a story that tries to explain how the son of God gets killed. They are still very similar, in the story we get about our place in the world.

I wonder whether any of these stories about Jesus are as important as the question just what their concerns about salvatiuon were about. I believe the Dead Sea texts suggest that for them, salvation wasn’t at all about some son of God making things right, despite the suggestion that some messiah would reestablish Jewish homeland rule. I think the main question had to do with life after death, and a dispute that would involve such an idea. The re-establishment of a temporal rule and how that might happen does not involve any such philosophical considerations.

I suspect the speculations about Jesus life are about a cult of personality that should not be very important in the big picture.

Hi Steve, you raise some good points and some important issues. I had not considered the absent landlord in this light before and think you are right. Of course in relation to Judaism (and everything surrounding Jesus’s ministry pre-Paul must be viewed in this context) then God had long been an ‘absent landlord’ for the Jews and even in the latter books of the Old Testament He grows increasingly remote until He finally speaks no more.

Another linked motif would clearly be the Abraham and Isaac story - I suspect that as this raises certain issues surrounding the nature of the Old Testament God and His moral ambivalence in such areas that the Judas figure would be necessary for ‘deflection’ purposes if the motif were to be transposed to the time of Jesus.

Two points I am not so convinced of though: although the Gospels are late they may be based on earlier eyewitness accounts (though unlikely) and there is a strong argument that John actually is such an account but this is perhaps not so relevant.

The other point is the degree to which Jesus was actually forming an after-life doctrine or whether this was a later interpolation. We know the texts - and certainly the doctrines - have been heavily adjusted over the years and it may be that Jesus did not actually teach this but rather that it was an invention by the early Church.

Certainly it could be argued. The disciples clearly believed that the ‘Kingdom of God’ was a worldly situation that would arrive as well as an inner spiritual condition that one could possess. There is no doubt that they believed it would arrive during their lifetimes and Jesus told them this according to the Gospels.

I will find some more references shortly and look into your ideas a bit more.

Explain why you have Irshad Manji on ur website....i have to admit, i completely disagree with her approach...she berates Islam and if you read her book, she recites verses from the Quran out of context extending islamaphobia...rather than realizing what you mention in your blog that religion is a step towards inner realization...i am scared that by escaping religious boundaries, no boundaries will exist and instead you are relying on made-up/feel good boundaries that are created by U...why do that wen God has already given us a beautiful way of life through the Quran and Prophet Muhammed....

Hi Islam is Peace, thanks for dropping by.

I do not have to explain why I have a link to Ms Manji but I will as I choose to do so and as a courtesy to you.

I have links to many sites I do not agree with - links do not imply agreement or disagreement. They are just a resource for people interested in this area and these people will have to make their own minds up (or learn to) - neither I nor anyone else can dictate to others what to think. If their conclusions need judging, well, if God exists He will be in charge of that in His own time if He chooses, if not then it doesn’t much matter does it?

As it happens I agree with your comments about Manji - certainly she is a large contributor to Islamophobia but then again, many of her points are right and she is fighting literalist fanatics so I support her in that. Of course she is also being used by - and possibly supporting - literalist fanatics who oppose Islam and have an anti-Muslim agenda and that should be pointed out too.

But in my book there are no sides. None. There is only wisdom and folly. As we are all pretty much fools anyway it all boils down to whether one wishes to grow wiser (even if one cannot) or one takes a stand of self-justification where one thinks one is right.

Regarding your fear of erosion of religious boundaries I wold say that you have pinned down the zeitgeist precisely. This is exactly what people all over the world are feeling - Christian, Muslim, atheist, political: the breakdown of established and comfortable certainties. It is why all forms of fundamentalism are thriving. They are having their ‘panic reaction’. It is happening and we are moving on. If we cannot adapt we will die.

It is not a ‘good’ or ‘bad’ thing, just a fact. God is not religion and He has no religion. He is watching it unfold and change as He always does and as is inevitable. God is the only being that really exists - all else is comparatively an illusion: you, me, Ms Manji and religion. He never changes - all else does.

All there is is God.

To Segovius,

You responded with two statements. The first is this,

“...although the Gospels are late they may be based on earlier eyewitness accounts (though unlikely) and there is a strong argument that John actually is such an account but this is perhaps not so relevant...”

My understanding of the literature is that the difference between the Gospels we find in the Bible and the gnostic and other texts is just the difference between what was taken to be “eye-witness” accounts, and other more fictional kinds of writing. The skepticism many people have about the Bible texts has been based, in part, on how late the proven examples of these Gospel texts were produced. Another reason people may have doubts that the Bible texts were not actual “eye-witness” accounts, has to do with the idea that if the extant examples are written in Greek, yet the people in them, like Jesus, did not speak Greek, there was some process of translation that would provide the opportunity for “fibbing.”

I believe all the texts have maybe a grain of truth to them, though all of them should not be taken to be eye-witness accounts without a lot of argument to put each part in its proper context.

I do not know what evidence exists to support the Bible’s Gospel texts besides the texts themselves. Except maybe for Josephus.

The second comment was,

“...The other point is the degree to which Jesus was actually forming an after-life doctrine or whether this was a later interpolation. We know the texts - and certainly the doctrines - have been heavily adjusted over the years and it may be that Jesus did not actually teach this but rather that it was an invention by the early Church...”

You suggest here that the “after-life doctrine was imposed somehow on the story of Jesus’s life. I agree, but what evidence would you be able to bring up to that effect?

Do you see any connection between the discussion of the Apocalypse, or the idea that things were going badly, and the business of the “Kingdom of God.”?  It seems to me that any story about Jesus has to somehow explain these ideas and the one about life after death so that they make sense together. Do you have an idea how this would go.?

The four canonical gospels make Judas out to be a villain, and at the same time, there are many verses making it clear that they see his betrayal of Jesus as a necessary element in God’s plan to have himself crucified as the Christ to save the world - which He, as Jesus Christ, even foresees and allows to happen.

In that context, what in the world is “betrayal?”

The question is what one might mean by “save the world.” Let’s say our concern is about the torture of children, our interest might be to find some way to get the torturers to stop the torture of children, who might be innocent of any crime or bad thought, even if one could not find an argument to get them to stop torturing your grandmother or your sick mother, or your brothers and sisters. If that is our concern, then what is the point of having God or his messenger Jesus to save these kids? Having Jesus sabve the kids does not answer our question how we should save the kids. After all, it is our work, our arguments, the kind of person we are that will make an impression on torturers, not God or Jesus, despite their billing as the biggest muckety mucks.

The story of Judas and whether he betrayed Jesus or was in on the deal with him, is a story dependent upon one’s accepting the claim that we should be impressed that God or Jesus is going to save us, where saving means somehow that we never have to worry anymore about how we should stop torturing kids, when we just have to believe that the work will be taken care of by someone else.

At what point was the argument made that justice was out of our hands?

I agree with you completely, and my comment was meant to point to the inherent scriptural contradiction.

Btw, just my luck, started my blog and immediately blogspot developed some kind of temporary glitch.

My url IS valid if anyone’s tried it without success… Just have to wait for the blogspot storm to blow over… thanks…

Darius: re your question on ‘betrayal’, my own pov (limited as it must be) is that there is a contradiction in the two views - the Gospels ‘blaming’ of Judas and Christ’s plan. However, this contradiction in terms of scripture is intentional (again my own opinion purely) and we are meant to transcend the contradiction rather than use it as a reason to disregard it or the teaching. This, to me, is what is meant by the ‘mystery’ and why as Paul said, we would need to work out out salvation rather than just accept it. Itis a dynamic thing we need to find rather than passively ‘join’ - and we must find it in spite of the presented evidence rather than because of it.

Btw - your blog is working again and looks very promising - I wish you luck with it.

Steven: re the Gospels and the Gnostic texts, I think there is more to it. Many of the Gnostic texts were systematically suppressed and the Gnostics indeed were persecuted by the early Church. Where such suppression exists it implies an agenda being the driving force and so I think we can infer that there was something in the Gnostic teaching that - rightly or wrongly - the suppressors felt to be a threat. This should not be surprising, clearly jesus himself was seen as a threat in a similar way by the non-Christian authorities that put him to death.

I would say that the evidence does not rest on Josephus (who is in any case unreliable) but on textual analysis but that is just my opinion and I am no expert. Like I say though, most scholars do not accept they are eyewitness accounts with the exception of John which is championed by a few. Perhaps we might discuss this in greater depth in a post if I get round to it.

Re your second point, I think the evidence is there. It must be remembered that Jesus and the disciples were Jews and that Jesus consciously referenced Judaic scripture - particularly in relation to Messianic concepts. The Jews had no such afterlife conception and surely Jesus would have emphasized in this aspect strongly had such a divergence occurred.

In fact, no such divergence is apparent and if anything, much relates directly to Judaic viewpoints. the Apocalypse of John for example draws heavily on Daniel, Zechariah and Ezekiel - the imagery is virtually sequentially identical to this latter book.

Moreover, there is evidence in the New Testament of a rift between the disciples and Paul and this is a clear prefiguring of the latter divergence between Christ’s teaching and the Church which takes it’s cue from Pauline Christianity. The disciples clearly believed that they would see the kingdom of God in their lifetimes - when this failed to materialise, Paul - in a stroke of philosophical genius perhaps unparalleled in history - merely transposed it to the afterlife.

To Segovius,

Thank you for your responses.

You remarked:

“...clearly jesus himself was seen as a threat in a similar way by the non-Christian authorities that put him to death.”

I am wanting to question the entire story given to us, the story about this Jesus who proposed the Golden rule and kicked the money-lenders from the Temple. Are we sure that he died at the hands of non-Christians?

I understand that this is a sensitive question because of the argument that Jews should be blamed for the death of Jesus. I believe this argument is based on an acceptance of the Parable of the absent Landlord that I brought up a bit ago.  As a result of this story, there arose the idea that the farmers, or those who could be counted as a group, killed the messenger of the landlord, and afterward, they and their descendants should be blamed for this murder. Perhaps the idea that Jews are to be blamed instead of merely those people present at the messenger’s death came from the idea that the farmers should be blamed because they were farmers because they and those like them were involved in some kind of contract or deal with the landlord.

Whatever the parable suggests, one should argue that no one is guilty of a crime like murder except those who committed it.

I am persuaded that the historical figure behind the Jesus story was the Teacher of Righteousness, an Essene character, or someone who followed in his footsteps. I am persuaded by the idea that the sectarian differences between the Essenes, Sadducees, and Pharisees would help explain why anyone would kill such a person. Granted, there are many reasons why one person may kill another, but one has to argue for one that allows one to fit together a story that covers as many of the issues that we can.

I am not sure the character Jesus was killed by non-Christians because we have no good evidence to that effect. There are other possibilities.

I think the problem Christians have is trying to explain how Jesus could say his position agrees entirely with the Jewish position, yet Christianity comes up with this doctrine of “life-after-death” which contradicts basic doctrines of traditional Judaism. I think they have a problem because there is a fundamental disagreement between the Judaic position that denies the doctrine of life after death, a position that I think must be based on a view of knowledge and value, and this other view that claims that there is life after death, a view based on a different account of knowledge and values.

I understand that this may present an odd juxtaposition of issues, but I believe the Teacher’s view of Judaism promotes the idea that salvation, as in the salvation of the world salvation, is a project of philosophy. By philosophy here I mean argument. The saving of children, for example, is a project of argument. The idea that salvation is a gift from God is not Judaic, on the Teacher’s view. It is a view best argued by Socrates and his Platonist explainers.

I’m saying the historical figure behind the Jesus story did not advocate any doctrine of life after death, but instead argued against such a view. The fact that we now believe that Jesus supported such a view is explained by the fact, or historical principle, that the winners of these major conflicts write the histories.

In addition, the Dead Sea Scrolls, among other texts, were hidden because the people who hid them believed they would otherwise be destroyed along with other texts about which we now have no knowledge.

You ended saying,

“The disciples clearly believed that they would see the kingdom of God in their lifetimes - when this failed to materialise, Paul - in a stroke of philosophical genius perhaps unparalleled in history - merely transposed it to the afterlife.”

As I have trouble believing the story about Jesus is anything like what’s found in the Gospels, I am also skeptical that we have any idea what Jesus’s followers actually thought. The thought that God brings about his Kingdom, and that this would be a good thing for us, is an implication of the Socratic view of God and his messenger/son. The Teacher would argue, I believe, that if any Kingdom of God is going to come about we are the one’s - through our own efforts, - are going to have to step up and get it done. I would argue that any ending based on a Socratic beginning, can only end badly.

You said,

“...Jesus consciously referenced Judaic scripture - particularly in relation to Messianic concepts.”

Again, I am skeptical that the historical figure behind the Jesus stories, who I take to be the Teacher of Righteousness, merely references Judaic scripture in order to advance any ideas of his own. The mere references will not go to support any one view. The problem is that there was for a long time debate within the Judaic community whether one could be a Jew while at the same time being a Socratic, a.k.a., a Hellene. On this issue, I take the Teacher to have argued that the two positions are contradictory and one could not be both. The idea of what a “messiah” is remains a bone of contention in this argument. A Socratic will have one idea, and a follower of the Teacher will have a completely different idea.

The reason the Teacher’s ideas, the gnostic’s views, and so on with others, were suppressed has to do with how much they tend to contradict the Socratic interpretation of what it takes to be a “messiah,” or what it takes to be a Jew.

This does not seem to be a middle way you are proposing. There are “our own efforts” and there is then also help from “above” without which our own efforts would be fruitless. This seems to be at the core of many teachings from all over. Even Moses without help from above would not have accomplished much.

But I do agree with you about one thing, whenever as a child I was told the Jews killed Jesus, I was suprised as according to the story it was the Romans who crucified him (and many others).

It would be quite a thing to hear in the Roman Catholic Church instead of “and the Jews killed Jesus” that “the Romans killed Jesus” . It would make my day.

Regards

Paul

To Paul,

I appreciate your responses too.

You raise the question about who did kill Jesus. You seem to think that if it wasn’t the Jews, we might want to pick on some other group, as though if the trouble with the United States wasn’t the Jews, it would be the blacks, or maybe the immigrants, or welfare queens, and so forth. Perhaps you did not want to encourage this kind of accusation. But all these claims seem to assume that some group should be blamed for some individual act or series of acts. Perhaps we want to blame the French. Maybe we want to blame the rich. All of this blaming assumes that I may be guilty of something because I’m Norwegian. Nonsense.

My point was about how the reasonable thing would be to treat a murder as you treat any crime. That is, go after just those people who were responsible. Not their relatives, or their neighbors, or people who share the same hair color.

Saying this, it would be hard for us to say who killed the historical figure Jesus. Anyway, I don’t think it’s that important.

Your first remark is more interesting.  I am committed to the view that these matters must be understood in terms of a debate between the Teacher’s view and the view of Socrates. As I suggested above, the Teacher’s view implies that the Kingdom of God is something which we have to bring about relying on argument. Such a view would argue that it’s not a good thing to think you should rely on God to determine the course of events. It would be like waiting for the dramatic God arriving in his chariot to whisk us away to safety, a Greek plot device.

I think the dispute between the Jewish sects must have extended down so far that there was disagreement about Moses and what we should believe about the establishment of Judaism.

Why couldn’t Moses have accomplished whatever he did accomplish using his own wits? And why could that not have been fine with God?

To assume that Moses could not have done whatever, or that we could not get done whatever we want to do without someone else’s intervention assumes too much. I think it assumes that we can not do things.

It is to assume a Socratic view of things which the Teacher would reject.

Hi Steven

My post was a moment of midnight whimsy. As you say do not wish to pick on any group.  It was more a reaction to the number of times that both as a child and an adult have been told but of course the Jews killed Jesus usually by people who would describe themselves as Christian.  In reality weren’t half or more of the Apostles Jewish. So there were Jews that followed Jesus and Jews that didn’t. I do remember telling one of these people that I was myself very attracted to the life of a monk so much so that I was thinking of starting my own order called “The little brothers of Judas”

Am unable to join in your Socratic vs Teacher debate as I have not read either and am not much of a philosopher.

Would also need to know what you mean by some-one living on their wits, and what view or understanding you have of the nature of Man and his position in the universe.

Regards

Paul

“living on one’s wits,” has to do with what one brings to a problem. So, suppose your job was to screw in a light bulb. If you were told to do this, it would be up to you to figure it out. If you needed help, then the task would be more than what you would be capable of doing. You’d have to rely on someone else’s effort, their abilities, or smarts. “Living on one’s wits” is about screwing in light bulbs without anyone’s help.

About the last remark, actually you are a philosopher, in that this is a philosopher’s question. What relevance does the question you have about the nature of man and his position in the universe have with understanding what I am saying about Socrates and the Teacher? Well, these questions seem to be those one would ask if one was a follower of Socrates. The reasen they are a questiuon for Socrates is because knowing the answer to any of these questions is impossible. That’s why we are driven to ask them. Socrates suggests nothing can be done unless these questions, and others like them, are established. About that, he’s playing with us.

Addendum: The reason they are impossible to know has to do with accepting his own view about knowledge and values, and the meaning of life, and so on.  Asking thgis question and needing the answer to proceed, is about adpting his view of what it is to know things. The Teacher would advise you not to adopt Socrates’ view on these matters.

A quick reply. Let us take the story of Moses as it is told in the bible. When he was put in the basket and found in the bull-rushes and rescued by Pharaoh’s daughter this was help from others not his own wits. Even if you don’t believe this story literally there are many times in life when we are reliant on the help of others say when we are ill and need medical attention.  Equally I believe there is a vertical dimension to help as well, which you may not do so. The two do go together as per saying of the Prohet Mohammed, “First tie the camel then trust in God.”

Regards

Paul

If your responsibility is to look after your children so that they do not come to harm, wouldn’t you be shirking your duty if you did not do all that you could think of to assure their safety? And in doing so, I too imagine that you might get the advice of a wise person who knew your neighborhood, who knew the threats that you faced. But, it would be your effort to bring in such a person to give their advice. The business of trust in God is not just like this. At least, it seems the Christian and most likely the Jewish idea is that we must trust in God because we are incapable of doing for ourselves. We would be incapable because our own efforts depend on our own worldly experiences. We need to rely on God, or trust in what God provides because , on this view, we are incapable of looking after our children on our own.

Don’t you think the fundamentalist’s problem with secular government is just about this, they believe a secular point of view is incapable of protecting anyone.

Don’t both the Christians and the Jews believe it is only their God that can save anyone, as he is the fount of knowledge and values, where non-Christians or non Jews cannot have access to such information.

On their view, you have to trust God because there is no other way.

Well we don’t make the sun to shine, the rain to fall or the crops to grow although we can by the use of our intelligence, which we did not ourselves create, co-operate in this process. So without “outside” Benevolence we would not be able to eat at all let alone bring up and look after our children. Perhaps its our modern way of living and looking at the world that divorces us from how dependent we are. There is a lot we take for granted.

Regards

Paul

If by benevolence or being helped by others you mean that the sun shines or it rains so that crops grow, then I suppose no one could deny that we are helpless. We couldn’t do anything without gravity or the shining sun.

So what?

You said above,

“...How has Judas been understood down through the centuries, after the New Testament presented him as giving Jesus over to the Jewish authorities, and The Gospel of Judas somehow vindicating him?”

I would think there could be many thoughts about Judas and Jesus. The main issue, again, is about what one might mean by salvation and to that point my question is whether our problems are solved by relying on God or his messengers to sort things out.

The interest we might have in Judas, or Mary his mother, or his brothers, or the characters he meets in any of these Jesus stories assumes that we adopt the claim that salvation is about some hero bringing us salvation. I suspect it is our investment in such characters and their stories that supports our commitment to the idea that the Son of God saves. Therefore, I am hesitant to become too sympathetic with the pain that Judas may have felt because that just means I would have to believe there was a hero.

Suppose someone asks me about whether my wife is still addicted to vicodin. They are really concerned for her and for me. They could have spent some time trying to come up with some helpful suggestions to get her straightened up. All of this concern would be misplaced, however, because, contrary to this person’s assumption, I am not married, and I don’t have an addicted girl friend.  Yet, this someone who has these concerns would find it difficult to give up on their belief in my having a wife, because they invested so much in trying to cure her. Same thing with Judas and the Christian Hero. The first question has to be about whether salvation is a matter of some hero.

Paul was nice enough to raise a question about what I might have meant by my saying we should be living by our own wits. I may have been too vague about what I meant. He thought, perhaps, that I wanted to endorse some docrtrine that we should be in control of everything, like the shining sun, gravity that pulls things down, or the air we breathe. My only concern in saying anything about our wits is to argue that if we have kids, for example, we have to be responsible for keeping them safe, we cannot throw up our hands and let others do that job for us. Having a hero come in to save us or our kids, while giving up on the job ourselves, cannot be a good thing, and yet, I believe it is what Christianity demands us to believe.