Monday, April 10, 2006

The Gospel of Judas

Interesting show on National Geographic last night about an ancient text dated back to 300 AD (plus or minus 50 yrs), and it's The Gospel of Judas.

For those of you who don't know who he is, Judas has been tagged the 'satan' of all the apostles of Jesus, and was believed to be the one who turned Jesus in to the Jews and Romans - so he's been hated for this and was always seen as the traitor.

We all know the story of what happened next to Jesus (after being turned in by Judas).

This two-hour special last night showed where researchers have proved that this text is authentic, and what is so amazing and, hopefully, will get a lot of ppl talking - or so it should - is that it depicts Judas in a completely different light than before and it says that Judas was asked by Jesus to do what he did, even tho Judas didn't want to do it, he did it for Jesus. Judas, come to find out, was the closest apostle to Jesus and was the only one who 'truly' understood the things Jesus spoke of and why Jesus was sent here and by whom.

Several other gospels give completely different accounts of what happened to Judas and how that day unfolded, and, come to find out (which I've also heard many times before), is that the Catholic Church has destroyed other gospels that they didn't feel were revelant for the Bible, and that there are many other ancient texts in their possession.

I've heard that there are many things/documents/texts in the vaults of the Vatican that would cause not only Catholics but Protestants to turn on their heels when it came to their beliefs and what they viewed as real and not real in the face of religion, and what we know or believe to be fact in today's world when it actually isn't so.

They were talking last night on this program about how the Germans, for years, would put on plays prior to Lent that would depict Judas (Judas = Jew (Coptic language)) as a devil or satan and that even Adolf Hitler went to one such performance. They also said that it is believed that these plays are what helped to push Germans into having more hatred for the Jews and helped to destroy their image and fueled the rage within them - hence causing the Germans to start killing the Jews.

This program was extremely interesting for any of you that have the opportunity to see it, you should. Gives new light on many different things.

4 comments:

Ali Al Saeed said...

I actually saw something on the tv about that the other day.

Fascinating stuff!

Um Naief said...

I thought so. If you get the chance, check it out.

MoClippa said...

Yeah a friend of mine barged in demanding we turn on National Geographic to watch it. To be honest though it seemed like an attempt to cash into the DaVinci code 'question your beliefs and what you've been told about religon' craze. I watched most of the documentary but wasn't able to complete it, but throughout it seemed like the meshing of the story of how they found it with story of the gospel itself was an attempt to provide filler for material that in itself wasn't that good.

We were hoping for an explanation of the Gospel of Judas, and in some way sort of expected the whole program to be dedicated to it because we thought the message would be intense. By mixing it with all that dribble about how they got it, it left me feeling like the Gospel of Judas wasn't as revolutionary as they advertised it to be, or atleast, its content wasn't enough to base a whole show on.

Um Naief said...

You know, I haven't read the DaVinci Code but I did think the show was a bit heavy on the melodrama w/ the story line and I was hoping for more on Judas and Jesus, and they didn't really get into that until the very end which was disappointing.

But... I did like the fact that it showed that Judas wasn't as bad as all have thought over the years and I think it did a good job of showing that the Catholic church has kept info hidden or *chose* what they wanted in the beginning - which I've heard many times over. I also like that religion or early belief systems were challenged. I would have liked more in-depth info on Judas... and I do think the commercials made it seem like it would be that way and it wasn't.