BYU panelists question value of Gospel of Judas
They doubt that it has actual sayings of Jesus or Judas
On that, they agreed.
There was slightly less agreement about how the document will, or should, be of interest to members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
S. Kent Brown, Frank F. Judd, Gaye Strathearn and Thomas A. Wayment spoke as part of the university's annual Easter Conference. Professor Richard Neitzel Holzapfel introduced his fellow professors, saying they are the school's premier New Testament and Gnostic experts.
Holzapfel also said that, in his entire life, he has never seen such interest in an ancient text. People e-mail him and stop him in the grocery store, he said. Everyone, including his Jewish friends, wonder what LDS scholars will make of the Gospel of Judas.
The National Geographic Society has the rights to the document and, last week, released two books and a television special explaining where this latest discovery fits into the history of Christianity. At BYU, in the first half of their 45-minute discussion, the scholars summarized the story.
Holzapfel noted the gospel describes a conversation in which Jesus tells Judas, "You will exceed all of them, for you will sacrifice the man who clothed me."
By this, according to the text, Jesus means Judas will help to liberate him from his physical body.
"The gospel also suggests Judas will be despised by other disciples but that, in the end, he will be exalted over them," Holzapfel observed.
He noted the abrupt ending to the gospel. There is no mention of the Crucifixion or the Resurrection. Judas hands over Jesus and the story is done.
"This is a key word. Instead of 'betrayed,' it says 'handed over,' " Holzapfel said.
Judd contrasted the Gospel of Judas with the biblical, or "canonical," gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. The Bible says Judas did not care for the poor. It says he stole. The Bible says it was Satan, not Jesus, who convinced Judas to accept money in exchange for his master's life.
Wayment said the panel finds other texts — especially the Nag Hammadi, discovered in 1945 — to be more important. He said, "Unlike the Gospel of Judas, which does not contain any real sayings of Judas Iscariot or any potentially valuable historical information about Jesus of Nazareth, there is a potential that some of the Nag Hammadi codices contain authentic sayings of Jesus."
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