Tuesday, April 18, 2006

Jesus predicted that he would be denied. I predicted the Gospel of Judas would be. What do I win?

Just after the announcement of the translation of the Gospel of Judas, I mused that it would be rejected out of hand, and I was right.

This article goes on with the standard claim that it is somehow an attack on Christianity because it was released near Easter. Taking off the ruby colored glasses of fundamentalist perseuction, this seems more to be an attempt to promote interest when spiritual interest would be high.

But the inanity doesn't stop there. The author goes on to suggest that secularists are attempting to justify treason! Perhaps I'm mistaken here, but treason suggests that one is going against the wishes and rules set forth by the person or system you would betray. The newly found Gospel claims that Jesus asked Judas to turn him in, thus, there's no betrayal at all. Instead, it suggests the faithful following of superiors. Saying that Judas betrayed Jesus although Jesus asked him to would be akin to saying the government sending in armed troops to quell a riot would be treason since it does harm, dispite that it was requested.

Yet for all the banter in the article, it manages to still address one key issue: The legitimacy of the text itself. These zealots ignore the text because it clashes with their preconcieved notions that were dictated at the Council of Nicea. Everything else it seems, is hedonistic and worthy of outright rejection.

1 comment:

Tom said...

The Council of Nicea is something your average fundamentalist Christian seems somehow never to have heard of. Maybe they were absent from school that day.