The Gospel of Judas Iscariot

Originally Posted by Jerrica

But if you are going to address issues in the Bible from the point of view OF A CHRISTIAN, you have to regard it as the truth.

Oh, come on. No, you don't. You don't have to regard the Bible as anything, Christian or not.

To summarize the eternal argument - the Bible is a set of stories which may or may not be true. We have no definitive proof, so it's up to the reader to believe what he/she feels is right. This is where the "regarding the Bible as truth" mandate pretty much ceases.

The real meat of the Bible isn't derived from whether or not it's a factual account, but rather the lessons in morality and higher being that are contained within each Book. These lessons are subjective and will always be placed under differing interpretation, depending upon where you are and with whom you speak.

For the Christians, it's a matter of their doctrine that they accept the Bible as fact. Yet it's not specifically required, per se. It's only that the Bible is taught as fact within the Christian organization and the majority of its practitioners are willing to accept this belief that leads us to assume that factuality is intrinsic to the Christian practice.

It's not. Teaching the Bible as fact only serves to better facilitate the lessons within to an accepting crowd. If it were presented as myth, it would be subject to debate, and that doesn't serve the church's interests of aiding people toward betterness, by and large. But even within the Christian faith, followers are free and able to recognize the Bible as little more than a storybook. The zealotry of others who disagree, that's what leads to derision and extrication from the faith. It's nothing to do with the Bible itself.

Fundamentally, even within Christianity, there is no palpable difference between someone who takes the Bible as fact, living as Jesus might, and someone who merely recognizes the object lessons within and is a good person for it.

The Gospel of Judas is as mutable as any Book in the Bible and it will appeal to those who have an open mind about spirituality in general. Some may condemn it. Fair enough. It's an idea and ideas are always threatening to those who would lose power by them. But even if there's any shred of credibility to this discovery, it's foolishness to put the horse before the cart and claim that it serves to solidify centuries of suspected lies and cover-ups.

I'm no fan of organized religion. But, likewise, I'm no fan of people who take interesting, new discoveries and use them as ammunition in their personal vendettas against Christianity.
What will the Gospel of Judas ultimately prove? Most likely, nothing. Just like the Bible itself really proves nothing. All we can do at this phase is speculate and doing so will accomplish very little.

It's an interesting idea. It would be best to leave it at that.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

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'm not sure when I made these foolish claims.

It wasn't you, specifically. You did seem to allude to a few potential allegations, but the real culprits are others whose "outrage" has been given fervor by the Judas Gospel. I've heard them elsewhere, in different forums and such. So far, this thread's been tame.

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Yes. And nothing ever comes of interesting ideas.

Certainly things come from ideas, but if the idea involves tangible elements, it's much simpler to translate those ideas into fact or fiction, or at least refine them to a stronger indication toward one or the other.

Discussing religion is tantamount to discussing the presence of black holes. We think black holes exist. We have photo-magnetic images that certainly suggest the theory is true. But can we know for sure? How do we get close enough to a black hole in order to define it without falling victim to its (supposed) forces? What if it's something else entirely? What would that do to our present understanding of physics and the universe? The mind reels!

(I draw this parallel to illustrate both sides of the coin; neither faith nor science is entirely absolute.)

Ideas can gain acceptance, and through that, power. It's by this that "salvation by faith alone" took root. But the problem remains: the entire basis for the idea and corresponding faiths is - for now - empyrically unprovable.

So what I meant, and should've clarified, is that right now, the Gospel of Judas is an idea. Like black holes. If and when we obtain better evidence to support its factuality, it's at that point that we should reexamine the implications that evidence brings. The same holds true for any part of the Bible, or any other religious text, for that matter. For lack of evidence, currently, speculation is all we have and it proves nothing.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by Rob

You obviously know NOTHING about the preservation of the bible over the last 2000 years +. You are clueless.
You probably haven't even heard of the Dead Sea scrolls found in 1948. When they translated the OT book of Isaiah 58 years ago from the DS scrolls, they compared it to the 'then current' Isaiah in the bible and found the meaning had been preserved PERFECTLY. And if you have any real knowledge in studying this sort of thing, you would know that.

Who, precisely, is "they"? If it's a faction of Christians whose faith stood to lose credibility due to discrepancies between the printed Gospel and the Scrolls, then it would make sense to me that "they" would just nod their heads and say "Yup. This matches perfectly. Yes, it does.", knowing that there are/was precious few who had both access and the ability to decipher the scrolls themselves enough to argue.

I'm not saying that this DID happen, but when you say "they", it would help if you were more specific. Names, affiliations, etc. Otherwise, as far as I know, it was just a special "damage control" team that told us they were congruous.

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Isaiah is arguably one of the most important books in the Old Testament.

Says who?

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.