In Reply to: 'Gospel of Judas' Surfaces After 1,700 Years posted by moonshiner on April 06, 2006 at 14:58:24:
Terrific article! Thanks for posting it. I don't necessarily believe it's anything more than a fabricated history, but it was written 1700 years ago and may contain some very interesting new thoughts. I think I'd agree with Irenaeus on this one when he wrote that the Gnostics 'produce a fictitious history of this kind, which they style the Gospel of Judas.'
The reason for my skepticism about any Gnostic 'gospels' is that the four gospels in the Bible talk about a literal flesh-&-blood man, Jesus, who actually lived & breathed & intereacted with other people of history such as Pilate, Herod,etc. Whereas the entire basis of Gnostic thinking is that flesh is evil, spirit is good, so therefore Jesus was not actually a real flesh-&-blood person, but only a spirit who appeared to be human.
Given this basic Gnostic view, it's hard for me to imagine that a Gnostic gospel should be seen as more credible than a historical gospel. But again, terrific article. I loved reading about it.
You know what I'm waiting for though? I'd love it if the 'Q' documents -- upon which the historical gospels were based -- were dug up. Imagine scroll after scroll of the original sayings of Jesus.
Even Halley's Bible Handbook says that some of the sayings in the gospel of Thomas are authentic sayings of Jesus, & I can believe it. But I wanna see the whole mother lode.