Is the Gospel According to Judas Rewriting Christian History?

  • Thread starter Ivan Seeking
  • Start date
In summary, a 2000-year-old text named after the apostle Judas has resurfaced and is being translated by a Swiss foundation. It has caused controversy among early Christians and may shed new light on the role of Mary Magdalene. The recent deaths of the Pope and a prominent proponent of Darwinism coincide with this discovery, raising questions about the relationship between religion and science. The Catholic Church officially claims that Darwinian evolution is compatible with Christianity, but there are differing opinions among other Christian denominations. Some creationists propose a theory that God created the Earth to look older than it actually is.
  • #1
Ivan Seeking
Staff Emeritus
Science Advisor
Gold Member
8,143
1,761
An unusual story... I had never heard about this until now, and assuming it's true...

Judas to tell his story

31mar05

ABOUT 2000 years after the Gospel according to Judas sowed discord among early Christians, a Swiss foundation is translating the controversial text named after the apostle, said to have betrayed Jesus.

The 62-page papyrus manuscript of the text was uncovered in Egypt during the 1950s or 1960s, but its owners did not fully comprehend its significance until recently, according to the Maecenas Foundation in Basel. [continued]
http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,12704755%255E663,00.html
 
Physics news on Phys.org
  • #2
Talk about ground-shaking stuff. The new Pope's going to have plenty of fun stuff to talk about...
 
  • #3
wasteofo2 said:
The new Pope's going to have plenty of fun stuff to talk about...
I don't know if this is the right place to mention it, but it seems the best candidate. I can't help seeing the irony of coincidence keeping the religion/science debate on an even playing field. Pope dies today; yesterday I picked up the new Scientific American and saw the obituary of Ernst Mayr, who was the world's foremost proponent of Darwinism. :frown:
 
  • #4
All the inconsistencies of the gospels, such as the role of Mary Magdelon, and novels such as Dan Brown's "The DeVinci Code" has made the topic more public. Will it change religious dogma? It would take a long time if it does...
 
  • #5
Danger said:
I don't know if this is the right place to mention it, but it seems the best candidate. I can't help seeing the irony of coincidence keeping the religion/science debate on an even playing field. Pope dies today; yesterday I picked up the new Scientific American and saw the obituary of Ernst Mayr, who was the world's foremost proponent of Darwinism. :frown:

speaking of religion and darwinism, i heard somewhere that the pope (JPII) said that darwinism did not confilct with Catholosism's Genesis. I always thought that darwinism was the 'anit-Christ'. :confused: Don't know if its true.

Fibonacci
 
  • #6
1 said:
speaking of religion and darwinism, i heard somewhere that the pope (JPII) said that darwinism did not confilct with Catholosism's Genesis. I always thought that darwinism was the 'anit-Christ'. :confused: Don't know if its true.

Fibonacci
This is the first I've heard of it, but I bet he was referring to the 'survival of the fittest' part, not the physical evolution of a species. He's not likely to have admitted that animals existed before people.
 
  • #7
"Gospel according to Judas" :smile: who is coming up with this stuff ?
some forcess in the world are trying completelly discredit Christianity.
 
  • #8
Yea, what's up with this nonsense -- I'd rather spend my time in pursuit of weed and pretty women... :rolleyes: :smile:
 
  • #9
Danger said:
This is the first I've heard of it, but I bet he was referring to the 'survival of the fittest' part, not the physical evolution of a species. He's not likely to have admitted that animals existed before people.

Not at all. The official position of the Catholic Church is that all of Darwinian evolutionary theory is compatible with Christianity. There are plenty of protestant churches that do not agree, however.
 
  • #10
loseyourname said:
Not at all. The official position of the Catholic Church is that all of Darwinian evolutionary theory is compatible with Christianity. There are plenty of protestant churches that do not agree, however.
Technically, all churches that claim the apostolic doctrines and sacraments of the 'original' church are considered Catholic, including Anglican and United, but I assume that you refer specifically to just the Roman variety. I don't know how they can claim no conflict, since Genesis clearly leaves no room for argument about the order of creation. (Although there are a couple of different versions in the same book.)
 
  • #11
Danger said:
I don't know how they can claim no conflict, since Genesis clearly leaves no room for argument about the order of creation. (Although there are a couple of different versions in the same book.)
Ahh, but you forget about The Catch: symbolism. Is a day really a day?

Or perhaps its not even like that - do you know about the devious creator theory? God created the Earth 4000 years ago to look like it was 4.5 billion years old.
 
  • #12
russ_watters said:
Ahh, but you forget about The Catch: symbolism. Is a day really a day?

Or perhaps its not even like that - do you know about the devious creator theory? God created the Earth 4000 years ago to look like it was 4.5 billion years old.
Oh yeah, I've heard 'em all. The 'day is a 10,000,000 years' thing still doesn't explain the discontinuity that they think people were the first living creatures, while all evidence proves the opposite. And that second thing is just too stupid to even laugh at.
 
  • #13
russ_watters said:
Ahh, but you forget about The Catch: symbolism. Is a day really a day?

Or perhaps its not even like that - do you know about the devious creator theory? God created the Earth 4000 years ago to look like it was 4.5 billion years old.
No I've never heard of this...tell more.
 
  • #14
SOS2008 said:
No I've never heard of this...tell more.
That's really all there is to it. Its actually a pretty common thing for a creationist to unwittingly stumble into when cornered. If they make any serious attempt at argument, sooner or later they have to deal with the fact that there is a mountain of evidence out there and that that evidence contradicts what is literally said in the Bible. The only way to reconcile those two facts is if that evidence was fabricated 4,000 years ago by a God who, for some reason, doesn't want us to know the truth.
 
  • #15
SOS2008 said:
No I've never heard of this...tell more.

Well, it's not *too* difficult to loosely associate the days from Genesis to various eras, for example Day 1 'Let there be light' is the big bang, etc. There's even some historical support for this. The 'Book of Enoch' for example talks about seven days being seven thousand and the eighth being uncounted, an infinity. Of course the BoE isn't considered Canon, but it reflects what some of the ~2nd Century BC scholars may have been thinking. As Russ said, symbolism is the key.

The 'Earth appears old' theory seems to have come about fairly recently (to me anyway.) The idea is basically that the reason Cosmology seems to say the Universe is 13 Billion years old and carbon dating tells us the Earth is 5 Billion years old is because they were 'old' when they were created. Basically, in 4004 BC, the Earth/Universe was created with Isotopic abundances, distances/speeds between galaxies/etc. so that it appeared much older.

Take a look here and scroll down to the section on Young and Old Earth Creationists. You can get a much more detailed explanation there.
 
  • #16
SOS2008 said:
No I've never heard of this...tell more.

There are two justifications for this idea that I know of. First, the "illusion" of science [not my opinion, just stating the idea] is a test of faith. And/or, Satan, aka the great deceiver, was given dominion over Earth until the second coming. So by this notion, evil is what deceives us.

I used to have a neighbor who was a "non-denominational fundamentalist", which translates as, "his minister has ALL of THE answers". After some sermon at church he got all worked up about Einstein and relativity - which was taken as the literal source of ethical Relativism! Truth is not relative, you know, so it seems that even our clocks deceive us.

Could it be that Maxwell's Demon is more devilish than we ever imagined? :biggrin:
 
Last edited:
  • #17
Danger said:
I don't know if this is the right place to mention it, but it seems the best candidate. I can't help seeing the irony of coincidence keeping the religion/science debate on an even playing field. Pope dies today; yesterday I picked up the new Scientific American and saw the obituary of Ernst Mayr, who was the world's foremost proponent of Darwinism. :frown:

The pope may have been a theological conservative, but he did not favor a literal translation of the bible(at least not as long as I've been alive).

This is the pope who said that both galileo and copernicus were right, and decreed that BBT was 'in accordance with the scripture'.

The enemies of evolution are the looney born agains, not the catholics. At least, in the US anyway.
 
  • #18
Danger said:
Technically, all churches that claim the apostolic doctrines and sacraments of the 'original' church are considered Catholic, including Anglican and United, but I assume that you refer specifically to just the Roman variety. I don't know how they can claim no conflict, since Genesis clearly leaves no room for argument about the order of creation. (Although there are a couple of different versions in the same book.)


Because the Catholic Catechism does not include a literal interpretation of the bible.

Try not to tell other people what they believe when you don't know what you're talking about.
 
  • #19
franznietzsche said:
The enemies of evolution are the looney born agains, not the catholics. At least, in the US anyway.


You are soooo right Franz.N . I have neve ever meeet catholic who was against theory of evolution .
 
  • #20
Danger said:
Technically, all churches that claim the apostolic doctrines and sacraments of the 'original' church are considered Catholic, including Anglican and United, but I assume that you refer specifically to just the Roman variety. I don't know how they can claim no conflict, since Genesis clearly leaves no room for argument about the order of creation. (Although there are a couple of different versions in the same book.)

As Franz points out, the Roman Catholic catechism was amended years back to teach biological evolution as the method of creation. They don't interpret the book of Genesis literally. John Paul II was actually a rather vocal proponent of accepting evolutionary theory and generally keeping religion current with a scientific worldview.
 
  • #21
franznietzsche said:
Try not to tell other people what they believe when you don't know what you're talking about.
No need to be rude, Junior. I'm not telling you or anyone else in this forum what you believe, or what to believe. I'm telling you what the Catholics that I've personally discussed it with believe. Whether it's their own opinion or church policy never came up. The only one who granted any variation from Genesis has his own theory that he calls 'Evolutionary Creationism' wherein Genesis occurred as written, and then evolution set in. Whether or not the Catechism has changed doesn't seem to have effected a change in their own lives.
As for a belief in a literal interpretation, most of those people don't even know what they believe in. Any bible that you can get in English bears little resemblance to what was originally written. The Old Testament was intended to be a history of, and practical guidelines for, the ancient Judaic tribes. The first translation of it and the New Testament were into Greek. My father read both whilst earning his Masters in Religious Studies at McGill. The editing and mistranslations (both incidental and deliberate), have changed the meaning of so many things that it's ludicrous to even think of it as the 'Word of God' even if you believe in a god.
 
Last edited:
  • #22
Danger said:
Any bible that you can get in English bears little resemblance to what was originally written.

There's a new "edition" due out soon! I don't know if I'll be able to track down the link to the story about it now, but apparently it's been in the works for about 20 years, with scholars going through and re-translating from the original to use more modern English. Afterall, if you take something that has problems in translation in the first place, and then read it in a version of English that uses different definitions of words than are in current common usage, it leads to a lot of confusion. Every translation comes with some degree of controversy and disagreement, since the languages are so old, there could be nuances of meaning or colloquialisms used that modern scholars just miss and lose when translating, or that just can't be translated well into current languages. I wonder what word they'll replace "begat" with in Genesis? :rolleyes:
 
  • #23
Sired? :biggrin:
 
  • #24
I hope they don't use getto terms like "spat out"
 
  • #25
hypatia said:
I hope they don't use getto terms like "spat out"
I knew someone who used the term "squeeze one out."

After reading the thread about the Pope dying, and then reading this, it seems odd the Pope could be so progressive about science yet backward about the use of condoms. I've always suspected Christianity to believe in spreading God's word by proselyting and procreating. They may be grateful this heathen isn't though! :-p
 
  • #26
Danger said:
No need to be rude, Junior. I'm not telling you or anyone else in this forum what you believe, or what to believe. I'm telling you what the Catholics that I've personally discussed it with believe. Whether it's their own opinion or church policy never came up. The only one who granted any variation from Genesis has his own theory that he calls 'Evolutionary Creationism' wherein Genesis occurred as written, and then evolution set in.

Then they were nothing more than Catholic in name.

Personally, I'm sick and tired of listening to people say things about the catholic church that aren't true. Although, given that i grew up in the bible belt of california, a place with more nutty born agains per square mile than any place outside of georgia and alabama, who were always saying things about the catholics that were just flat out fabrications has not made me very patient about such things.
 
  • #27
I was raised Roman Catholic, and I never even saw a bible in church or in Saturday catechism class. We didn't own a bible and my mother was a very devout Catholic. I had my Roman Missal and my little book for my first communion. Catholics say Mass and recite from missals. Back when I still went to church the mass was still said in Latin.

The stories from "the Bible" were spoken about as nothing more than "old tales made up to try to explain things" but were not to be taken literally, at least that's how it was in my church.
 
  • #28
religions needed to adapt and evolve in order to keep their clientele

there is power in controlling 2 billion people just by one speech, and anyone who is in power will want to stay in power
 
  • #29
cronxeh said:
religions needed to adapt and evolve

other religions ? let's talk about other religions too.
because according to you Christianity is guilty of all evil in this world.
 
  • #30
We're all getting a little too much into religion (myself included) let's stick to the topic.

There was an interesting view of Judas in the story of Jesus on the Discovery Channel (or TLC?) last year. It had a very convincing portrayal of Judas not as a betrayor, but as one of the closest of the apostles to Jesus and that the "betrayal" was Jesus' idea. It really made a lot of things make sense. Did anyone else watch the show? It was repeated just before Easter.
 
  • #31
Yes I actually saw it. I'm not sure whom to believe - John Allegro or Discovery Science Channel..

hmm :rolleyes:
 
  • #32
Evo said:
I was raised Roman Catholic, and I never even saw a bible in church or in Saturday catechism class. We didn't own a bible and my mother was a very devout Catholic. I had my Roman Missal and my little book for my first communion. Catholics say Mass and recite from missals. Back when I still went to church the mass was still said in Latin.

The stories from "the Bible" were spoken about as nothing more than "old tales made up to try to explain things" but were not to be taken literally, at least that's how it was in my church.

And that is how it still is to this day in the Catholic church(well, mass is done in the local vernacular now, but other than that, the rest is true.)
 
  • #33
cronxeh said:
Yes I actually saw it. I'm not sure whom to believe - John Allegro or Discovery Science Channel..

hmm :rolleyes:
You mean The Discovery Channel might air a program that wasn't 100% based in fact? :biggrin:
 
  • #34
Evo said:
You mean The Discovery Channel might air a program that wasn't 100% based in fact? :biggrin:

The discovery channel needs to renamed the autoshop channel. Its really annoying now. I don't like it anymore, and never watch it. Luckily the history channel is still mostly uncorrupted by the plebes and their pasttimes.
 
  • #35
Well on a few occasions I would watch that channel and then be like :bugeye:

I did not bother checking out the sources they used in Jesus story but the usual suspects include the big thinktanks, which would cite even such sources as 'the bible' :smile:

So if I had to choose, I'd go with John Allegro. He did extensive research on Dead Sea Scrolls and wrote several books on the subject.
 

Hot Threads

Recent Insights

Back
Top