Watch Lord Archer's interview on Ruth Gledhill's weblog

Jesus did not turn water into wine, nor did he calm the storm on the Sea of Galilee or walk on water, according to a “gospel” published with Vatican approval and co-written by Jeffrey Archer.

The Gospel According to Judas, introduced yesterday at a press conference chaired by the head of the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome, also denies that Judas accepted 30 pieces of silver to betray Jesus. The book will be launched in London today at Westminster Cathedral.

The reception given to the book represents a remarkable rehabilitation for Britain’s most celebrated politician-turned-convict. Lord Archer of Weston-super-Mare, a convicted perjurer, wrote the book with Francis Moloney, one of the Pope’s top theological advisers, who was a member of the Vatican’s International Theological Commission for 18 years.

Written and presented in the style of an original Gospel, it is being regarded by senior Roman Catholics as a way of bringing the Christian message to a wider audience. Dr Moloney will give his royalties to charity, but Archer will keep his. In an interview in his penthouse flat in London, he told The Times that he needed to earn a living.

Many churchgoers will be surprised at the Church’s backing of a book that debunks some of Jesus’s miracles. Dr Moloney and Archer said that they did not include the three best-known “nature miracles”, because they “never happened”. Nor did they include the most famous Judas story, in which he betrayed Jesus for 30 pieces of silver. The betrayal took place, they say, but Judas thought that he was acting as a double agent and was saving Jesus’s life.

The idea that some miracles did not happen and were written to shore up messianic interpretations of the Hebrew Bible has been common in academic circles for decades.

Dr Moloney, regarded by many as the greatest living Biblical scholar, drew on years of scholarship to make The Gospel According to Judas as close as possible to those passages thought genuine in the three synoptic gospels and the Gospel of St John. But he insisted that they omit verses agreed by scholars to have been invented by the original authors of the Bible. Old habits die hard, however, and the partnership with Archer almost collapsed when the bestselling author tried to inject unbelievable elements of fiction into the story of Jesus’s life, death and resurrection. Dr Moloney agreed that Archer could invent a plausible ending to Judas’s life but drew the line at giving him a deathbed conversion to Christianity.

Dr Moloney said that Jesus had been a miracle worker. But he had studied the Bible all his life, and had become convinced that some miracles had been invented by the early Church. Turning water into wine came “out of a profound desire to show that Jesus, like the God of Israel, is the messianic giver of all good things”. Walking on water and calming the seas stemmed from a desire to prove that Jesus had the same mastery over nature as the God of the Hebrew Bible.

Dr Moloney said that when he started working with Archer, he was not aware of how he was regarded by many in Britain. “I am certainly aware now.” He had read some of his novels, such as Kane and Abel, and “enjoyed them very much”. They worked together closely for a year.

Archer, who has given few interviews since he was released from jail in 2003, said that neither jail nor writing the book had affected his faith. Nor did he identify with Judas. He said that he was attracted by the “mystery” of the story.

‘An honest story-teller’

“ I found him an incredibly hard-working man. There was intense collaboration. I always admire a man who really works hard and he does . . .

I really admire his honesty and integrity. That is the exact opposite of what everybody says about Jeffrey Archer. And I am sure he is a bit of a villain – I would not doubt that. But my personal experience of him has been nothing but quality workmanship and a very high respect for me and my person and for who I am as a Roman Catholic priest . . .

On one occasion the whole project nearly got dropped. We never had yelling matches, but he is a story-teller. I insisted that what was in this gospel might not be probable, but it must be possible. He was really anxious to have some sort of final deathbed conversion of Judas. I said that would make a wonderful ending, but it could never have happened

— Francis Moloney on his co-author, Jeffrey Archer