THE Gospel of Judas is an interesting document but it will not be changing the way in which historians, scholars or ordinary Christians understand their faith. This is a mid-2nd-century document that we have known about since St Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons, examined it in about AD180 and found it to be wide of the mark in terms of reliability.

The basic problem is that it comes from 100 years after Judas lived and died and is written in a style quite unlike that prevalent in AD30. It breathes a different air. It uses a different frame of reference. It comes out of the genre of Gnostic writings that became common in the 2nd and 3rd centuries with their emphasis on secret knowledge as the way to redemption.

In the 2nd century many such writings competed for inclusion in what was to become the New Testament canon. The core gospels and letters were already generally accepted as authentic by the middle of the century, but many other documents vied for acceptance. The Gospel of Judas, like many others, was discarded as being inauthentic in terms of authorship and in its account of the Christian faith as it had been received.

Many such documents sought to reinstate the credibility of particular characters. The Gospel of Judas seeks to rehabilitate this much-maligned character by speculating on his relationship with Jesus. Of course we can’t know what went on in his mind. Why did he betray his friend? It can’t have been for the money, which he threw away. One approach has been to see Judas as trying to force Jesus’s hand and make him issue the call to arms that would result in the Romans being thrown out of the country. But it is speculation, and the Gospel of Judas is just another attempt to understand his motive. This document is an interesting piece of evidence about how one part of the Early Church, in all its diversity, tried to understand Judas’s treachery, but it isn’t going to tell us anything more about either Judas or Jesus. It is 100 years too late for that.

Explore World News

• World Agenda

• Iraq News

• US & Americas News

• Europe News

• Middle East News

• Afghanistan News

• Asia News

• Africa News

• Ireland News

Times Recommends

• Henning Mankell: ‘If Wallander was alive, I wouldn’t be a friend of his’
• Secret society's skull and crossbones for sale
• Nigerian leader vanishes after medical treatment