Judas, the disciple who betrayed Jesus with a kiss for 30 pieces of silver, is to undergo a change of image at the hands of a man who knows more about makeovers than most.

Jeffrey Archer, whose best-sellers include Kane and Abel, The Eleventh Commandment and prison diaries entitled Heaven, Purgatory and Hell, will launch a new book next week with an endorsement from the Vatican.The Gospel of Judas by Benjamin Iscariot, is to be presented at the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome by its Rector, Father Stephen Pisano.

The following day, it will be launched at Westminster Cathedral, flagship of the Roman Catholic diocese of Westminster, by Dr Dermot Power, spiritual director of the Allen Hall seminary and himself a top theologian.

Even for a man who has sold more than 125 million books, been raised to the peerage and jailed for perjury, it is an extraordinary coup.

The Catholic Church is taking Lord Archer’s book seriously because it is co-authored by Professor Francis J. Moloney, a scholar who is head of the Salesian religious order in Australia and who has been a member of the Vatican’s International Theological Commission since 1984. Professor Moloney, a friend of the Pope, is considered by Roman prelates to be a leading authority on the Christian scriptures.

The book is an account and justification of Judas’s life and his betrayal of Christ written in the style of one of the three synoptic gospels by his supposed son, Benjamin. A senior Catholic source in England told The Times: “It is a wonderful story of forgiveness and mercy through the eyes of someone who never believed Jesus was God. Moloney has brought the four Gospels together into one. Even if only half of Jeffrey Archer’s readers buy the book, millions of people will read the Gospel for the first time.”

Some Vatican scholars have suggested that Judas should be “rehabilitated”, on the grounds that in pointing out Jesus to arresting soldiers in the Garden of Gethsemane, he was merely fulfilling God’s plan.

This coincided with the publication last year of The Gospel of Judas, a second century Gnostic text that also supported the contention that Judas was the instrument of a divine plan and not therefore personally culpable.

In an interview in January Lord Archer said the book was “a gospel, not a novel and not a short story”. He said that in his version Judas did not hang himself, and had betrayed Jesus not for money but out of disappointment with Jesus for not overthrowing the Romans.

Father Pisano said the pontifical institute had no commercial interest in the book and Father Moloney’s contribution was historical and theological.

“The book is a novel, there is no ancient document as there was for the recently published Gospel of Judas.”

Heretic history

A BBC documentary shown over Christmas 2005 made the case that Mary was not a virgin when Jesus was conceived. Some scholars contend that the original text was ambiguous as to whether Mary was a virgin or just a young girl

In his book The Man Jesus Loved: Homoerotic Narratives From the New Testament, US bible scholar Theodore W. Jennings Jr. argues that there is biblical evidence to support the view that Jesus was homosexual, citing accounts of disciples “lying close to the breast of Jesus ”

James Cameron, director of the film Titanic, last month announced a film arguing that Jesus had a child with Mary Magdalene — and he claims to have the bones to prove it

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