BYU panelists question value of Gospel of Judas

Wayment said the panel finds other texts — especially the Nag Hammadi, discovered in 1945 — to be more important. He said, "Unlike the Gospel of Judas, which does not contain any real sayings of Judas Iscariot or any potentially valuable historical information about Jesus of Nazareth, there is a potential that some of the Nag Hammadi codices contain authentic sayings of Jesus."

Strathearn pointed out ways in which the Gospel of Judas is similar to other Gnostic texts. In the Gnostic gospels, the material world is often described as evil. The serpent in the Garden of Eden is described as good because he enabled the spread of knowledge — thus it is within the Gnostic tradition to describe a different version of Judas as well.

The Gospel of Judas is like several other Gnostic gospels in saying the God of the Old Testament is not Jesus' God, she added. Thus, in the Gnostic gospels, "You get a very, very different look."

Still, she thought LDS Church members might find the ideas within the Gospel of Judas interesting, "as long as we put them in the proper context."

There are discussions about knowledge and about humans having a spark of divinity within them.

"Is this discovery going to change our interpretation of early Christianity?" the panel was asked, to which Wayment answered, "Not first-century Christianity. I think there is no legitimate claim to say this preserved the sayings of Judas or sayings of Jesus that didn't make it into canonical text. However, I think it will tell us a great deal about second-century Christianity and third-century Christianity.

"For me, this sort of thing is very interesting," Brown said, in answer to a question about whether or not this discovery is important to LDS people.

But he added a caution: "I'm not sure that it holds much for Latter-day Saints," he said. "There is a very strong strain underneath this text of apostasy, both doctrinal and also behavioral."

Judd believes the questions addressed in the Gospel of Judas will be of interest to LDS people, although he knows Latter-day Saints will disagree with the answers. The Gospel of Judas offers complex myths of salvation and says only special groups can even understand the path to be taken.

When asked if the world should expect similar discoveries in the future, Brown said "yes." He said this gospel may be part of a larger cache that includes other documents.

"I actually had my hands on some of those, once," he added.

The texts he saw were being offered for sale and have yet to surface, he said. He believes the reason the documents haven't surfaced may be because they were obtained illegally. He's glad BYU didn't buy them, he said.

"That might have brought stain on the university," he said. "Right now the university enjoys wonderful relationships with authorities in Egypt."

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