New discovery of a lost gospel

by Leolaia 33 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  Leolaia

  aniron...If you examine the information presented in this thread, it should be clear that Judas Iscariot is the "Judas" of the gospel. The last page of the gospel in its last paragraph describes the actions of Ioudas, mentioning him by name twice and concludes with his acceptance of money and his betrayal of Jesus. Irenaeus, in his description of the Gospel of Judas, also mentions how it focused on Judas' role in the mystery of the betrayal. It is also significant that unlike other passion gospels, the Gospel of Judas ends with the betrayal and does not go on to relate the trial and crucifixion.

  rick_here....It's a little fun trying to piece together what we know of the gospel, tentative tho it is. It's kind of like trying to figure out the plot of an upcoming Star Wars movie from the various spoilers leaked online.

  The "different race" theme is certainly given a rather different application in the Petrine pseudepigrapha, but it still looks like a thread that runs between distinct groups of Christian literatures....btw, the Petrine idea of Christians as a "third race" is not ideologically one of including Gentiles into the Jewish fold but rather creating a new race that was neither Jewish nor Gentile.

  I'm a little dubious that a first-century Zealot understanding of Judas Iscariot would be latent in a mid-to-late second-century gnostic text. I somewhat like the allusional connection with the patriarchs Judah and Issachar in the original root form of the Judas legend because "Judah" is the one of the original Twelve (= sons of Jacob) who suggested betraying Joseph for a payment of silver (Genesis 37:26-28), the names are usually adjacent to each other as "Judah Issachar" in the OT (cf. Genesis 35:23, 46:12-13, Exodus 1:2-3; Numbers 1:27-28, 26:22-23; Deuteronomy 27:12; 1 Chronicles 2:1), and in one of these texts there is a curse against "the man who accepts a bribe to kill an innocent person" elsewhere in the same passage (Deuteronomy 27:12, 25).

  About the word "wicked", if the Greek original was anomos, maybe there is an allusion to Luke 22:37, which has Jesus "numbered among the wicked" (a wording found only in Luke in the gospels, I believe). I think the evidence surveyed above indicates that the Gospel of Judas was especially dependent on Luke.

  Midget-Sasquatch....Nice suggestion, linking the "race" concept to the Valentinian division of humanity into three categories. The question tho is if Allogenes is addressing Satan, the "ruler of the world", and says that he is not from your race. Does the hylic-psychic-pneumatic scheme apply to archons/powers? I have usually seen it applied to those imprisoned in matter who achieve different levels of gnosis.
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  the_classicist

  rick_here....It's a little fun trying to piece together what we know of the gospel, tentative tho it is. It's kind of like trying to figure out the plot of an upcoming Star Wars movie from the various spoilers leaked online.

  On Friday, we were examining some reconstructions of Sappho's poems in Greek. We were using a text that basically put together the best guesses of scholars for these missing words. Then you reach the 3rd or the 4th stanza and it all completely falls apart. Since it is a poem about how Sappho is longing for her lover and that there's something about grabbing in that stanza, we all just assumed and had a good chuckle over its 'real' meaning.

  PS. What would we do without papyrus?
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  Midget-Sasquatch

  Thanks for making me notice that part of the quote where the contrast is with Satan. You're right that scheme isn't applied to the archons as far as I know.

  What got me thinking differently was what Bart Ehrman wrote in his book Lost Christianities:The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew.

  You see I rarely have any original ideas.

  here's the excerpt from page pg 125:

  Most Gnostics, however, took another line, claiming that Christ was a divine emissary from above, totally spirit, and that he entered the man Jesus temporarily in order to convey the knowledge that can liberate sparks from their material imprisonment. For these Gnostics, Jesus himself was in fact a human, even though some thought that he was not made like the rest if us, so that he could receive the divine emissary; some, for example, thought that he had a "soul-body: rather than a "flesh-body".

  So thats what got me thinking "a different race" in that sense....but again it doesn't contrast well with Satan.... maybe the idea is more along the line of being of the seed/race of Seth/Saviour rather than of the Demiurge.
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  rick_here

  Re: Judas "Iscariot"
  
  I looked into other etiological possibilities and found 2 cities named "Kerioth" (or Kirioth) in Judea. One was located about 10 miles south of Hebron toward the southern border of Judea and the other was practically straight across the Dead Sea; also close to the southern border of Judea (near Moab).
  
  Ish Kerioth (as pronounced in Hebrew) means "a man of Kerioth"; Iscariot being the (Hebrew to Greek to English) transliterations.
  
  Some have identified the 12-disciples' "Simon the Zealot" as actually being Judas Iscariot's father... going further out on a limb (?).
  
  Others add that Judas Iscariot (if he was, indeed, from Judea) was added among the 12, at least in part, as someone who knew the (southern Judean) "dialect" and served as a kind of "translator" between the Galileans (Jesus & the other 11). This could have some possibilities in our intrigues.
  
  Now, if I could (somehow) only get all that interested in Star Wars....
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  rick_here

  a geographical correction (on my part); I posted:
  
  

  "If such may have been the case, Judas Iscariot's ancestry was from a region just south of the Galillee." [Re: if Judas Iscariot's "lineage" may have been from the tribe of Issachar].

  
  
  My mistake here is that the ancient border of the land designated to the tribe of Issachar was actually proximal to the southern border of the Galilee in NT times. In other words, the old land of Issachar is, essentially, "Galilee's southern border" in the 1st century.
  
  
  Leolaia,
  
  Judas Iscariot's name being a kind of combination-name of "Judah Issachar" is a possibility that I won't dismiss. Using footnotes (in my NIV Study Bible), "the name 'Judah' sounds like the Hebrew word for praise" (and) "the Hebrew word 'Issachar' sounds like the Hebrew word for a reward."
  
  This isn't much of an 'intellectual reply' on if Judas' name really means "Judah Issachar" (or not). Nor does it answer if Judas was from Galilee or if he was was a Judean.
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  rick_here

  Leolaia (again),
  
  

  There is also an interesting Petrine tradition about the church itself as being a "different race," of Christianity as the "third way" (neither Jew nor Gentile)....
  The "different race" theme is certainly given a rather different application in the Petrine pseudepigrapha, but it still looks like a thread that runs between distinct groups of Christian literatures....btw, the Petrine idea of Christians as a "third race" is not ideologically one of including Gentiles into the Jewish fold but rather creating a new race that was neither Jewish nor Gentile.

  
  
  A different (or another) race I clearly see in both biblical and extra-biblical writings. But, forgive me if I didn't check all your references (and I didn't/ have time), but I've never read in any of these texts about a "third race."
  
  The literature speaks about "births" (or being born into a race) and I've identified "Two Races" that seem to be consistent throughout all of the literature (biblical and non-biblical). This is a theme that seems to be somewhat "unknown" (for lack of vocabulary). But it's apparent to me.
  
  I refer you back to my post where quoted from 1 Enoch and the Gospel of John:
  
  

  (and echoing back to an earlier text)
  1 Enoch 39
  1. And it shall come to pass in those days that elect and holy children will descend from the
  2. high heaven, and their seed will become one with the children of men.
  
  Odes of Solomon 31
  4. Then He lifted his voice towards the Most High, and offered to Him those that had become sons through Him.
  
  John 1 (NKJV)
  10. He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him.
  11. He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him.
  12. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name:
  13. who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

  
  
  This might be a tad off-topic for the thread but, surely; I can't be the only person (around) who "sees this" can I?
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  Narkissos

  Rick,

  1 Enoch 39:1f most probably refers (again) to the union of the heavenly Watchers with women... so
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  rick_here

  Midget-Sasquatch,
  

  Most Gnostics, however, took another line, claiming that Christ was a divine emissary from above, totally spirit, and that he entered the man Jesus temporarily in order to convey the knowledge that can liberate sparks from their material imprisonment. For these Gnostics, Jesus himself was in fact a human, even though some thought that he was not made like the rest if us, so that he could receive the divine emissary; some, for example, thought that he had a "soul-body: rather than a "flesh-body".

  
  and going back to Narkissos,
  

  [in Nag Hammadi]...Allogenes (in contrast to Autogenes) does not seem to be the heavenly Revealer, rather a disciple who gradually came to gnôsis through a series of trials and then teaches another.
  
  
  In the extant GJudas it is difficult to tell whether Allogenes or someone else is (temporarily?) defeated and unable to enslave (the archontes?). But this could suit a disciple character too.

  Leaving aside specific "gnostic doctrines" about Christ; let's consider Christology in general. There is support for the "humanity" of Jesus (in both the canonical and (some) gnostic writings). What the 'orthodox' (NT) texts don't really ever elaborate on -- or explore -- is Jesus (own) self-knowledge of who he was.
  
  It's somewhat obliquely hinted at in the canon, but always after the fact. "Don't you know I must be about my Father's business?" (the earliest e.g.). At this point Jesus had come to some definate awareness of who he "was" to his personal identity. "He [Jesus] learned obedience through what he suffered", (in Hebrews somewhere, paraphrased). This text points to Jesus' adult life and undoubtedly, and invetivably, to his Passion.
  
  We Christians, and JW's, and ex-JW's, aren't all that accustomed to seeing Jesus as a "disciple of God." We assume that there must have been something different inside Jesus that made him radically different than we are, humanly speaking. And while this is certainly so (!); each of us has to go thru our own "Allogenes" stage... the path of self-knowldege.
  
  In this sense of being a "student under God's instruction" (a human being, disciple); I find no apparent conflict in seeing Jesus as "an Allogenes figure." Even the Son of God had to find out who he was....
  
  \o/
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  rick_here

  Hello Narkissos! (and I have to go (for now) after this post),
  

  1 Enoch 39:1f most probably refers (again) to the union of the heavenly Watchers with women... so "?"

  
  
  Good question; I've asked that and much more about the text in question. This led me to an 'in-depth study' (to the best of my ability) of Genesis 6:4 and of the Nephilim.
  
  To abbreviate my findings; I see 1 Enoch and Ge. 6 (Nephilim) as a kind of apocalyptic description of (what we normally refer to as) "The Fall of Man." However, this wouldn't be the "original Fall" (of Adam & Eve).
  
  It's the later Ante-Deluvian (before the flood) Fall, imo, described in apocalyptic phraseology or terms. Put another way, the "race" of the fallen ones (lit., nephilim) began at this time.
  
  
  Though there were a certian people specifically identified as "Nephilim" I do not see them as some kind of mysterious "giants" (which is due to an erroneous translation in the LXX). Nor do I see them as a strange "Bible Science-Fiction-Giants" (or the as the object of jokes).
  
  
  Essentially, being "born of (or by) a spirit" or having a spiritual-birth and, therefore, being "in" a spiritual-family is what I'm driving at. I believe the Bible (and extra-canonical literature as well) points to "people being in One of the Two Families" by virue of their spiritual birthright.
  
  1 Enoch 15 (Charles translation)
  1. And He answered and said to me, and I heard His voice: 'Fear not, Enoch, thou righteous man and scribe of righteousness: approach hither and hear my voice.
  2. And go, say to the Watchers of heaven, who have sent thee to intercede for them: "You should intercede" for men, and not men for you:
  3. Wherefore have ye left the high, holy, and eternal heaven, and lain with women, and defiled yourselves with the daughters of men and taken to yourselves wives, and done like the children of earth, and begotten giants (as your) sons?
  4. And though ye were holy, spiritual, living the eternal life, you have defiled yourselves with the blood of women, and have begotten (children) with the blood of flesh, and, as the children of men, have lusted after flesh and blood as those also do who die and perish.
  5. Therefore have I given them wives also that they might impregnate them, and beget children by them, that thus nothing might be wanting to them on earth. 6. But you were formerly spiritual, living the eternal life, and immortal for all generations of the world.
  
  7. And therefore I have not appointed wives for you; for as for the spiritual ones of the heaven, in heaven is their dwelling.
  
  8. And now, the giants, who are produced from the spirits and flesh, shall be called evil spirits upon the earth, and on the earth shall be their dwelling.
  9. Evil spirits have proceeded from their bodies; because they are born from men, and from the holy Watchers is their beginning and primal origin; they shall be evil spirits on earth, and evil spirits shall they be called.
  
  10. As for the spirits of heaven, in heaven shall be their dwelling, but as for the spirits of the earth which were born upon the earth, on the earth shall be their dwelling.
  11. And the spirits of the giants afflict, oppress, destroy, attack, do battle, and work destruction on the earth, and cause trouble: they take no food, but nevertheless hunger and thirst, and cause offences. And these spirits shall rise up against the children of men and against the women, because they have proceeded from THEM.
  
  divisions, emphases, & caps, mine
  
  
  \o/
  
  I have to go for now....
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  rick_here

  1 Enoch 39
  1. And it shall come to pass in those days that elect and holy children will descend from the
  2. high heaven, and their seed will become one with the children of men.
  
  
  The "second spiritual birth"... initiated by Jesus (the Son of Man) who descended from heaven.