The gospel of Judas

Its nothing new but the publication of 'The Gospel According to Judas' is again being highlighted and publicised, partly because of the involvement of Jeffrey Archer. No doubt some will say that it casts fresh doubt over the Bible and Christianity. It does after all claim that Jesus never did some of the miracles the gospels attribute to him, nor did Judas betray Jesus for 30 piece of silver.

The book claims that Judas was not the character that the Bible portrays, that he never committed suicide, that he thought he was saving Jesus from himself when he handed him over to the authorities. After Jesus death Judas joins the Essenes before he himself is crucified by the Romans.

The only problem with the whole 'Gospel According to Judas' is that there is not a scrap of evidence for it. Even its co-author, J. Maloney, says that “not everything in this book can be regarded as probable. But everything must be possible.” The authors even had heated debates about the ending, should Judas have a death bed conversion to Christianity or not?

'The Gospel according to Judas' is a fiction built upon speculation. How should we react to it? It certainly isn't something to be feared, but we should be concerned about its effects on those who hear of it and are therefore hardened to the real gospel. It should drive us out to share the gospel with people because in contrast that is a story that is worth telling.