So where’s the news in this
alleged ‘good news’ from Judas?
By Brad Warthen
Editorial Page Editor
AS A CHILD, I used to wonder why we made such a big, happy deal about Easter. Why celebrate the death of Jesus? Didn’t we like him?
Adults hastened to explain that Easter wasn’t about His death, but about the Resurrection.
OK, I got that. But didn’t he have to be crucified to rise? And wasn’t that a horrible, undeserved death? Wouldn’t he have been just as alive on Sunday if Pilate had let him go Friday?
I had a lot of questions. (Don’t even get me started on what the Bunny and the eggs have to do with it.) Maybe my failure to get over the link between Good Friday and Easter helps explain why I became a Catholic. The basis of our faith is the Resurrection, but we never forget to “preach Christ crucified.” Paul said that was “foolishness” to outsiders. It was also pretty confusing to a little Protestant kid, looking at an empty cross and holding a basket full of candy eggs and plastic grass.
But that’s not what I’m writing about today. I’m writing about the new “Gospel of Judas.” The above was just an excuse to bring it up today. No crucifixion, no resurrection. No Judas, no crucifixion.
What do we get from this “new” rendition? Why the fuss? Sure, it’s got some freaky stuff — it claims Jesus wasn’t the son of the God we know and love, but of another entity, and that he was pure spirit, and not a man at all. Freaky, but not new. It was all dismissed as heresy long ago.
Now let’s examine the supposed “insights” into Judas. From what I’ve seen, this piece of papyrus simply restates things we already knew, or guessed, about the man from Kerioth:
- Rather than being a spoiler who betrayed the divine plan, Judas was a special part of it. So? I just said that. No Judas, no crucifixion. The authorities might have grabbed Jesus without a mole — he was out in public all day — but that presented a political problem. Better to grab him at night. But apparently, he had no local address, and stayed on the move. They needed inside intel, in real time. Well worth 30 pieces of silver.
- Judas wasn’t all that bad. Well, we already knew (from the real Gospels) that when he found out Jesus had been killed as a result of his actions, he was filled with remorse unto despair. A thoroughly evil man would have taken the money and celebrated. Judas tossed the coins and hanged himself. Sounds like a man with a conscience. Judas wasn’t so much bad as he was weak, faithless and easily duped.
- Jesus knew what Judas was going to do. Duh. We knew that already, from the Rabbi’s actions and words during the Seder in the upper room. He said someone was going to betray him, then let John know who it was, then told Judas to get it over with. (How did the rest of the apostles miss what was going on? Why did John just sit there? Hush, child.)
- Jesus wanted him to do it. OK, this one does get confusing. To say he wanted to die on the cross is stretching the point — as evidence, I submit his sweating blood at Gethsemane. It was God’s idea, not his. Of course, he was God as well as man, which makes that whole conversation explicable only as a mystery, and the concept of what Jesus as a human individual wanted is therefore beyond us. He understood the necessity; he explained that to his followers repeatedly, slow as they were to get it. But want to? He wouldn’t have been human to want that, just as he wouldn’t have been God not to.
- Judas and Jesus were close. I had sort of gathered that. Jesus had let him hold the money. Not that the Lord cared much about money, but it was still a big responsibility. I always wondered why that task wasn’t entrusted to Matthew, given his background. (I suppose an anti-tax activist could explain that to me.)
- Jesus told Judas things he didn’t tell the others. Take that one with a big grain of the salt of the earth. John’s Gospel makes a similar claim, and more credibly.
Besides, a lot of us augment our impression of figures in the Bible from traditions and even popular culture. Talk about the closeness of Jesus and Judas, and I think of the relationship depicted in “Jesus Christ Superstar.” Not exactly divine revelation, but it shows that somebody — agnostic composers at that — thought of the two men as close friends more than a generation before National Geographic finished its “Judas” project. And Webber and Rice were not the only dramatizers to have assumed that Judas thought he was helping Jesus — getting him put away for a few days until things cooled down.
Then there’s the thing about how this is good news for Jews, and a real settler for anti-Semites. Once again, I don’t see how. If you’re stupid enough to come away from reading the New Testament hating Jews, the “revelation” that Judas wasn’t all that bad isn’t going to stop you. So he was a Jew? So were all the good guys — including the main one. And what’s helpful about a text that absurdly claims Jews worshipped the wrong God?
This new “Gospel” is a bunch of hype, based partly in the fact that National Geographic paid a fortune for it, and has to play it for all it’s worth. (It’s already available in bookstores, by the way.) True, I’m not qualified to judge, not being fluent in Coptic. I’m pretty content to leave that up to experts. We Catholics are happy (sometimes, too happy) to delegate. To my knowledge, the committee that passes judgment on stuff like that hasn’t met in centuries, and I’m not a member of it anyway.
Legit or not, it doesn’t do much for me. “Gospel” means “good news.” But where’s the news in this one?
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How did this multi-lingual casino ad get in here? Pretty ironic, in view of the topic (Judas), I must say.
Great piece today, Brad. I, too, grew up, not only with an empty cross, but being admonished “not to worship a dead Christ.” That admonition has its merit, as Easter makes plain. But perhaps American Christianity has tended to skip over the suffering of Christ too quickly? Serving in three Lutheran parish churches in this area, with the crucifix constantly in front of me, reminded me that the sufferings of Christ were neither quick nor easy. Perhaps the theologian Helmut Thielicke was right when he said that American Christians do not really understand suffering?
Anyway, thanks for underlining the unimportance of this National Geographic article and Gnostic gospel. We have found something that the early church rejected in the late 2nd century. With the blurring of good and evil in Gnosticism, it is no surprise that Judas comes out here as a good guy. He did also among the Sawi in Irian Jayaas Don Richardson discovered when he tried to share the Gospel there (betrayal was the highest value in that culture. Everytime God becomes the author of both good and evil (as in “the dark side of the Force”), Gnosticism rears its ugly head again.
The early Christians knew what was Scripture, and what wasn’t. Born in the context of 1st century Judaism, they placed great value in exact transmission of the words of Jesus. They knew exactly what He had said, and what He had not said,
[this wouldn’t accept some of my last post; I had to split it into two parts] and what He had done, and had not done, and maintained the difference. The canon of Scripture was forged through eyewitnesses first of all, then through a church that had to decide which books were worth dying for, and which were not. The way that we play lightly with the results of the battles they already fought through for us, is sometimes alarming. The New Testament warns us on the subject.
The death and resurrection of Christ, all prophesied in the Old Testament, is the greatest miracle of all, beside which all other miracles of Christ pale. But on this Easter Sunday, I would still like to include some thoughts from a personal friend of mine. Dr. Hans-Joachim Eckstein is professor of New Testament now at the University of Tuebingen (formerly professor at the university of Heidelberg), and well acquainted with radical views of Jesus and Scripture. I am sure that he will not mind my making a poor attempt at a translation of his thoughts on another miracle of Jesus that was also recently in the news. These words are out of one his books, Du liebst mich, also bin ich (“You love me, therefore I am”):
The Lord is risen! Blessed Easter everyone!
And I must add, Brad, that you do some great writing while you are hiding underneath your desk!
Brad and all, Happy Easter!
Like nearly all Christians, I believe Judas was predestined to betray Jesus to fulfill the prophesy. At the same time, I would watch the Natl. Geog. special if it is replayed. Sounds pretty interesting. Here is another of the mysterious happenings that intrigues me. Jesus had his brother James, yet, Jesus told the Mother Mary that the disciple John (?) was now her son. Mary then lived out her life with the new son. That would have been unheard of in those days, for a mother to “adopt” a new son, leaving her biological son.
Dear Editor Warthen,
That was a very interesting, informative and brave editorial. I appreciate your effort to educate the public on this matter. Unfortunately many who see movies, TV, popular book talk etc are swayed by such cultural events without checking them out. And very few people who call themselves Christians these days know how to do sound theological research. Your column was very helpful in adding to the information instead of the mis-information.
In these politically correct anti-Christian times, it takes some courage to go against the tide. May God bless you extra for that.
I also appreciate that your paper is willing to print my occasional conservative guest columns on subjects that stir my heart. Thank you for giving me that window of opportunity from time to time. I have enjoyed working with Mike Fitts as an editor for those columns. I look forward to serving you again in the future.
Hope you had a Happy Resurrection Day and will have a productive and fulfilling spring.
After a reading (or staring at) a few of these posts, I’m thinking maybe this little “community” should pass and English only law.
Lately, I’ve been comptemplating boycotting companys that give a Spanish option when calling or offering services. This is after all, AMERICA. (getting off soapbox)
I have finally gotten rid of that infamia of an Italian gambling come-on.
Sorry to take so long. Someone brought it to my attention yesterday and I had said I’d deal with it right away, but forgot. Easter Sunday is kind of a busy day.
Such a disgrazia…
Lo siento mucho, VietVet. We will try to do better.
Herb:
Achtung! Wir sind Amerikanerin hier! Sprechen sie Englisch!
Hey! I went to all the trouble to translate that German piece word for word, and you castigate me for putting in the German? Come on! The German was for the odd person out who could understand it — it’s better in German.
Besides, when you find an accredited German theologian who is halfway evangelical, you gotta give the original, just in case nobody believes that he could write something like that, and wants to check it out.
I suspect that some people just skim over a lot of posts and make judgments based on them without reading them. I’ve been guilty of that myself. Now I know that I’m not the only one . . . .
Don’t get me wrong, Herb; I liked your contribution. It’s just fun to yell at people in German, and I couldn’t pass up the opportunity.
I may have gotten it wrong, though. Should that have been “spreche,” or was “sprechen” correct?
Well, as usual, I don’t get American humor — been gone too long, I guess. But hopefully you recognized my tongue-in-cheek as well?
Sprechen goes with Sie (but you have to capitalize Sie, otherwise, it means “she”), spreche is first person singular, “ich spreche”. Except that sprechen doesn’t fit at all. I guess we use the expression “speak” rather loosely; if Germans write, they write; if the speak, they speak, but don’t mix the two up. German is too exact for that. You’d actually write, “Schreiben Sie auf Englisch, bitte!
Except you wouldn’t call me Herb normally, if you use “Sie”; “Du” goes with the informal first name basis.
The former German chancellor, Helmut Kohl, was known to be a poor master of English. As the story goes, he and his wife, Hannelore, were visiting a zoo in London. Hannelore asks (in German of course, but I’m being good and keeping to English), “look at that, Helmut Schaetzilein [little treasure], what animal is that?” “That is a Dan-ger-os! [spoken with a hard “g” please].” (All nouns are capitalized in German, as you know). She was rather perplexed, because she had never heard of such an animal, but they continued on. But the same thing happened three times in a row. Always the same answer, “that is a Dan-ger-os!” “But how can all these animals be Dan-ger-oses?” asked Hannelore?
“Look!, said Helmut, “the sign says, all animals are dan-ger-ous!”
I don’t know if the story is apocryphal or not (probably), but Helmut Kohl is supposed to have said to Margaret Thatcher, “you can say ‘you’ to me” (not knowing that we got rid of the informal “thou and thee” a few centuries ago).
Oh, there is an instance where you would say “er spreche,” but it’s subjunctive, if I remember my grammar. I guess we’d translate, depending on the context, “let him say”.
Now that was more grammar lesson than you were wanting, right?
Oh, and I can’t resist this one. I don’t think Jimmy Carter could ever figure out why he couldn’t get along with Helmut Schmidt, but he insisted on a first name basis. Except that Helmut insisted on calling him “Mr. President.”‘ Germans just don’t go easily to first names, especially the older generation. If they use first names with somebody, they have a little party and celebrate. Otherwise, last name basis is an expression of respect. Using somebody’s first name in the wrong context can be taken as an intentional insult.
Who knows what positive changes in American-German relations might have been possible if Jimmy had not insisted on insulting Helmut?
At least that’s my take on it, from my reading of German news at the time. It might have been interpreted differently here.
Remember the famous JFK Berlin speech – Some thought he had said, ” I am a Berliner”, where in parts of Germany a Berliner is a jelly doughnut. That brought a laugh from the crowd.
Nur ein kurzer, unwissenschaftlicher Zusatz von einem ehemaligen Berliner: In Berlin heissen die kugligen Dinger mit Marmelade drin nicht etwa “Berliner Pfannkuchen” oder kurz “Berliner”, sondern einfach nur Pfannkuchen, weil man ja schon in Berlin ist, vermute ich. Man kann aber Berliner (jelly doughnuts) in anderen Teilen Deutschlands kaufen. Mit anderen Worten, die Berliner, also die Einwohner in Berlin, wären allein nie auf den Gedanken gekommen, dass Kennedy gesagt haben koennte, ich bin ein “Pfannkuchen, Krapfen” oder so etwas aehnliches. Diese Interpretation kam wohl von Übersee auf die Berliner.
Just a short, unscientific addition by a former Berliner. In Berlin the ball-shaped things with marmelade inside are not called anything like Berlin Pancakes or Berliners for short, rather they’re simply called pancakes, because you’re already in Berlin, I suppose. One can buy jelly doughnuts by the name of Berliners in other parts of Germany. In other words, the Berliners, that is the residents of Berlin, would never have come upon the idea that Kennedy could have said, I’m a Pancake, jelly doughnut, or anything of the sort. This interpretation probably came from abroad.
But this is a pretty common joke in southern Germany, at least where I lived most of the time. They call them “Berliners” just about all over the south. I never spent much time in Berlin.
I suspect the more conservative politically probably liked the joke as well.
But in general, Kennedy’s good looks, his wife’s beauty, and one German sentence, made him popular there for all time. All things being equal, we could enhance America’s image in the world by just taking foreign languages seriously.
But I still say there is nothing like Krispy Kreme.
I only knew about the “Berliner” joke because I’m a fan of Len Deighton’s spy novels, and it was mentioned there.
Breakfast beckoning, a blueberry Berliner befits a blogger beautifully!!!!!!!