Reddit mentions of The Gospel of Judas, Second Edition

>From a writer’s perspective, the story of Judas and Jesus is one of the most interesting bits about the last days of Jesus. In the tale Jesus asks God directly why it is he that must die for the sins of humanity, implying that he knows exactly what is going to occur. There has been some controversy about Judas’ role in all this. If Jesus knew, did he ask Judas to turn him over or did Judas stab him in the back? Did Judas really hate the savior of all mankind or was he commanded to do what he did? If he was commanded, why didn’t Jesus just turn himself in? There are so many questions! It’s like a half written detective novel. We’re left just at the cusp before the villain reveals himself and his master plan. That’s just sloppy workmanship.

According to The Gospel of Judas, a Gnostic gospel, Jesus asks Judas to betray him. And, in contrast to the New Testament Gospels, Judas Iscariot is presented as a role model for those who wish to be disciples of Jesus. According to The Gospel of Judas, Judas is the disciple that truly understands Jesus.

From the Wikipedia article on the Gospel of Judas:

>According to the canonical Gospels of the New Testament (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John), Judas betrayed Jesus to Jerusalem's Temple authorities, who handed Jesus over to the prefect Pontius Pilate, representative of the occupying Roman Empire, for crucifixion. The Gospel of Judas, on the other hand, portrays Judas in a very different perspective than do the Gospels of the New Testament, according to a preliminary translation made in early 2006 by the National Geographic Society: the Gospel of Judas appears to interpret Judas's act not as betrayal, but rather as an act of obedience to the instructions of Jesus. This assumption is taken on the basis that Jesus required a second agent to set in motion a course of events which he had planned. In that sense Judas acted as a catalyst. The action of Judas, then, was a pivotal point which interconnected a series of simultaneous pre-orchestrated events.
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>This portrayal seems to conform to a notion current in some forms of Gnosticism, that the human form is a spiritual prison, that Judas thus served Christ by helping to release Christ's soul from its physical constraints, and that two kinds of human beings exist: the men furnished with the immortal soul which is "from the eternal realms" and "will abide there always" ("the strong and holy generation...with no ruler over it", to whom Judas belongs), and the other ones, the majority of mankind, who are mortal and therefore unable to reach the salvation. The Gospel of Judas does not claim that the other disciples knew gnostic teachings. On the contrary, it asserts that they had not learned the true Gospel, which Jesus taught only to Judas Iscariot, the sole follower belonging to the "holy generation" among the disciples.

Irenaeus and other early fathers of the Christian church rejected the Gospel of Judas and other Gnostic teachings, so that isn't the picture of Judas presented in the Bible of today. Instead the Gospel of Matthew says Judas was filled with remorse for his act, retruned the thirty pieces of silver to the Jewish high priests, and went out to hang himself. In Acts 1:15-19 he bursts forth in the middle, (i.e. his stomach rips open and he spills his intestines on the ground).

Matthew 27:3-5 (King James Version)

>3 Then Judas, which had betrayed him, when he saw that he was condemned, repented himself, and brought again the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders,
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>4 Saying, I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood. And they said, What is that to us? see thou to that.
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>5 And he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, and departed, and went and hanged himself.

Acts 1:15-19 (King James Version

>18 Now this man purchased a field with the reward of iniquity; and falling headlong, he burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed out.