ADN

who read it?

what are your opinions?

find it here: http://www9.nationalgeographic.com/lost ... fJudas.pdf

I've never read it I don't think, but I'll read it now...

the English translation only has been released 1.5 weeks ago. it was only found in the early 70'ies, but rotted inside a staten island locker for 15 years. This is the result of 5y of restoration.

Tell us some more about the history of this. I haven't heard about it until now.

I just read it, but I will probably need to read it again, when I have more time.

it is a classic gnostic interpretation, and was commonplace until Paul and his followers rewrote the church.

indeed raum. the text was known about before through other references to it.

what i find infinately intruiging about this one, is that it rehearses some of the ideas from John's Apocryphon.

but how I hate the "two words missing", "1 page missing" parts in these texts. /sad.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":(" border="0" alt="sad.gif" />

It just seems like a ton of blasphemy to me. Who has been credited with writing this?

It would be some shit if it was true tho, eh?

Raum, what are your thoughts on Judas being the closest to Jesus as opposed to the one who *betrayed* him?

it was prime-time news here. (it makes me proud it was /:D" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":D" border="0" alt=":D" /> )

the original author of the text is unknown afaik. this probably already is a copy of the original text.

trashtalkr: this is not a blasphemy. it is one of the original scriptures, one of the thirty-something gospels which are believed to have existed. it was not until St. Irenaeus, the bishop of Lyon made a selection of these around 180AD that the bible as we know it was "published". that fact alone (that the bible was a man-made selection of texts) makes it clear to me that the bible alone can not bring you to Truth.

Aemeth: Judas apparently was not only closer than the others, but also the one who was asked by Jesus to betray Him.

btw: National Geographic has a complete site up about the text: http://www9.nationalgeographic.com/lost ... index.html

Brains- you are correct, he was the one asked..

And the selection of the gospels raises many issues with conservative Christians who believe the Bible is the inspired Word of God.

No, I think it is a book with more truth in it than any other, but when you block out your mind and say that "whatever the Bible says is true,
and anything not in the Bible is probably false" you miss a lot of beautiful things. I'm not saying don't read the Bible, I'm saying that thinking and
reasoning should come first. Remember that those who wrote the Bible were human too, and though many were very righteous, holy men, they
were not perfect. This is why their words should be respected, meditated on, and usually followed...but only if you are following because you
agree and understand what your doing, not because it's *in the Bible*.

Sometimes, not always, but it seems that ppl use the Bible as *the standard* because it makes morality easy. Morality is FAR from easy, because in order to
be perfectly moral, you must think as God thinks....which isn't exactly an easy task..

(sorry for the digression)