This Gospel contains few narrative elements essentially, the Gospel records how Judas was taught by Jesus the true meaning of his message. According to the text, Judas is the only one of Jesus's disciples who accurately understands the words of his master. The Gospel of Judas consists of 16 chapters which document Jesus's teaching about spiritual matters and cosmology. Cited in support of this dating is the reference to a "Gospel of Judas" by the early Christian writer Irenaeus of Lyons, who, in arguing against Gnosticism, described the text as "fictitious history" and "blasphemous" heresies." However, it is uncertain whether the text mentioned by Irenaeus is in fact the same text as the Coptic "Gospel of Judas" found in the Codex Tchacos. It has also been speculated, on the basis of textual analysis concerning features of dialect and Greek loan words, that the Coptic text contained in the codex may be a translation from an older Greek manuscript dating, at the earliest, to c. The codex had been stored in a cardboard box for two decades as it was shopped around to potential buyers, and had, at various points, been stored in a freezer, a safety deposit box in Long Island, and folded in half. Individual leaves may have been removed and sold. According to Coptic scholar Rodolphe Kasser, the codex originally contained 31 leaves, each written on both sides by the time the codex came to the market in 1999, only 13 leaves survived. Some passages are only scattered words others contain many lines. Numerous sections are missing as a result of poor handling and storage. The manuscript disintegrated into over a thousand pieces. The manuscript was radiocarbon dated and described by the National Geographic as showing a likely date between 220–340 AD. The codex contains text that appears to be from the late 2nd century and includes the first known surviving copy of the self-titled "Gospel of Judas" ( Euangelion Ioudas), which relates the story of Jesus's death from the viewpoint of Judas. and showed some of the papyrus pages for the first time." On April 6, 2006, "the National Geographic Society in the US published the first translation of the text from Coptic to English. The antiquities dealer became concerned with the manuscript's deteriorating condition and transferred possession to the Maecenas Foundation for Ancient Art in Basel, Switzerland, in 2000, to oversee its preservation, translation and hopeful sale. It was named Codex Tchacos by its penultimate owner, antiquities dealer Frieda Nussberger-Tchacos, in honor of her father, Dimaratos Tchacos. Background įirst page of the Gospel of Judas ( of Codex Tchacos)Ī leather-bound Coptic language papyrus document surfaced during the 1970s near Beni Masar, Egypt. April Deconick challenges the National Geographic interpretation of the Gospel of Judas, contending instead that the text was written by a group of Sethians as a parody about a "demon" Judas. It asserts that the other disciples had not learned the true Gospel, which Jesus taught only to Judas, the sole follower belonging to (or set apart from) the "holy generation" among the disciples. In contrast to the canonical gospels, which paint Judas as a betrayer who delivered Jesus to the authorities for crucifixion in exchange for money, the Gospel of Judas portrays Judas's actions as done in obedience to instructions given to him by Jesus. It has been suggested that the text derives from an earlier manuscript in the Greek language An English translation was first published in early 2006 by the National Geographic Society. The only copy of it known to exist is a Coptic language text that has been carbon dated to 280 AD, plus or minus 60 years. Given that it includes late 2nd-century theology, it is widely thought to have been composed in the 2nd century (prior to 180 AD) by Gnostic Christians, rather than the historic Judas himself. The content consists of conversations between Jesus and Judas Iscariot. The Gospel of Judas is a non-canonical Gnostic gospel.
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