Not Every “Gospel” is Good News
Since no one has taken a bite from the apple, let me begin the discussion on the “Gospel of Judas.”
From the reports I’ve read and seen, the reconstruction of the text seems to be an impressive achievement that provides further insight into early Gnosticism.
The propaganda blitz and the timing of the release certainly raise questions about the agenda driving the spectacle. A number of those granted access and engaged as commentators seem intent on relativizing the importance of the canonical Gospels and minimizing or ignoring issues of theological substance. Their disposition comes across as the equivalent of: “hey, there are all these stories and you take your pick.”
I think that the attitude is the one Robert Bellah in Habits of the Heart termed “expressive individualism.” But, before Bellah, Cardinal Newman referred to the “liberalism” for which matters of truth were reduced to mere opinion and preference.
Most of all, however, from a religious point of view, I find the “Gospel” of Judas no gospel at all. Not merely because its literary form is not that of the life death and new life of the Savior, but because it is utterly devoid of Good News. There is nothing in it to call forth faith, hope, and love. Nothing that would arouse Paul to exclaim: “We preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men and the weakness of God is stronger than men” (1 Cor 1:23-25).
If the Judas text was not acccepted by the early Church, the issue is not “power,”
but authentic spiritual discernment.
Who, exactly, is “relativizing” the canon in light of the “Gospel of Judas”? Are any influential Catholics seriously suggesting that “Judas” reveals some new food for theological thought?
Don’t get me wrong … only want to know … Because everyone I’ve spoken with finds “Judas” more (or less) interesting as proof that the story of Jesus was widely known and was construed–or misconstrued–the story of Christ.
I hope the Church doesn’t get itself into the same kind of lather over “Judas” as it did “The DaVinci Code.”
My theory is that some Catholics found “The DaVinci Code” satisfying not because they believe Jesus and Mary Magdalene have descendants running around Paris and rural Scotland, but because it reflects their frustration that Church authorities operate in secret and sometimes make mistakes that they don’t like to admit.
This was a point a lot of priests and diocesan officials missed when they organized those potluck discussions and came armed to the hilt with their debunking materials.
Theologically, I don’t think “The DaVinci Code” or “The Gospel of Judas” will make much of a splash except as curiosities.
Now, if you want to read a REALLY scary take on Christianity, I recommend John Knox.
To Jean Raber:
I saw Elaine Pagels on the Newshour last week, and she had an op-ed piece in the Times on Friday or Saturday. She seemed to be relativizing the canon.
Reading the story on the Gospel of Judas earlier last week in the NYTimes, I was struck not by the relationship between Judas and Jesus, but by the money issues involved:
The “document” has been known for some time and efforts to sell it came to nothing. James Robinson of Claremont said he tried to buy it, but the asking price (over $2 million) was more than he could pay.
It then apparently languished in a safe deposit box for a number of years.
Then National Geographic agreed to pay to have it “repaired” and translated. The book is out; a TV documentary has been made.
Maybe I’ve been reading to many conspriacy theories (or too much DaVinci Code), but how about this: National Geographic paid a large chunk of money to someone who held an antiquities that was probably stolen from Egypt. NG will make back its money from these sales; the “owner” had been paid by NG and has promised to return it to Egypt. Everybody a winner!
And how about the Gospel of Pontius Pilate that reveals that Jesus bribed Pialte to sentence him to death by crucifixion?
Where is Dan Brown when we need him.
I think the reason that the DaVinci Code was so well received by the secular public is simply that everybody loves spinning conspiracy theories. I don’t think that Opus Dei or people within the Catholic Church would take it upon themselves to hide a deep dark secret and then try to off anybody who threatened to reveal it. But the plausibility of such a situation to those in the secular world certainly makes for a tasty morsal to chew on around the water cooler.
The same is true with Judas and I fear it may bring people with some more traditional piety into considering this text. If Jesus is in complete control (as we oft see in John’s gospel and somewhat in Mark) then Judas was little more than a pawn in the plan. The text seems to acknowledge that much in its attempt to exonerate Judas.
However, what of free will? Is this an attempt to lure Catholicism into a predestination type of argument? That’s a road I don’t want to go down.
Bob Imbelli alludes to the feature of all this that I found particularly distasteful–that this “news” should be released with all the panoply of modern media–press conferences, TV show, op-ed pages–on the even of Holy Week.
It affected my preaching on Palm Sunday. I had had no intention of saying anything about it, but the several references to Judas in the Marcan narrative decided me simply to say a word about it before I began my prepared homily. A few people thanked me for mentioning it.
One doesn’t have to be paranoid, does one?, to think that there’s a persistent effort afoot to discredit mainstream, traditional, dogmatic Christianity?
I agree entirely with the view that the timing of this “revelation” is suspicious as well as distasteful. The media were sucked in all too willingly. What else is new?
The idea that the Gnostics were poor put upon heretics being persecuted by Irenaeus is ludicrous. Between Protestants and Roman Catholics and the Eastern Orthodox the differences are really minor, which is not to say trivial, but it’s a family fight. The Gnostics were as far from Christianity as…you fill in the blanks. We are probably closer to Islam. And poor Irenaeus was in no position to persecute anyone.
I have not read the Gospel of Judas, but from the summary in Adam Gopnik’s review in the New Yorker it sounds like it has the plot of a dopey sci-fi movie, almost. Say, Disney in a bad year.
Finally, I have been reading R. E. Brown’s Death of the Messiah and his little section entitled: Imaginative Rewriting that Nullifies the Crucifixion has a quote that seems appropriate: “…in relation to the passion of Jesus, despite the popular maxim, fiction is stranger than fact–and often, unintentionally or not, more profitable.
Here is a link to that Gopnik review in the New Yorker with the summary of the Gospel of Jesus. It surely does sound like Star Trek or Dr. Who. The release of this manuscript in Holy Week is insensitive and in dreadful taste. But they will probably make a mint on it.
http://www.newyorker.com/printables/critics/060417crbo_books
If you can get a hold of the text, take a look. Not only is it lacking in Good News, but it’s missing another crucial narrative element: sense.
Sorry about the typo in the hasty posting above: “Gospel of Judas,” of course.
I understand why National Geographic has to recoup the million bucks they put into buying the manuscript, but they could have done a program that wasn’t a mirror of the History Channel. One hour would have done.
The Gospel of Judas is actually an interesting manuscript and is more intelligible than many of the Nag Hammadi texts. Its existence shows that there was still interest, even in the fourth century, in the figure of Judas. There is no way of knowing if it is indeed a copy of an earlier manuscript, suchas one that may have been referred to by Irenaeus. The possibility also exists of an ancient forgery. Someone may have run across Irenaeus’ reference, or known of a lost Gospel of Judas and then decided to supply it. This option of course is not discussed in the documentary. The forgery could have been done in the fourth century, so it would still be as old as the carbon dating has shown.
The coptologists who studied the manuscript are first rate. No one knows more about Coptic manuscripts than Stephen Emmel. He, of course, can only say that it is a fourth century manuscript consistent with manuscript types found at Nag Hammadi. That is about as far as it goes.
I, for one, would have preferred a wider range of scholarly opinion instead of the dramatizations, which were repeated throughout the two hours. How many times can Judas kiss Jesus in one program? The Pagels, Ehrmann, Meyer contigent sing the same song, namely that this is evidence for diversity of Christianites that reaches back into the first century. Not necessarily so.
There is no evidence for pre-Christian Gnosticism and there is no firm evidence that New Testament documents have Gnosticizing elements. The real reason Pagels et al. need to make this argument is to undo the theory of early Catholicism. In other words, they have to locate the seeds of the Protestant Reformation in the first century to show that some form of Protestantism has always been a part of Christianity. I have never understood this argument, since the Protestant Reformation, in my opinion, does not need to be validated in this way.
I cannot remember which of their camp said it, but the claim was made that the work of the Protestant Reformation remained undone as long as the canon of Scripture was intact. I think that shows their hand.
The Gospel of Judas may be signifcant if it shows us some other thinkers in the second century. One does not need this book to demonstrate that there was diversity in the early Christian community. We have an excellent work by Roger Haight, “The Christian Community in History” which gives plentiful fodder for diversity in the early church. Why we still get worked up about diversity in this post-John XXIII world is a testament to the mindless quoting of Iraneus and Augustine who seem to maintain that being Catholic is preferable to being Christian. I find it really humorous observing how Augustine does not want to depart from the orthodox Catholic Cyprian on re-baptism. Why are the Donatists no good while Cyprian is? This mindset Angelo Roncalli attempted to eradicate.
Elaine Pagels is a serious scholar. One does not have to agree with her but I would not dismiss her so readily. My question is should we not be more disturbed over a church which has a Mass facing the King, as In Louis XIV, instead of the altar? And after Louis, we had the French Revolution which the official Church totally opposed. No wonder new priests nowadays are more interested in preaching Catholicity instead of stressing the Good Samaritan.
Of course, the betrayer figure is always fascinating. Perhpas Judas is the archtype.
A recent German movie, The Nine Days, set in Belguim?? or Luxembourg?? during WWII features the taunting of a priest released from Dachau to convince his bishop to acquiesce in the Nazi occupation. His Nazi interrogator uses Judas as the centerpice for an argument about the long-run benefits of betryal, and the duty of a Good Christian.
A fascinating move, more fascinating perhaps than the Gospel of Judas.
Pagels & co. seems to assume that diversity is alway a “good thing” and of course then, wherever we find diversity, we have found something good, however much small-minded advocates of orthodoxy may have tried to suppress it. Perhaps they derive “diversitas” from “divus”, and take it to be a (suppressed) synonym of “divinitas”. In the promotion of the new Judas no one that I heard has made much of the fact that the Gnostics regard YHWH as a bungler. That does not look promising for Gnostic-Jewish dialogue.
Thanks to Susan for the link to the Gopnik review.
I had an interesting talk with my mom, a Unitarian, who called me up to see if I’d heard about the Gospel of Judas.
She thinks Christians just want to die and go heaven to be with Jesus.
There probably are Christians like that. Our former Anglican priest used to say, sotto voce, that Gnosticism was alive and well in Christianity because people saw “going to Heaven” (as in “away from Here”) as the end result of a life of “correct” belief.
Anyway, I told Mom that the Gospel of Judas, from what I gather, ignores both Jesus’ mission to the poor and his resurrection after death.
The Resurrection is especially important to Christians in that it underscores that we are supposed to be trying to escape the Bad World of Flesh for the Carnivale of the Spirit.
Jesus didn’t come back as a see-through ghost. He came back with real flesh that St. Thomas touched. He asked for breakfast. He told the disciples to continue his work. He said he would come back to be with us until the end of time (not take us off somewhere else).
We are not meant, ultimately, to “evolve” into spirit-creatures. And there is not supposed to be a Here and There between Heaven and earth, only a veil between that we are supposed to tear away by being Christ to others.
So I don’t think it’s in poor taste that the Gospel of Judas was released now, whatever the publishers intended. It provided an opportunity for me to have a very productive discussion with my mother, and Lord knows those have been rare enough over the years!
Correction: We are NOT supposed to be trying to escape the Bad World of the Flesh.
Sorry about the smiley face. Not sure how it got in there. Yuck.
I had been confessing near disinterest in the Gospel of Judas–then I sat down and read the thing, and some of the commentary accompanying it in the National Geographic-published book. My mind is changed. No, I don’t think the Gospel of Judas turns or will turn Christianity on its head (anymore than other gnostic texts have). Nor do I find it a compelling account of Judas or Jesus. The cosmology is too far out for this contemporary reader, but the scholarly commentary helps make some sense of it, to whatever extent that’s possible (for someone like me, who knows little about the subject). And I’m fascinated. The Platonic elements. The oddity of their idea of the triune God (or Gods?): transcendent father spirit, feminine wisdom (Sophia), and the self-generated (Autogenes, the child). Their explanation for our suffering-laden world. I had read some about the gnostics as proto-feminists, yet the cosmology of the Sethian gnostics, at least as it’s presented in the National Geographic book, seems to work against that claim. According to that cosmology, our world came into being as a result of a mistake by a feminine divinity. She tried to “produce” offspring without the intercession and consent of the father spirit. Because of her divine power, merely thinking of producing a “child” caused her to give birth, but it was an imperfect offspring. This malformed “child,” a product of Sophia’s “disobedience,” also called “the Arrogant One,” is the creator of this world–and he’s a malevolent figure. This has obvious resonance with the story of Eve, not exactly known for its proto-feminism.
Greg,
There are probably some things that can be called “Platonic elements” in Gnosticism, but it is worth noticing that Plotinus regarded the Gnostics as profoundly unPlatonic and attacked them in one his treatises which appears in the corpus edited by Porphyry as “Against the Gnostics”. It is in the Loeb Plotinus in volume II with an introduction by A. H. Armstrong.
Joe Gannon
Thanks for the reference. I’m sure Plotinus is right–but it also seems that certain Platonic (or neo-Platonic? ) elements are peppered throughout at least the Sethian gnostic cosmology. Didn’t mean to suggest that they were thoroughly Platonic.
There are Platonic elements in Gnosticism; they are however, middle-Platonic and not neo-Platonic as in Plotinus. The Timaeus as interpreted by Alcinous was a favorite of the Gnostics and so some Gnostic creation myths borrow from it.