A Judas Compendium
October 8th, 2007 by 
Tony
April DeConick at The Forbidden Gospels mentions a forthcoming book by Marvin Meyer on the full range of Judas traditions from early Christian writers. The book is due in November and is titled Judas: The Definitive Collection of Gospels and Legends About the Infamous Apostle of Jesus. This is a welcome resource as these traditions, though not all contained in gospels, are nevertheless apocryphal traditions and deserve greater exposure and discussion.
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October 15th, 2007 at 10:47 pm
I heard (I think it was last year in the gospel of Judas) that the betrayal of Jesus by Judas was not actually the case. I remember them saying that Jesus and Judas had a plan that Jesus would be betrayed by Judas and orthodoxy changed that.
Professor how far back can this idea be dated, and what is its most probable date (main consesus of scholars)? I remember looking at your office door and this gospel was featured on it; im guessing you know the information on it.
Also something I’ve been thinking about lateley with all these “scholars.” Like you said a lot of scholars like to write books and make a lot of money and step a little bit away from journaling, into book writing. Ive been thinking that maybe many of these ideas and “scholars think” suggestions are just put out there to make money and to be known. Im not saying all, but I mean if I can kind of make a crazy theory with a little support from the evidence, it seems that I can become popular and make a lot of money off this (I guess kind of like the Jesus family tomb thing) and people from all over the world will quote me, and I can then write a book on it and make millions. Sounds quite silly, but sure as hell seems very probable…i mean ive been thinking about this, and you can find a scholar who supports every single idea out there. And it seems you will definately be popular if you hold to the minority of opinion.
Crazy.
Thank you
October 16th, 2007 at 11:19 am
When the Gospel of Judas first saw publication, the first commentators believed the gospel claimed that Judas was a favored apostle of Jesus whom Jesus chose for a special task–namely, to “betray” him and therefore allow Jesus to embrace his destiny. Other scholars, who are now finally publishing their views, believe the text does not say that at all, but that Judas is still demonized in the Gospel of Judas. This text is not enamoured with any of the apostles, but Judas is considered the worst of all. For more on this checkout my previous posts on the Gospel of Judas and the posts on April DeConick’s blog The Forbidden Gospels.
As for “loose canons” of NTA scholarship, I’d like to think the majority of them are sincere about their views. Making a wild theory sells books but it diminishes your esteem among fellow scholars, and I don’t think anyone would trade that for money. The wilder theories are usually put forward by hacks (i.e., not formally-trained Biblical scholars, like Michael Baigent). And they are not taken very seriously once the furor dies down. Even the theories by liberal scholars like Ehrman or Koester, though they may not be wholly convincing, offer something for us to consider further–i.e., they might point us in new directions.
Our evidence of early Christianity is so fragmentary and so murky that it allows us to reconstruct the history in a variety of ways. The variety of opinions by scholars is testament to this problem and not necessarily testament to scholars’ willingness to say just about anything withouit support. That’s one of the things I find most fascinating about studying early Christianity.