The Gospel of Judas

A note to my son about The Gospel of Judas,
This is not news, in the sense that it just happened.
This “breaking news” was offered one week before Holy Thursday; the day Judas is traditionally credited for betraying Jesus. This does not feel like coincidence to me. I believe someone has offered this Gospel of Judas precisely at this time to make sure it would be noticed. It worked.
The fact is there are hundreds of early church related manuscripts. Literally hundreds.
Almost all are reputable and have been verified as authentic. This does not mean they are helpful or even truthful in their witness to the events. Each of these bodies of work were known and available at the time of canonization of the scriptures and were not chosen to be a part of the corpus of the body of work we know as the Bible. Why were they (or this) manuscript not included?
My guess, probably because the message is not consistent with the other witnesses. When hundreds of people see the same event someone is going to see a shot from the grassy knoll, even if there was none. We must go with the majority of the witness, the ones which come from reputable sources. By the way, The Gospel of Judas comes from the Gnostic community. My New Interpreters Bible Dictionary offers that the earliest testimonies for the existence of Gnosticism (Gnosis = knowledge) “comes from the second century, from heretical groups rather loosely related to the Christian Church. To fully understand this document we must also understand the context, both historically and theologically. Gnostic beliefs may appear closely aligned to our orthodox Christian beliefs, but in closer examination I find that while appearing similar they are not of the same substance.
My point is simply this. This gospel of Judas has merit. It is worth studying. It has been, and will continue to be interpreted by scholars and those who work in the area of textual studies. It should not however be cause for alarm or a revision of our current Bible. If this news event causes us to reach further into our own study and contemplation of the events of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ then this media event has proved worthwhile. If on the other hand the Christian community allows the gospel of Judas to be elevated to a position of equality of witness along side of our current Bible by a post modern society who wants to believe there is an ongoing large conspiracy surrounding the historical Jesus (example: The Di Vinci Code) than we will have failed as a society and become no more than the Biblical portrayal of Judas in the betrayal of our savior.
I remember studying heretical groups and textual sources while in seminary. I remember thinking this would never be useful, because in my personal experience I had not encountered a society willing to re-think these already discarded ideas. I was wrong, as we now live in a new post–modern society who is very willing to renew and repackage some ancient ideas as new information.
So, we need not run for our lives. The sky is not falling.
Love, Dad.