CNN FINDING JESUS: The Gospel of Judas

I have just finished watching another CNN program in their series on FINDING JESUS as part of their pre-Easter schedule. 

This particular episode was about the supposedly recently discovered GOSPEL OF JUDAS even though scholars knew about its existence for some time; this was an actual copy written in COPTIC an Egyptian language that combined Greek letters with an Egyptian language.

I am not sure how the discovery of a copy of the Gospel of Judas serves as some type of evidence that Jesus existed or evidence of what Jesus really did here on earth.

As many scholars will tell you there is no non-Gospel evidence of Jesus in existence because there probably is none to be had. This actually makes some sense since only 3% of the people on earth knew how to read and write and certainly there were very few if any of those in Palestine at the time of Jesus so a written record describing Jesus and his life to have been written at this time would have been quite inconceivable.

The other reason why such a written record would have been inconceivable would have been that the life of Jesus, at that time, would have been nothing to write about even if someone could write something. There were many people like Jesus talking about the end-times coming and yes, many people also performing miracles; Jesus did not stand out as someone special or even someone that mattered to history unlike John the Baptist who was a historic figure because he had been beheaded by Herod who was a king in the region that Roman historians knew about.

As to the Gospel of Judas, CNN just told about the discovery and translation of this Gospel while dramatizing again the Gospel story about Judas Iscariot.

It is interesting how many people and organizations jump on any new discovery with “Biblical” implications. Even the mighty National Geographic Society jumped at creating a documentary which later was shown to be flawed as the person translating the Gospel from Coptic made some serious errors.

We know that there were/are many so called Gospels in existence but only the ones we are familiar with made it into the “canon” as sacred scripture. All the Gospels tell stories about Jesus and his life and all are purported to have been written by Apostles who as historians will tell you were illiterate as was Jesus.

All these Gospels were written by people who obviously knew how to write and they were composed according to what the author wished to tell about Jesus. Some were based on oral history and others were based on what the author wanted us to believe and this included the Gospel of Judas which was an indictment of the Christian leadership at the time of the writing.

Basically it tells us nothing about Jesus the historical figure and just adds to the myth.

It is important to remember that people wrote books for a reason and usually that reason was to push their version of what they wanted the truth to be.

CNN by creating this series and trying to sell it as some type of documentary has lost its credibility in my eyes as an organization trying to bring historic light into a myth knowing full well there is no historic light to bring; they are just trying to attract viewers with a bullshit come-on.

As far as the Judas story for those seekers of truth among you, historians generally discount the belief that Judas merely led the authorities to Jesus since Jesus was not hiding from the authorities. The “real” betrayal that Judas may have committed was to tell the authorities that Jesus told them (the disciples) that he is the future king of the Jews and that is something the Romans did not put up with.

Some historians speculate that Judas was merely trying to force Jesus’ hand into action against the Romans. Judas felt that if Jesus was truly the messiah he would raise up against the Romans and destroy them…we will never really know since there is no video.