The Fort Worth Star-Telegram today published a fascinating story about a document written 300 years after the birth of Christ. The document, belonging to Gnostic Christians in Egypt, tells that Judas, rather than being the betrayer of Christ, was instead Jesus' closest friend and turned him in to the authorities at Jesus' request.
The early Christian Church rejected this story because it differed from the accounts in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. But if Jesus had told only Judas of his request, it seems logical that the other Apostles would have seen Judas' actions as the betrayal of Jesus. Anything Judas might have tried to tell them would be seen as nothing more than an attempt Judas was making to excuse his actions.
This should shake up the biblical scholars for quite a while.
The story is more interesting than just what is reported in the Star-Telegram, however. It seems that the new document was discovered 60 years ago and smuggled illegally out of Egypt. From that time on, it has been in the illegal artifact trade. This story is given in today's Christian Science monitor.
This is one Hell of a good story. Some researcher is going to write an interesting book about it. If I had the money to do the interviews, I'd happily track this back. As it is, I'll buy the book when it comes out.
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