Was watching some history video about deleted religious texts the other day and it mentioned that some ancient scrolls that may have been part of the dead sea scrolls suggests that Judas was instructed by Jesus to betray him. Which makes sense in the context of the story and its religious implications because Jesus could not be the savior of humanity if he wasn't crucified.
If you're talking about the Gospel of Judas, that isn't from the Dead Sea scrolls, but was its own distinct finding.
The Dead Sea scrolls are a collection of texts of a cult based around a messianic figure, rooted in Judaism, but dated between the 3rd and 1st century BCE, discovered in the 1940s.
They do not mention Judas, but are interesting in that the actual messianic figure himself seems to have written some of the texts, that he uses some of the same verses and stories from the Torah to identify himself as the Messiah that would later be used by (attributed to being used by) Jesus, that some of the texts were written by others of the same cult after his death, and show how they theologically cope with their Messiah seemingly failing his own prophecies and claims.
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The Gospel of Judas, on the other hand, is dated to the 2nd century CE and was ....well, the story goes it was found in Egypt some point prior to the 1970s, then got traded around by black market antiquities dealers, spent about a decade in a safe deposit box, nearly totally disintegrated, and was eventually shown to a proper academic expert in greek and coptic, leading to it being painstakingly reassembled, radio carbon dated, linguistically verified as not being a much later forgery, and translated, first publicly widely available in English in 2006.
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The actual story in the Gospel of Judas is stunningly bizarre:
You start off with Jesus literally mocking and laughing at all his disciples other than Judas for seemingly not understanding anything he's ever said.
Later, privately, Judas confronts Jesus saying that he does understand Jesus... that Jesus is from the immortal realm of Barbelo.
Jesus then goes on to describe that yes, he was making fun of the other disciples because they think he is the Messiah of Yahweh / The God of Judaism, when in actuality Jesus is a human incarnation or avatar of a completely different divine entity, that Yahweh is actually Saklas / Yaldebaoth, a mad, malformed demiurge descended from a long line of other, superior, more wise and beneficent divine entities in an elaborate and historied pantheon (which Jesus admits his own knowledge of is not total and complete), that Saklas / Yaldebaoth falsely believes himself to be the supreme God of all reality when in fact he only has domain over the Earth, which is basically an innately evil realm, and that all humans were accidentally created with a tiny bit of the pure divine spark in them but are all here trapped and cursed to suffer as basically slaves and playthings of Saklas.
The fragment ends with Jesus explaining that basically his master plan for saving all of mankind involves sacrificing himself to help more people realize their true inner divinity, and that he only trusts Judas, his wisest disciple, to make that actually happen.
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To me, it reads like someone took acid or shrooms and wrote a fan fiction drawing from the 4 more mainstream gospels. Its truly wild.
The 'Judas was actually a good guy' part is basically a footnote compared to how totally out of left field everything else is.
IIRC, Saklas or Saklos basically transliterates to 'The Blind One', which is a name you'd expect a Lovecraftian entity to have.
Idk what the official term i theological circles is, but many groups had trouble squaring the circle between the wrathful and jealous god of the Old Testament with the god of mercy and love Jesus preached. Many groups, such as the Gnostics and later Cathars, rejected the god of the Old Testament as an evil fraud.
What sparked my "hmm" neurons the most in your comment is that there are canonical parts of the Bible that sound like someone was having a bad trip too - The book apocalypse or however it is properly called. It describes in detail a vision of death, destruction, animals morphing into animals, has a barely coherent plot, everything is soaking in mystic symbolism - it has all the parts of a bad trip, and yet it's always treated by religious people as at least a valid metaphor of things to come, and not ramblings of someone who ate the wrong cactus in the desert
why make a special exception for this bad trip, and not the other one with an evil yahwe? It really feels to me like the church is cherry picking things to suit their own narrative, instead of somehow dealing with all the apocryphal sources they just ignore them
How is that any more fantastical than the current interpretation of events?
In one, Jesus thinks he's the son of god, and in the other he thinks he's the son of a different god. A benevolent god is just as likely as a selfish one isnt it?
Its amazing what people will believe when there is no better explanation though, in either case.
Warn about the silliness of taking mythological teachings literally.
Provides a more complex mythological teaching and some “you’re the smartest student one for knowing” psychology as huge bait to test if you actually understand or just reading along.
Their gnostic philosophy is about obtaining secret knowledge referring to the highest deity being “the unknowable”
Gnostic = Agnostic if i read this well. Am i missing something, honest question…
Where we Saklas all along? Cant help but notice actual church being dogmatic about ancient texts, blind to their meaning
Didn't human literally presume to be center of The universe while we’re literally just on “Earth” in an infinite unreachable cosmos?
I am reading a bizar religious text and its making more and more sense the deeper the rabbit hole i go. Help!…
I think it's wild how the Bible basically says there are many other gods. Yahweh only claims to be the greatest and commands his followers to only worship him. Sometimes over the years, that became interpreted as "there is only one God" despite the Bible not saying that.
There's a fascinating idea that Judas was the one who committed the ultimate sacrifice. That god chose him to be his human incarnate, to truly experience humanity and guilt by committing an ultimate betrayal and becoming the villain of biblical history. All allowing him to finally understand and forgive humanity's sin, by committing one himself. It follows that this is supposedly maddening knowledge as it breaks the illusion of Christ's sacrifice.
I'm definitely butchering and ad-libbing the original idea, but I think this makes for a grander story than the traditional "birth myself to sacrifice myself to myself to forgive everyone else" interpretation.
I mean, in the Bible it's explicit that Jesus knew Judas would betray him and didn't do anything about it whether he told him to or not. Not much explanation for that except that a martyr story is a much more powerful message.
That story in the bible has many different versions if you compare ancient texts that describe it.
There were originally major inconsistencies in the rebirth story between the different books in the new testament.
It seems odd to just talk about the current version as its written, when we know its been revised numerous times since then. Wouldnt the original documents be more useful?
That might only be important if the history of it matters, as it still makes a great myth.
Even taking out instruction by Jesus, which would be controversial, the story would not have played out correctly without the betrayal of Judas. He had a pivotal role.
A more friendly interpretation would be that Jesus knew Judas would betray him from the beginning and allowed it to happen, because it was God’s Will.
I think Jesus could be fairly certain based on his own actions that at some point violence would come to him.
Its interesting that it came from a follower, maybe the world's most famous whistleblower?
Which makes sense in the context of the story and its religious implications because Jesus could not be the savior of humanity if he wasn’t crucified.
In what way does the last part make sense? Just asking because it only really does if you buy the whole inherited sin idea and the idea that sins can somehow be transferred to another and the idea that death somehow absolves someone of their sins even without the eternal punishment part that comes after in the rest of the belief system. The term fractally wrong comes to mind, no matter how many of the ideas you exclude from scrutiny and treat as a given, the rest still doesn't make sense.
For one, it was part of the prophecy that's referenced a few times in the New Testament.
For two, martyrs maker good PR. My favorite example is:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignatius_of_Antioch
Who near as I can tell arranged his own arrest and execution in Rome, and preached the entire way there to the crowds that came to see a Christian (novel in those days)
That's the gospel of Judas, and it's considered part of Gnostic doctrine, which is basically the one thing all Christians agree on, in that they all agree it is absolute heresy.
Like basically considered pagan in terms of how "Christian" it's seen as.
I actually have an idea for an althist based on if the core gospels were instead replaced with the Gospels of Thomas, Mary, Phillip, and Judas, leading to Christianity developing as a wildly more mystical sort of religion, and possibly even less tolerant of old faiths since Gnostic doctrines, of which all four of those gospels are apparently heavily steeped in, believes everything material and old testament related is literally made by satan, would need to actually research that one lol.
Gnosticism, to me, honestly feels like the true story of Christianity. Like, in the gospel of Mary I believe it's basically stated that Mary was the favorite apostle of Jesus and that Peter was jealous. So while all the other apostles seem to have encountered Jesus after his death in a more spiritual fashion rather than a literal resurrection, Peter was the only one to have explicitly met Jesus and seen him physically resurrect after his death. Convenient that Jesus would also tell him, and only him, that he would carry on as the head of the faith.
I just love how much the whole thing feels like the church covering up what really happened, even if it's basically impossible to know for sure.
It sorta seems hypocritical for one religion to criticize another in the first place, but obviously those in the religion dont see it as fantasy like those outside do. It would be sorta like if the DnD hobbyists were really aggressive about converting people to DnD.
But that aside, how do Christians reconcile all of the different sects? If only one sect gets it right, doesn't that mean they accept that the majority of Christians won't?
Why do we even put the sects under the umbrella of Christianity? It seems like that lends a lot of credence to what would otherwise be very small religions if they had to stand on their own.
I just want to say that this has been the most thoroughly enjoyable conversation I've come across in a long time. Nearly every comment and response has been really interesting. I spent a lot of time upvoting.
Yea this was a good thread. Except for your comment, which is off topic 😉
Apothrical books of the Bible are a fun rabbit hole! Was it this video?
https://youtu.be/fryITDxUyHA?si=-ROuyoiDy0g_VXJU
5:20 is when they discuss it.
There was also a deleted verse where Judas shouted "IT WAS A PRANK BRO" to Jesus after he came back from the dead.
Like a maniac shooting flaming arrows of death is one who deceives their neighbor and says, “It was a prank bro” Proverbs 26:18-19
Here's the best possible history video on the topic:
I'll be Jesus, if you'll be my Judas and betray me, so I am not forgotten, so my story will live on.
Let me get this straight. You think that your client, one of the holiest, most powerful men in the world, is secretly the son of God, who spends his nights beating sinners to a pulp with his bare hands, and your plan is to betray this person? Good luck.
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Claims to be the highest level Cleric in the game
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Dies to a single hit from a level 1 spearman
Judas was correct to take the money. Those apostles would have been TPK'd at Masada anyway.
Yeah but in the lore he chose to let himself get killed so he could flex his resurrection spell.
That was a post-game DM rewrite.
Ahh, but that single strike was a coup-de-grace. And it looks like Jesus just couldn't pass that fortitude save...
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You're either the most powerful man in the room or you're nothing.
-JudasBetrayal grindset and Judas-pilled
If you're not first, you're last.
-Ricky Bobby
Why does it hurt when I pee?
- Frank Zappa
I mean, he got away with it, technically, didn't he? He only stopped himself.
Depends on which story you believe. Matthew says he hung himself. Acts says he fell and busted his head open in a more accidental way. And then there's a few other accounts that aren't in the biblical canon.
Judas just kissed somebody else that looked like Jesus, it was all a just a conspiracy to take heat off Jesus ass.
3 days later he made an apparition to give some last goodbyes and goes off to to live the rest of his life with Mary Magdalene.
He ended up dying in Japan.
Judas just kissed somebody else that looked like Jesus
This is what Muslims actually believe. Jesus wasn't crucified but a lookalike was.
He ended up dying in Japan.
Not this bit though.
The Japan part was a mostly a joke, but there's is indeed some people who believe that. The not being killed part is actually the only logical conclusion if you think realistically about it, but didn't actually know that it was a thing for the Muslims! TIL
Seeing how Judas is a bit "jewy" in this image, it just occurred to me that it'd be funny to troll christians by portraying Jesus as a stereotypical (racist) Jew (because he was Jewish). I wouldn't do that because fuck racism, but the MAGAts would flip their shit.
Personally I only accept Korean Muscle Jesus as my lord and savior
Beating the hell out of you, one sin at a time
Arabs have those 👃 features too 😤
Thirty pieces of silver though, man. When your leader's a dirty hippie you kind of miss the finer things in life, you know?
Besides, Big J said he already knew the betrayal would happen, so who is Judas to change what's meant to be?
"Off chance", no, I'd say the off chance was that he was a demigod as claimed
Meanwhile, I'm dealing with parents that believe in God, Jesus and the holy trinity while claiming they're not religious.
Here's how that works: First, you get preachers to redefine "religion" to mean "following the Biblical laws", then you get them to talk about how Jesus did not come to "abolish Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.", which somehow means the old laws (don't eat shellfish, don't wear clothes made of mixed materials, etc) don't apply anymore???? Anyway, Jesus said "until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished.", but ye olde laws don't apply, and my parents are not-religious Christians.
Oh well, at least they're some of the most loving human beings that ever walked this earth, so if this is the worst I've got to complain about, then my life isn't that bad 😂
They're not "religious" by their own definition, but it's not the definition the rest of the world uses, so it's meaningless. But as long as they're not assholes they can believe what they want!
yfw jesus was a schizotypal homeless man cult guy or something. very easy to betray or kill him
You don't get it. It was written in prophecies - it just must have happened because (supposedly) some guy years before wrote a story about it.
In the book of Mark--the earliest Gospel--none of the disciples realize Jesus is the Son of God, lol.
Scholars call it the "Messianic Secret".
I imagine it all to be like game of thrones or Harry Potter, where the characters have access to incredible magic spells, but hardly ever use them. Maybe Judas just didn’t see enough sparkles.
Why's it so hard to not use fucking slurs?
Because 4chan
