Judas the Star

When Jesus had thus said, he was troubled in spirit, and testified, and said, Verily, verily, I say unto you, that one of you shall betray me.
Then the disciples looked one on another, doubting of whom he spake.
Now there was leaning on Jesus' bosom one of his disciples, whom Jesus loved.
Simon Peter therefore beckoned to him, that he should ask who it should be of whom he spake.
He then lying on Jesus' breast saith unto him, Lord, who is it?
Jesus answered, He it is, to whom I shall give a sop, when I have dipped it. And when he had dipped the sop, he gave it to Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon.
And after the sop Satan entered into him. Then said Jesus unto him, That thou doest, do quickly.
Now no man at the table knew for what intent he spake this unto him.
For some of them thought, because Judas had the bag, that Jesus had said unto him, Buy those things that we have need of against the feast; or that he should give something to the poor.
He than having recieved tha sop went immediately out: and it was night. (1 John 13:21-30)

I am intrigued by The Gospel of Judas, and though I had taken a liking to the infamous Judas before, now he has become famous in traditional selfless John Wayne style. Dare we call him a star?

In the movie script of the old version, written by the apostle John (above, King James version), the role of Judas would have been played by a character actor in a minor role, like one of the children in The Sound of Music. He would be the irritating clingy one that always has to sit by Jesus and monopolize his attention, driving the other apostles nuts. He was the most flawed of all the apostles, full of contradictions, and no lightening revelation of pure devotion marked his transformation. He did what most humans are inclined to do. He fucked up. (In a similar vein, I was quite attracted to Boromir's character in The Lord of the Rings, also a "traitor" who represented the deep conflict of being human.)

No offense to Jesus, but this new gospel is big news, it seems to me. It changes everything, makes things less black and white, brings some doubt into the mix and complicates what we thought of as "reality". The newly redefined Judas Iscariot, described as the only one of the 12 disciples to understand Jesus' teachings, made a real fucking sacrifice, just like Jesus, but unlike Christ, received no spotlight or accolades. Well, it seems that Judas' time has come. Suddenly a character we had thought of as minor is presented in a major role, sort of like the movie Rosencranz and Guildenstern, which retells the story of Hamlet from the perspective of two minor characters who have no control of their destiny. Or how about Adaptation, a movie in which the screenwriter revises the original book upon which the movie is based to make himself the protagonist? New perspectives are always interesting, and we are lucky to have them.

And now that we have Judas' own version of his story, it reminds me of so many relevant issues that I thought were lost in this conservative age in which we live, like "Who is allowed to write history? Who is allowed to have a voice, and why? Who benefits from the versions of history that become canon?" There has been such a "revisionist history" backlash toward multiculturalism, feminism, all of the movements that would give voice to the voiceless. Who says the personal isn't political? Contrary to popular belief, Judas is an antihero.

Though some theologians have hypothesized the "good Judas" before, scholars who have translated and studied the text said this was the first time an ancient document lent specific support to a revised image of the man whose name in history has been synonymous with treachery...

Already, some scholars are saying that this Gospel sheds new light on the historical relationship between Jesus and Judas. They find strands of secret Jewish mysticism running through the beliefs expressed by some branches of early Christianity.

But others say the text is merely one more scripture produced by a marginalized Christian cult of Gnostics, who lived so many years after Jesus' day that they could not possibly produce anything accurate about his life. For these reasons, the discoveries are expected to intrigue theologians and historians of religion and perhaps be deeply troubling to some church leaders and lay believers. (The New York Times)

A tradition of bible-thumping hell and brimstone preaching has gone down concerning Judas the turncoat, and preachers don't take kindly to being challenged, I've noticed. Will they have to redirect all that fire toward some other villain? Will they simply deny the Judas gospel, fearing the wider implications that accompany it? Will they fear appearing less authoritative? Letting the people think for themselves can be a dangerous thing.

"These discoveries are exploding the myth of a monolithic religion and demonstrating how diverse — and fascinating — the early Christian movement really was," said Elaine Pagels, a professor of religion at Princeton who specializes in studies of the Gnostics. (The New York Times)

Once again I am reminded that all things change.