The Gospel According to Judas by Benjamin Iscariot

44. Like so many old men, Abba could recall every detail of what had happened forty years before, while barely remembering what had taken place the previous day.

45. I could have written much more, but when the Essenes learned from a passing stranger that a legion of Roman soldiers had been seen crossing the Judean desert in the direction of Khirbet Qumran, Abba insisted that I should make haste, leave and return home.

46. I wanted to go on setting down my father’s words, but his mind was now preoccupied with my safety and the likely consequences of the approaching Roman army.

47. I obeyed Abba’s command and, placing the several pages of this manuscript in a leather pouch, reluctantly left him to go back to my family in Kerioth.

48. Many of the Essenes had already deserted the compound and fled south, to take refuge in the fortress at Masada.

[xlii]

49. When they left, I witnessed several of them carrying manuscripts on their persons.

50. I later learned that such was their passion in all things that at Masada the Essenes chose to die by their own hand, rather than be captured, taken back to Rome and paraded in front of the pagans on a victory march.

51. I fear that all the trouble the Essenes had taken over the years to preserve their treasured scrolls must surely have been in vain.

52. Judas was three score years and ten at that time, and too feeble to contemplate the steep climb that would have taken him to the relative safety of Masada.

53. Judas, along with a handful of his companions, remained resolutely inside the compound of Khirbet Qumran.

54. The gates of the fortress were locked and barred as they awaited the approach of the Roman army.

55. Four days later the compound was overrun by a legion of Roman soldiers.

56. Judas was arrested and along with seven of his companions, sentenced to death without trial.

57. Judas fell on his knees when the sentence was pronounced.

58. He gave thanks to YHWH when he learned that he would suffer the same fate as Jesus.

[xliii]

59. Judas died as Jesus did. He was crucified by the Romans.

Glossary

THE GLOSSARY provides clarifications for certain details of The Gospel According to Judas, written against the background of a first-century world.

HIGHLIGHTED PASSAGES in The Gospel According to Judas are either direct citations from the biblical text, or paraphrases of it. Sources are always indicated, but the citation of the biblical source is preceded by ‘see’.

ALL BIBLICAL TEXTS are an original translation of the author(s), guided by the Revised Standard Version and the New Revised Standard Version.

i. GOSPELS: The Gospels were written late in the first century (Mark: circa AD70, Matthew: circa AD85, Luke: circa AD85, John: circa AD100). We do not know the identity of the Evangelists, as the names Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were all added to manuscripts late in the second century. It is probable that none of the Evangelists was an Apostle. Christian tradition holds that Mark was a close associate of Peter in Rome, but not an Apostle. Matthew was a well-instructed Jew who became a Christian (see Matt 13:52). The fact that the name of the tax collector (Levi) in Mark 2:14 (see also Luke 5:27) becomes ‘Matthew’ in Matt 9:9 may be a self-identification of the Apostle Matthew (see Matt 10:3; Mark 3:18; Luke 6:15), but this is not proof positive. ‘The Beloved Disciple’ of the Fourth Gospel was identified as John late in the second century. The author of the Fourth Gospel was more likely an ex-disciple of John the Baptist who became a close follower of Jesus, but not one of the Twelve. The Christian Church regards the four Gospels as ‘Sacred Scripture’. They are narrative descriptions of what God did for humankind through the life, teaching, death and resurrection of Jesus.

ii. FATHERS AND SONS: As a result of the empire created by Alexander the Great (336–323BC), Greek was the language commonly spoken and used for written communication throughout the Mediterranean basin, and beyond. All the documents of the New Testament, the product of a Jewish world, are written in Greek. The ‘family’ (the bet-’ab: ‘the house of the father’) is the most important unit in the nation, and for the survival of the individual. The numerous genealogical lists in both the Old and the New Testament (see, for example, Gen 36:9–14; 1 Chron 9:39–44; Matt 1:1–17; Luke 3:23–38) show how crucial it was to ‘own’ one’s patrimony. As well as economic and social patrimony, sons had a responsibility to continue the traditions of their fathers. This responsibility is powerfully presented in the Jewish document The Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs, and also in Ben Sirach. In the former the ‘sons’ are instructed by their father to pass on his tradition, and the latter is a text that shows this being carried out with respect by a grandson. This book, also known as Ecclesiasticus, originally written in Hebrew, was translated into Greek before the Christian era.

iii. GOSPELS NOT ACCEPTED BY THE CHRISTIANS: There were many ‘gospels’, known as ‘apocryphal gospels’, that were not accepted by the emerging Church. A collection of such gospel material, written in Coptic, but originally in Greek, The Codex Tchacos, was made public in 1999. Several fragments of a ‘Gospel of Judas’ can be found in the codex, and these possibly date back to AD180. The text is fragmentary, not really a ‘gospel’, and is representative of a second-century Gnostic understanding of Jesus. Judas is presented as someone who is encouraged by Jesus to do God’s will by setting in motion the action that will liberate Jesus from the wicked human condition to become a heavenly figure. For a discussion by the Archbishop of Durham, see T. Wright, Judas and the Gospel of Jesus (London: SPCK, 2006). The Gospel According to Judas recorded here was not inspired by this text, but attempts to present the Christian story through the eyes of Judas.

iv. THE NAME ‘JUDAS ISCARIOT’: As well as the explanation of the surname Iscariot put forward in The Gospel According To Judas 1:12–15, several other hypotheses have been advanced, e.g. that Judas was a ‘deliverer’ on the basis of the Hebrew root verb, skr. The name ‘Judas’ is a Greek form of the Hebrew ‘Judah’.

v. THE BIRTH OF JESUS: Judas’ understanding of the birth of Jesus is not the ‘Roman Catholic’ interpretation, as expressed in the Marian doctrines, especially that of Mary’s perpetual virginity. It is, however, a widely accepted understanding of such texts as Matthew 1:25; Mark 3:31–35; 6:3; John 7:3–8. Judas, like any strictly brought-up Jew, could only accept Jesus as the first born of a lawful Jewish wedlock.

vi. SEXUAL UNIONS BETWEEN ANGELS AND WOMEN: Pre-Christian and Rabbinic traditions look back on the unions between angels and human women, as told in Genesis 6:1–4, as the source of evil and the presence of giants in the world. So serious was this evil that God regretted putting Adam and Eve on the earth. His heart grieved, and in the destruction th

at followed, only Noah and his family survived (see Gen 6:1–9:17). See the development of Gen 6:1–4 in the Qumran documents (e.g. 4QBook of Giants) and in 1 Enoch (see 1 Enoch 6 and 7).

vii. TOUCHING A WOMAN: Jesus’ touching a woman who is not his wife would be regarded as a breach of piety. Later Rabbinic legislation prohibits a woman from serving at table, as the private matter of a woman’s menstrual cycle could not be ascertained. For the biblical background of this custom, see Lev 15:19–24; 18:6; 22:10; 36:17, and the tractate Niddah in the Mishnah. As Rabbi Samuel (died circa AD254) said: ‘One must under no circumstance be served by a woman, be she adult or child.’