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![]() When National Geographic magazine publicized the discovery of the Gospel of Judas early in 2006, the magazine claimed that the document presented a loyal, sensitive and, perhaps, misunderstood Judas. “So the gospel mocks the apostolic Christians and criticizes the doctrine of atonement and the Eucharist or communion.” He was also a Gnostic who did not get along with the apostolic or mainstream Christians,” DeConick told Baptist Press. Gnostics also believed that all flesh was evil, and the goal of human salvation was to have one’s spirit reunited with the one true God. Jesus, they taught, had come from the one true God to share this knowledge with human beings, who had been created by an evil and inferior God, Jehovah, the God of the Old Testament and one of multiple deities. Gnostics taught that salvation came by obtaining secret knowledge, or gnosis (from the Greek). ![]() ![]() ![]() In fact, April DeConick, a professor of biblical studies at Rice and author of “The Thirteenth Apostle: What the Gospel of Judas Really Says,” notes that the document actually calls Judas a “thirteenth demon.” That translation of the ancient Coptic text conforms fairly well to what biblical scholars have said of Judas for centuries as well as ancient commentaries from the church fathers who regarded Gnosticism as heresy. HOUSTON (BP)–A new book by a biblical scholar at Rice University refutes the claims of the National Geographic Society in 2006 that a third- or fourth-century fragment of the Gospel of Judas depicted “the son of perdition” as a hero. ![]()
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