Judas... the Most Loyal.

Have you heard the latest news? Judas was innocent! That's right. You read it correctly. New evidence have been found that suggests Judas to be the opposite of a traitor. In fact, it turns out that he is the most loyal of them all! Nobody yet can say for certain if this is true... but the Gospel of Judas have just recently been translated.

The National Geographic Society recently released the first modern translation of the ancient Gospel of Judas, which was denounced as heresy by the bishop of Lyon in A.D. 180. From then until a few days ago, the contents of that ancient scroll were a total mystery. What's separates these texts from the four gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) is that it contains some details and conversations between Jesus Christ and Judas Iscariot.

The other apostles pray to a lesser God, Jesus says, and he reveals to Judas the "mysteries of the kingdom" of the true God. He asks Judas to help him return to the kingdom, but to do so, Judas must help him abandon his mortal flesh: "You will sacrifice the man that clothes me," Jesus tells Judas, and acknowledges that Judas "will be cursed by the other generations."

Biblical scholars said the Gospel of Judas differs from the four New Testament Gospels in at least two important ways. First, it portrays Judas not as the betrayer of Jesus but as the most favored of his disciples, the only one who truly understood Jesus.

Some scholars suggested that view -- if it had been accepted -- might have lessened anti-Semitism over the centuries. "The story of the betrayal of Jesus by Judas gave a moral and religious rationale to anti-Jewish sentiment, and that's what made it persistent and vicious," said Princeton University professor Elaine Pagels.

Second, the Gospel of Judas offers a new creation story, depicting the evil world as the product of a bloodthirsty, foolish lower deity, rather than the higher, true God. This duality "is why this gospel could never be accepted by orthodox Christianity," said Bart D. Ehrman, chairman of religious studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Scholars disagreed on whether the gospel sheds any new light on the historical Jesus and Judas Iscariot. Senior, the Catholic priest, said he saw "no evidence that it has a legitimate historical basis" and thought it probably was written by Gnostics who retrospectively attributed their own beliefs to Judas.

But Craig Evans, a professor at Acadia Divinity College in Nova Scotia, said the New Testament also may hint at the new text's central theme -- that Jesus instructed Judas in private to betray him.

In the Book of John, Evans noted, Jesus tells Judas at the Last Supper, "Do quickly what you are going to do," and none of the other disciples know what he means. Maybe the Gospel of Judas "points us in a direction where we can understand Judas's relationship to Jesus a little better," he said.

The Gospel of Judas, however, ends abruptly, drawing no conclusions about the consequences of betrayal: The arresting party "approached Judas and said to him, 'What are you doing here? You are Jesus' disciple.' Judas answered them as they wished. And he received some money and handed him over to them."

Now, if all these are true... then Judas is the most loyal of them all. I mean, do you think it's easy to betray your own God? Even if He tells you to do it? That's going to take a lot of guts and faith to do what he did. I don't think the others were up to it. Only Judas can.

Source: Washington Post.