AmericanPapist Comments
I would be cautious of simply dismissing a historically relevant text as a form of pseudo-scholarship. In his work, "Adversus haereses" (180AD), St. Irenaeus of Lyons makes reference to the "Gospel of Judas" and refutes it and other Gnostic texts. The importance of this present text is that it is part of the spiritual history of Christianity. What is ridiculous is how sensationalist journalism seeks to portray this text as something which is going to have any effect on the teachings of the Catholic Church or Christianity at large. Nonetheless, the text is historically significant, even if only from the perspective that we now have a copy of the document Irenaeus refuted in his work against the heresies in the early Church. To say anything less or more is the result of poor formation with regard to the history of our Church.
I'm not claiming that the gospel of judas is a fraud, I'm claiming that the USE of that document to propose a serious challenge to the historicity of the gospel accounts is objectively not good scholarship.
The gnostics postdated christianity, are not even a christian "sect" or "heresy" properly speaking, and routinely rewrote spurious histories as well as appropriated christian names and concepts to win proselytes among christianity.
... and oh yes, I've read some parts of Adversus Haereses - almost everyone who has commented on this story have mentioned that as well. So yes, I'm aware of it. :)
Amen. I am in full agreement with you in regard to the use of this document. However, the Gnostics actually predated Christianity and bear a striking resemblance to an extreme form of Platonic philosophy - which would have been widespread throughout Judea during the time of Jesus, and probably had been present there for several hundred years. Alexander the Great's conquest of Judea (and the rest of the Persian Empire) circa 332BC, ushered in the Hellenistic age when Greek philosophy, culture, language, etc. were spread throughout the empire inorder to bring unity. The influence of Greek Language, culture and philosophy only became stronger under the Ptolemeic dynasty after ALexander's death - leading to the eventual translation of the Torah into Greek. A hybrid Hebrew and Hellenistic philosphy also flourished during this time - all before the Maccabean revolt circa 166. Thus, Greek philosophy along with the Greco-Hebrew hybrid philosophy were certainly present before and during the time of Jesus.
There has been much research done to show that the roots of Gnosticism and it's reliance on Hellenistic thought begin before the time of Christ (see the Catholic Encyclopedia entry for several good references). Therefore, it would not seem to me to be too far-fetched an idea to think that at some point in the early days of Christianity, there was a further melange of Christian thought and belief with that of the Gnostics, resulting in the heresy as we know it. A similar point could be made about Arianism which followed -and which also has Greek undertones.
At any rate, I still agree that this sensationalism - that this new "gospel" will have any effect on Christianity - is patently rediculous and it only proves the ignorance of the journalists who know little or nothing about the actual history of the Church. This will fizzle out in a week or so - my humble prediction. Best Regards!
CUA-Phl (which I take to mean that you are a philosophy student at Catholic Univ. of America),
Actually, while JND Kelly and other older scholars do claim that gnosticism predated christianity, recent scholarship has shown that the reverse is actually true (I study with one of the foremost patristics scholars in the world, if you want me to find texts/sources for these claims I'll try).
The earliest "true" gnostic texts date from the 2nd century A.D.
Most scholars (including "mainstream" ones), now agree with this position.
Now, granted, gnosticism has elements of many earier streams of thought, including paganism (platonism), mystery religions, judaism, esotericism, christianity (note: EARLIER) - and frankly it's really spurious to talk about any "orthodox" strain of gnosticism since the various sects are not generally all that homogenous,
nonetheless... most scholars today actually think that christianity influenced the rise of gnosticism, not the reverse (for instance, Dr. Jenkins at Penn. State, who I've talked about several times today).
what sources that you've read claim gnosticism ("proper") predates christianity?
Thanks - I find this an interesting discussion.
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