Friends and coworkers have come up to me in the past week wanting to talk about the Gospel of Judas. “John,” they say, “you hear about this Gospel of Judas? I guess he was told by Jesus to betray him.” My boss was more skeptical, and suggested that Judas or his followers were trying to make him look better. But the overall sense I got was that this was some kind of smoking gun discovered or dark conspiracy unveiled. My response to them was, “hey—it’s no big deal.”

It’s more complex than that, of course. The discovery and translation of the Gospel of Judas is a big deal to historians of early Christianity—especially of the Gnostic varieties. But does it tell us anything more about Judas the apostle or Jesus? Probably not.

Many Biblical scholars question the historical accuracy of much the canonical Gospels, which were written within three to six decades of Jesus’ death. Some argue that they tell us more about the concerns of his followers in the first decades of the Jesus movement than they do about Jesus’ life. The Gospel of Judas codex that’s in the news was produced over two and half centuries after the crucifixion. It is possible that some of the content may be older—in 180 C.E., Bishop Irenaeus, early heretic hunter, warns about a Gnostic “Gospel of Judas,” and scholars suggest that the concerns discussed in the text reflect the concerns of Second and Third Century Gnostic Christians.

Personally, I think that the Gospel of Judas is a big deal. But I’m also a nascent religious historian who has a hobbyist’s interest in the history of Christianity and its struggles in the first two to three hundred years after the death of its founder. Unfortunately it seems like the media has to hype this to sell papers and commercials and therefore has chosen to turn this into a Great Media Event. But if you’re worried (or eager) about this being some sort of threat to the New Testament accounts, then believe me when I tell you: it really is No. Big. Deal.

Here’s a few links that may be interesting or helpful:

The National Geographic Site. Part of me thinks that they’re responsible for the media hype, since they’re airing a documentary which will include a dramatization of part of the content, but the site seems pretty focused on the science and history behind the discovery.

An NPR transcript that gives a balanced overview, though the lead paragraph suggests that the Gospel of Judas is somehow comparable to the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

A New York Times Op-Ed Piece by Elaine Pagels. I really like Pagels, who is a scholar of Gnostic Christianity at Princeton. Though I find aspects of Gnosticism to be very appealing, I’m not sure I agree with her tactic of increasing Gnostic Christianity’s significance today by increasing its significance in early Christianity. Still, I highly recommend her book, The Gnostic Gospels.