Gospel of Judas: Geography and Named Places

Some time ago I ran a series cataloging and measuring different points about the Biblical gospels and the alternative gospels. This included an analysis of the extent to which they were rooted in the physical world of geography and named places. At that time that I ran the series, the Gospel of Judas was still somewhat new to an English translation and there had been recent disputes over the translation and meaning of various parts of the text. With some time having gone by, I'd like to add the Gospel of Judas to the analysis. 

In the surviving text, there is one reference to a named place in the earthly world: a single reference to Judea: "One day he was with his disciples in Judea," very close to the beginning of the text as we have it, setting the scene for what follows. 

For those who are used to the Biblical gospels, the entire surviving text containing a single mention of one geographical region is relatively little grounding in the physical world. Though to take the Gospel of Judas on its own terms, it is relatively little interested in the earthly world, and might take exception to the Biblical gospels for how little reference they make to spirit-beings, aeons, and generations -- without a single reference to the angel or spirit-being Saklas among the four of them.

Ultimately, the Gospel of Judas has a different focus, and takes place in a different spiritual setting than the canonical gospels. There is more to be said of the Gospel of Judas in general; this focuses simply on the geography.

Word Cloud: The Gospel of Judas

Some years ago I made word clouds of the better-known non-canonical documents that are sometimes labeled as gospels. I have always intended to revisit that and add a word cloud for the Gospel of Judas. Finally, this week, I found the opportune block of time. The source text used is the National Geographic Society 2008 text (the second edition).

Adam  (4) aeon (18) altar (8) angels (28) answered (6) appeared (12) become (4) called (8) cloud (11) completion (5) created (7) disciples (12) eyes (5) generation (39) God  (10) heard (7) heavens (7) holy (8) house (5) human (13) incorruptible (4) Jesus  (32) Judas  (20) kingdom (5) laughed (8) life (5) light (6) lord (5) luminaries (9) Master  (8) name (15) number (7) offer (6) others (8) people (11) power (4) priests (5) received (7) rest (5) rule (7) ruler (6) sacrifice (6) Saklas  (6) souls (6) spirit (12) stand (9) stars (16) together (4) Truly  (8) twelve (13)

created at TagCrowd.com

The threshold cutoff for the cloud was the top 50 most frequent word. This one has some points of interest compared to some other documents previously reviewed. 

1. While Jesus is a major focus, his name takes second place in the word rankings, mentioned less often than "generation". 
2. "Aeon" is mentioned more than "God". 
   
3. The only disciple whose name is in the top 50 words is Judas. 
4. While other disciples do not make the list, the spirit-being Saklas gets a fair amount of mention and makes the cutoff.
   
5. In the Gospel of Judas, one of Jesus' most common actions is laughing, often at the expense of people around him. 
6. When the name Judas occurs, it is not accompanied by a disambiguation-phrase based on an awareness of more than one man named Judas in the narrative.
   
7. The phrase "Holy Spirit" does not occur in the translation that I have. Neither do the names Mary, Joseph, Peter, James, John, Matthew, Andrew, Philip, Bartholomew, or any of the less-commonly-known disciples, as far as I can find. 
8. As in more familiar texts, "Truly" here is a translation of Amen, according to the notes from the translator(s).

Thank you for reading!

Be still 2021

For the last few years, the world seems increasingly loud and chaotic. Intentionally so. As if to drown out thought, or the clarity of thought that comes with calmness. As God's children, we can offer a measure of peace to this world. As God's children, He offers a measure of peace to us.

Be still, and know that I am God -- Psalm 46:10

He makes wars cease to the ends of the earth.
He breaks the bow, and cuts the spear in pieces.
He burns the chariot in fire.
Be still, and know that I am God. (Psalm 46:9-10, AV modernized)

He makes wars cease to the ends of the earth.
He grounds the war planes and missiles
He demolishes the tanks (2021 technology)
Be still, and know that He is God.

Who listens to His voice?
Who hears His word?
Who guards the value of a moment's silence?
Be still, and know that He is God.

The unknowability of God, and God's character

It's all about character.

Back when I taught teen Sunday school, at one point I used coins as an illustration. It's only really necessary to have two coins for the illustration: pennies and quarters are useful since the images on them are more readily recognized. 

If I hold up a penny, ask someone to look closely at the image, then ask "Who is that?", the answer comes back: Abraham Lincoln. If I do the same with a quarter, the answer comes back: George Washington. And with decent likenesses, we can answer questions from looking at them. "Who had a beard: Washington or Lincoln?" We can see that it's Lincoln. "One of them had a wig with a long strand of hair in back. Which one?" We can see that it's Washington.  

And then: I place the quarter on my thumb, flip the coin so that it spins in the air many times before I catch it, slap it face-down on my other arm in traditional coin-toss fashion, and with the coin still covered I ask one question: "Is George Washington dizzy?"

At which point they laugh but they get the point. You can tell a lot from an image. The better the image, the more you can tell. But the image is separate from the original. We could use the same quarter in a coin-toss all day, and it would never make George Washington dizzy. 

The word "character" is originally a Greek word, used in engraving and in minting coins which were made by stamping an impression. In this sense, "character" is used in a famous passage in the New Testament, discussing Jesus' relationship to God: "Who being a reflection of his glory and an impression of his substance" -- or in the words of a more familiar translation, "Who being the brightness of his glory and the express image of his person ..." (Hebrews 1:3). 

If you have ever spoken to someone who is not used to the ideas of Christianity, sooner or later we are called to explain what we mean about Jesus and God. "Whoever has seen me has seen the Father," Jesus told his disciples. And yet when Jesus died on the cross, God did not cease to exist. Much like, when I tossed the coin, George Washington was not dizzy. The analogy is imperfect but it makes its point.

We can look at the image and learn about things unseen. It is often the purpose of an image: to make known or make present things that are not seen. The better the image, the more clearly we see what we could not otherwise see. Jesus was born in a certain time and place in human history; there was a time before he existed. Much like the coins were minted long after the time of the persons represented. Yet it is a key part of Jesus' essence: whoever has seen him has seen the Father. 

That is my two cents' worth for the day.

Prophecy and the Spiritual Relevance of the Promised Future

[On the topic of prophecies of the future] In fact, if it weren't spiritually relevant in some way to the time period before the fulfillment, there would be no point in God revealing it. -- St Aron of the neighboring blog Undivided Looking

On Aron's blog recently, he touched on a question that I had not given thought: Why does God give us prophecy? I had considered what I saw in Scripture when there were accounts of previous prophecies being fulfilled: that people might (or might not) recognize a prophecy as it was fulfilled; that people might (or might not) consider God faithful as he kept his promises. Those things are true enough, and either look backward at fulfilled prophecy, or look to the present to see if any signs are occurring at the time. But Aron's comment added more depth to that: the idea that God likely intends some spiritual benefit to us in the meantime. My thoughts turned to how very likely that is, and what spiritual benefits may come:

• Hope - The expectation of justice and peace can sustain hope
  
• Preparedness for adversity - Physical preparation leads us to to be ready with prudent reserves of earthly supplies; spiritual preparation may lead us to treasure Christ in our hearts, or to keep our treasures in heaven, and be mentally prepared for both physical and spiritual hardship
  
• Peace - The recognition of God's plans can bring peace to our hearts that insulates us against the chaos in the world
  
• Confidence - Trust in God's promises can bring us boldness and a willingness to act even when things seem bleak
  
• Faith - Recognizing God's providence, God's compassion, God's mercy can empower us to see the future more calmly and wisely
  
• Joy - A foretaste of the feast to come can bring us a moment of joy now as a down payment on the joy of the future

For the promised future: Thanks be to God!

"Give your church, Lord, to see days of peace and unity"

On Pentecost each year, the churches to which I belong usually sing a particular hymn with a prayer that calls for the peace and unity of the church. In practice, unity comes from having one leader. I believe that the only possible unity of the church comes from recognizing one leader: Christ. And yet Christ's presence is not a physical, visible, tangible presence. The leadership vacuum is variously filled in ways that create either separation (you go your way and we'll go ours) or turf wars where one group believes that others owe them allegiance. It is easy to look at teachings that divide us. Is it the teachings, or is it the attitude? If each group believes it is infallible or inerrant, it is closed not only to correction but also to other understandings. By the way, mention of infallible or inerrant may have the surface appearance that it is meant to discuss Rome or fundamentalists, but it is not intended that way; my experience is that all groups believe that their distinctive teachings are beyond dispute. 

It is human nature to believe we are right, to trust our own thoughts even when we have reason to double-check them. Whenever we are proved to have been wrong, it is easy to dismiss that as a mistake, as a product of a temporary and unusual situation -- instead of part of the human condition where it is all too common to be missing important information or to be swayed to an error in judgment.

And so this year I would add to the prayer: 

Give your church, Lord to see days of true humility
Guide us then to seek you Lord, unity within  your fold.
Lord have mercy!

Some areas where our culture can grow: Faith, hope, and love

In Christian values, the greatest virtues are faith, hope, and love; the greatest of these is love. These are in stark contrast to the fear, apocalyptic expectations, and hatred that have seeped into the culture. I will admit that I have underestimated the value of faith, hope, and love many times. There is a corner of my mind that is skeptical of them as virtues compared to (say) honesty or courage. Yet people can have honesty and courage while doing things without love and without hope. Honesty and courage are virtues that can be shared by hero and villain alike. And so faith, hope, and love are the type of virtue that will give us the better direction than we would have otherwise.

"Faith" as a virtue was often a relationship-word, something similar to trust. Without faith or trust in someone or something, what remains is a free-for-all, a street brawl, a power struggle. There is no peace without faith in something. It remains to be seen if faith in each other is possible without shared values. Is our shared humanity enough to help our culture? Possibly, if we insist that we do in fact share humanity, and cease dehumanizing each other.

Hope is important as an antidote to despair. Actions of despair, "desperate" actions, have a reputation as showing bad thought, being rash and destructive. Despair prevents us from thinking clearly, prevents us from seeing solutions or from working toward them. Despair is the voice of self-sabotage; hope is the prerequisite for a solution or a reconciliation. Hope can build on the observation that life keeps trying to find a way forward, that people continue working to solve problems, that few people genuinely wish harm on their neighbor. Hope can be a thoughtful hope, considering how many imagined catastrophes have never come to pass, or have fizzled before they materialized.Those who hope in the Lord hope still more.

Taking a stand for the virtue of "love" seems awkward or embarrassing; it's easier to discuss "kindness" (which is also lacking far too often). And "love" can have unintended overtones; it may be helpful to think of it, at the most modest level, as a vested interest in the well-being of another. We do have a vested interest in each others' well-being. There can be more to love than that, but I do not see how there can be less. 

There was a popular commentator who would often say that he chose hope: that giving up is easy, and that hope was a conscious choice (or words to that effect). Let me make a conscious choice for hope.