HIDDEN SECRETS of the Lost Gospels SCHOLARS HELP DECIPHER THE GNOSTICS AND JUDAS.

Bob Smietana

t the end of the Gnostic spirit like you males. For every woman in the New Testament. Scholars such as Gospel of Thomas, the who has become male will enter the Elaine Pagels of Princeton and mem- disciples come to Jesus kingdom of heaven.” bers of the Jesus Seminar argue that and demand that he So much for a new and more inclu- these alternative gospels offer a more send Mary Magdalene sive version of the gospel. inclusive view of the faith. That alter- away. The problem? In recent years, the Gospel of Thom- native view, they argue, was squelched AShe’s a woman. as and the Gospel of Judas (currently by heresy-hunting “orthodox” bishops “Let Mary go out from our midst, on the New York Times bestsellers list) who imposed their exclusive and rigid for women are not worthy of life!” Si- and other works by early Christian sects views of Christianity on the church. mon Peter tells Jesus. known as Gnostics have been champi- But do the Gnostic gospels offer a Not to worry, replies Jesus. “See, I oned by scholars and popularized in the more inclusive version of Christianity? will draw her so as to make her male Da Vinci Code as offering a legitimate A closer look at them reveals a surpris- so that she also may become a living alternative to the Christian faith found ing answer.

6 | THE COVENANT COMPANION Salvation by secret knowledge According to Gnostics, some hu- with a theory, popularized by The Da The term gnostic comes from the Greek man beings, like Jesus, have “the di- Vinci Code, that a group of influential gnosis, which means “secret knowledge.” vine spark”—they are spiritual beings early church bishops conspired with Unlike the New Testament Gospels of trapped in human flesh. Salvation the Roman Emperor Constantine to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, which comes to those who know the world ban the Gnostic gospels from the focus on the public teaching and acts is evil and who flee to the spirit world and to promote the view that Jesus was of Jesus, the Gnostic gospels focus on upon their death. Those who don’t divine during the Council of Nicea in secret teachings supposedly given by have the divine spark are out of luck. AD 325. Jesus to one or more of his disciples. “In many ways what you are look- That view, while popular, is unhis- For the Gnostics, salvation comes not ing at in the Gospel of Judas and other torical, says Bart Ehrman, author of by the death and resurrection of Jesus, Gnostic gospels is an anti-gospel,” says Misquoting Jesus and Truth and Fiction in but by obtaining this secret knowledge. Snodgrass. “This is not good news. You the Da Vinci Code. Ehrman, a Moody The Gnostic gospels also remove Je- have something that is anti-creation, Bible Institute graduate who later be- sus from first-century Palestine and his anti-world, anti-body, anti-incarnation, came an agnostic, told Beliefnet.com Jewish context, transforming him from anti-universal—because only people The Da Vinci Code’s version of this part a rabbi to a Platonic philosopher. with the spark of the divine get to be of church history is “absolutely false.” Herbert Krosney, author of The Lost saved.” “Most people thought Jesus was Gospel: The Quest for the Gospel of Judas Because vilifies the divine centuries before Constantine,” Iscariot, said in an interview on National God of the Old Testament, a number Public Radio that most of the action in of scholars believe it is “fundamental- “In the Gnostic view, God this recently translated document takes ly anti-Semitic,” says Scot McKnight, is unknown, unknowable, place in a “nether world” removed professor of religion at North Park from ordinary time and space. For University. and didn’t have anything Gnostics, the physical world was evil, “There is no respect whatsoever to do with creation.” created not by God but by a corrupt for the Jewish framing of creation, the “demiurge.” Instead of a world filled goodness of the world, the presence of Ehrman said. “[I]t’s not true that with the glory of God, as the psalmist God in the world,” says McKnight. “We Constantine decided which books to puts it, the world is an evil place devoid are not dealing just with Christ. Jews include in the New Testament; he had of the presence of God. believe that God was at work in physi- nothing to do with it. And the Coun- “In the Gnostic view, God is un- cal things and the God at work here cil of Nicea didn’t have anything to known, unknowable, and didn’t have is holy and pure. Gnosticism teaches do with which books to include in the anything to do with creation,” says that nothing in this world is good and New Testament.” Klyne Snodgrass, professor of New pure. It’s all in some ethereal beyond. Instead of being imposed from Testament studies at North Park Theo- And that is contrary to everything we above, Snodgrass and McKnight point- logical Seminary. In the Gnostic system know about Jesus.” ed out that the New Testament canon of creation, a series of emanations or In the Old Testament, especially emerged by consensus out of the life “aeons” go forth from God, usually the prophets, God shows concern for and practice of the church. in male-female pairs. (The number all people—not just a select few, adds “The implication that there was a of those aeons can be more than 300, McKnight. “Judaism fostered an equal- race going on between competing Gos- depending on which Gnostic text is ity of people, because of its themes of pels and that eventually in the third or used.) justice. Early Christianity consistently fourth century the canonical gospels “All this is distancing you from applied that in the church. Gnosticism won out is totally erroneous,” says God,” says Snodgrass. “In the last is extremely elitist. Most people are not Snodgrass. “The earliest evidence we outer edge aeon, the female broke off worthy of even hearing this [spiritual have is that there were four gospels in and brought forth another being—the truth.]” the race and the others really aren’t in Old Testament God. And that being is McKnight says the Gospel of Judas, the race in any widespread way.” responsible for creation.” like other Gnostic gospels, functions as Around AD 175, the Gospels of When Judas first speaks to Jesus an ancient version of The Da Vinci Code. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were in the Gospel of Judas, he recognizes “It’s a first-century Da Vinci Code,” he compiled by Tatian into the Diatessa- him as coming from one of the spiri- says. “It revises everything with a whole ron (Greek for “through four”), which tual aeons outside of creation. “I know new thread. Everyone else is always weaved the four gospels into a single who you are and where you have come wrong and Judas is the only one with account of Jesus’s life. The Diatessaron from,” Judas says. “You are from the the right story.” was popular for “the next 800 years,” immortal realm of Barbelo. And I am says Snodgrass. “You had four canoni- not worthy to utter the name of the one Through four Bob Smietana is features editor of the Com- who has sent you.” The Gnostic gospels are often paired panion.

JUNE 2 0 0 6 | 7 cal gospels and nothing else has that cal Gospels began writing, they had also received—he’s using traditional kind of authority.” an established oral tradition to draw language—and the focus is on the fact McKnight says that the credibility upon. “It’s not like Jesus died and then that Jesus died for us and he was raised given to The Da Vinci Code shows how twenty years later somebody was sitting for us. That is not in any way to dimin- little many Christians—especially Prot- around trying to think, ‘Now what did ish the teaching of Jesus in the Gospels, estants—know about church history. Jesus say?’” says Snodgrass. “So you which is quite different than the focus “Protestants basically believe in the have Luke saying at the beginning of his on death and resurrection in the mes- Constantinian fall of the church,” says Gospel, ‘Hey, I have done my research. sage of the church, but you can’t have McKnight. In other words, after the Here are all my sources—eyewitnesses a focus on death and resurrection until Roman emperor Constantine became and ministers of the word.’ There is a it occurs.” involved in the affairs of the church, solid early living tradition, being propa- Some modern New Testament the church fell into a long period of gated, shared, and embraced as the basis scholars, such as those of the Jesus decline and only emerged from that of worship.” Seminar, have drawn a clear line be- decline during the Reformation. Snodgrass points out that one rea- tween the and Jesus “This is part of the problem with the son for a delay between Jesus’s death the resurrected Christ. They argue that Western church,” McKnight says. “It is after the crucifixion, the church rein- history blind when it comes to how the “It’s not like Jesus died and vented Jesus—changing him from a church came into existence. We need itinerant first-century Palestinian rabbi to do a better job in teaching the basics then twenty years later to a miracle working, divine figure who of church history.” somebody was sitting conquered death through his resurrec- Books like The Da Vinci Code or the around trying to think, tion. If that’s the case, the theory goes, Gospel of Judas also tap into modern the New Testament version of Jesus is skepticism about the contemporary ‘Now what did Jesus say?’“ no more valid than the Gnostic view. church. “People are cynical about the But in the New Testament gos- church,” says McKnight, “and are and the appearance of the first Gospels pels, the stories of Jesus reflect the ready to pounce on an explanation of is that the message was being spread language, culture, geography, politics, Christianity that demonstrates that it through preaching and was being trans- and worldview of first-century Pales- has been inherently corrupt from the lated from Aramaic or Hebrew into tine. The Gnostic gospels, on the other beginning.” Greek and other languages. hand, remove Jesus from that historical Some early Christians preferred to context. A living tradition hear the oral tradition—the “living, “If you read something like the Along with a better understanding of abiding voice” as some called it—rather Gospel of Judas or any of these other church history, Snodgrass and Mc- than the written accounts of the Gos- Gnostic gospels, they do not breathe Knight point out the need for a better pels. “Papias says in the second century first-century Palestinian air,” says understanding of how the New Testa- that he would prefer to listen to the Snodgrass. McKnight adds that while ment came into being. The accounts oral tradition rather than the written the Gnostic gospels do provide details told in the synoptic gospels of Matthew, tradition,” says McKnight. “It’s alive; about the Gnostic sects in the second Mark, and Luke were already in devel- there is a freshness to it.” century, there is “nothing of value [in opment during Jesus’s lifetime. That’s The earliest Christian writings—the them] about either the Christian faith because his style of teaching—using letters of Paul—stand in stark contrast or for the origins of the church.” parables and sayings, like “the first to the Gnostic gospels. In the Gospel In fact, the best way to respond to shall be last and the last shall be first” of Judas, Jesus asks Judas to betray him claims that the Gnostic gospels are or “first take the log out of your own because he is weary of being trapped in authentic alternatives may be to read eye, and then you will see clearly to a human body and longs to escape into them. (An online version is available take the speck out of your neighbor’s the spiritual world. He tells Judas that at www.nationalgeographic.com/lost- eye”—was designed for his disciples to he will surpass all the other disciples, gospel.) remember and pass on. “for you will sacrifice the man that “The impression has been left that “What Jesus is doing with the dis- clothes me.” Gnostics, writing in the gospels like the Gospel of Judas are a ciples is formal instruction to propa- second and third century, saw Jesus’s voice that needs to be heard,” Snod- gate the faith,” says Snodgrass. “One of crucifixion as a means for him to ex- grass says. “You go back and read these the things that we forget is that Jesus perience salvation of his own spirit and things and there is not much there that sends out a group of seventy disciples to release from the prison of the body. is the least bit attractive or informative. proclaim the message. He didn’t send For Christians, Snodgrass says, “the I can’t imagine anyone reading either them out without a message. They are focus has always been on death and of these gospels and coming out and taking Jesus’s message out.” resurrection—from the earliest days. saying, ‘I am going to live my life by When the authors of the canoni- Paul says, I gave to you what I have it’—it’s not going to happen.” 

8 | THE COVENANT COMPANION