The Lost Gospel of Judas Iscariot Also by Bart D. Ehrman Peter, Paul, and Mary Magdalene: The Followers of Jesus in History and Legend Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration, Fourth Edition (with Bruce M. Metzger) Truth and Fiction in The Da Vinci Code The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings, Third Edition A Brief Introduction to the New Testament The Apostolic Fathers: Volumes I and II Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew Lost Scriptures: Books that Did Not Make It into the New Testament Christianity in Late Antiquity, 330–450 CE: A Reader (with Andrew Jacobs) The New Testament and other Early Christian Writings: A Reader, Second Edition Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium After the New Testament: A Reader in Early Christianity The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture: The Effect of Early Christological Controversies on the Text of the New Testament Didymus the Blind and the Text of the Gospels The Lost Gospel of Judas Iscariot a A New Look at Betrayer and Betrayed Bart D. Ehrman 2006 Oxford University Press, Inc., publishes works that further Oxford University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education. Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offices in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Copyright © 2006 by Oxford University Press, Inc. Published by Oxford University Press, Inc. 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016 www.oup.com Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Ehrman, Bart D. The lost Gospel of Judas Iscariot : a new look at betrayer and betrayed / by Bart D. Ehrman. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-10: 0-19-531460-3 ISBN-13: 978-0-19-531460-1 1. Gospel of Judas—Criticism, interpretation, etc. I. Title. BS2860.J83E37 2006 229'.8—dc22 2006048268 All photos by Kenneth Garrett / National Geographic Image Collection. 1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper Contents Preface vii 1 My Introduction to the Gospel of Judas 1 2 Judas in Our Earliest Gospels 13 3 Judas in Later Gospel Traditions 35 4 Before the Discovery: Our Previous Knowledge of a Gospel of Judas 53 5 The Discovery of the Gospel of Judas 67 6 The Gospel of Judas: An Overview 85 7 The Gospel of Judas and Early Christian Gnosticism 99 8 Jesus, Judas, and the Twelve in the Gospel of Judas 121 9 Who Was Judas Iscariot? 141 10 What Did Judas Betray and Why Did He Betray It? 153 11 The Gospel of Judas in Perspective 171 Notes 181 Index 189 v To Dale Martin, friend and scholar extraordinaire, who has always pushed me to look at things differently Preface ost of the Gospels from early Christianity have been irretrievably lost. M Occasionally one turns up, found by trained archaeologists looking for them or, more commonly, by local peasants inadvertently coming upon a trea- sure that is, quite literally, beyond their dreams. It is rare—a once-in-a-lifetime experience at best—for a scholar to have the opportunity to be involved with the first evaluation, authentication, and publication of a newly discovered Gos- pel. As it turns out, I was lucky. A series of unexpected phone calls, some of them from the National Geo- graphic Society, alerted me to the discovery of a long-lost Gospel, the Gospel of Judas Iscariot. Scholars had known of the one-time existence of this Gospel from the writings of the early church fathers. But these ancient reports were bizarre and hard to believe. Could there be a Gospel of Jesus written from the perspective of his mortal enemy and betrayer, Judas Iscariot? And could such a Gospel actually paint Judas in a favorable light, claiming that, contrary to all tradition, he was in fact Jesus’ closest disciple and confidant? National Geo- graphic wanted me to help authenticate the Gospel and establish its historical significance. I jumped at the chance, and here I can tell the story. This is a Gospel that seemingly has appeared out of nowhere, discovered in a tomb in Egypt some thirty years ago, and now available for the first time for readers intrigued with the history of early Christianity and the many forms of Christian belief and practice of the early centuries. It is in fact a Gnostic Gos- pel. And it is one of the most intriguing ever discovered. It is not a Gospel written by Judas or by anyone who actually knew him. It is not as ancient as Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John. But it is one of our earliest surviving non- canonical Gospels. And the tale it has to tell is remarkable. vii viii Preface In recounting the story I have incurred some debts that I would like to ac- knowledge. My thanks go to National Geographic, especially Terry Garcia, Senior Vice President of Missions, for bringing me on board for the project, and Betty Hudson, Senior Vice President of Communications, for all her sup- port. Robert Miller, my friend and editor at Oxford University Press, gener- ously agreed to publish my account and read my manuscript with a keen editorial eye. Especially to be thanked are my friends in the field, scholars who have read the following pages, saved me from egregious mistakes, and tried to save me from many more: Dale Martin, of New Testament fame and fortune, from Yale University, to whom I have dedicated this book; Andrew Jacobs, the bright- est star on the horizon of Late Antique Christianity, at the University of Cali- fornia, Riverside; Zlatko Plese, my brilliant colleague at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Coptologist nonpareil; Herb Krosney, the inves- tigative reporter who more than anyone else is responsible for making the discovery of this Gospel known to the world; an anonymous but unusually keen and insightful reader obtained by Oxford University Press, whose com- ments have made me think and think; and my wife, Sarah Beckwith, a medi- evalist in the Department of English at Duke, whose perceptiveness and intellect are uncanny. Translations of the Gospel of Judas are by Rodolphe Kasser, Marvin Meyer, and Gregor Wurst, in collaboration with François Gaudard, in The Gospel of Judas (Washington, D.C.: National Geographic, 2006); translations of the New Testament and other early Christian writings are my own, unless otherwise indicated. Preface ix The Lost Gospel of Judas Iscariot This page intentionally left blank a CHAPTER ONE My Introduction to the Gospel of Judas first saw the Gospel of Judas on Sunday, December 5, 2004, in a restoration Istudio just outside of Geneva, Switzerland. I was exhausted but exhilarated. The day before, I had given two lectures on the history of early Christianity for the Program in the Humanities at my home institution, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. I then drove straight to the Raleigh-Durham airport for an overnight flight to Geneva. From there it was a quick taxi ride to the hotel. The schedule was tight: I didn’t have time to unpack before meeting my contacts. We met in the lobby of the hotel, and I was ushered into the backseat of a van along with six others. We were driven off to our rendezvous point, in Nyon, Switzerland, on Lake Geneva. It was a cold and dreary day, and tired as I was, I knew this trip was something special. I was one of a small team of scholars assembled by the National Geographic Society to help them verify the antiquity and authenticity of a newly discov- ered Gospel. There was an air of secrecy about the meeting. Each of us had been required to sign a nondisclosure agreement. We were not to discuss with anyone—most especially the press—what we were about to see and hear. Na- tional Geographic was considering whether to make a large financial invest- ment in the authentication, publication, and promotion of this Gospel, and they didn’t want anyone leaking the news of just what it was. It was allegedly an ancient manuscript containing an account of Jesus’ min- istry from the perspective of his betrayer, Judas Iscariot. No one thought the Gospel was actually by Judas himself. Judas was an illiterate peasant, like Jesus’ other disciples. But there was the possibility that it was one of our oldest surviving Gospels: not as old as Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, but possibly from the second Christian century. That century had seen a proliferation of 1 2 The Lost Gospel of Judas Iscariot Gospels forged in the names of Jesus’ disciples—Gospels written in the names of Thomas, Philip, and Mary, for example. This Gospel would be different, however. All the other surviving Gospels told the story from the perspective of Jesus’ friends. This one allegedly was by his enemy. But according to the hints and rumors circulating in the early church, this lost Gospel named after Jesus’ betrayer portrayed Judas Iscariot not as the rotten apple in the apostolic barrel but as the one disciple who understood Jesus’ teaching and did his will.