THE GOSPEL of JUDAS Its Protagonist, Its Composition, and Its Community

THE GOSPEL OF JUDAS Its Protagonist, its Composition, and its Community

Gesine Schenke Robinson

We have come a long way in our interpretation of Judas and the assess- ment of the manuscript in which he features so prominently. Aft er the fi rst overexcited view of Judas as a role model for all those who want to be Jesus’ disciples,1 and the provocative notion of the document turning Christianity on its head,2 a more measured approach followed, sometimes along with amended translations and re-evaluations.3 In recent publications however, Judas again is depicted in surprisingly extreme terms. He is either compared to Sophia, trapped in a mortal body and yearning to return to his celestial home,4 or he is an evil demon and undercover agent of the arch-archon, with Jesus teaching him about his future so that he will suff er even more because he will step open-eyed into his demise.5 As a narrative character, Judas obviously can be all of this. Yet there is the nagging question: Does the text at hand support any of these interpretations?6 Th e Gospel of Judas is full of irony and ciphers that the original audience would easily have understood, but that we have to unearth laboriously. Since it is a Gnostic text, everything has to be construed from a Gnostic point of view, not seen through a New Testament lens. Th is may seem self-evident, but the two kinds of representation are easily confused, resulting in statements still to be

1 See e.g. Meyer’s “Introduction” in Kasser et al. 2006a, 14–16, esp. 9, as well as his footnotes to the translation of the Gos. Jud. in that edition. 2 See e.g. Ehrman 2006b; and Ehrman 2006a. 3 Besides lectures at various scholarly conventions by Turner (unpublished manuscript) see e.g. Pearson 2007c; Nagel 2007; Van der Vliet 2006a; Painchaud 2006; and Schenke-Robinson 2008b. 4 Cf. Meyer in Kasser et al. 2008, 155–168. 5 Cf. DeConick 2007. 6 Since the translation is essential for the understanding of the meaning of the text, I will quote from my own translation that oft en diff ers from the translation provided in Kasser et al. 2007. Th e Coptic wording of additional or diverging text reconstruc- tions, as well as further explanations for dissimilar readings of the text, can be found in Schenke Robinson 2008a. 76 gesine schenke robinson regretted, and keeping us occupied in trying to correct widely spread misconceptions. In the Gospel of Judas, the Gnostic Jesus is not the Jesus of the canonical Gospels, nor does Judas act according to a plan of salvation. In terms of salvation, Judas is simply irrelevant. A plan of salvation requiring the death of Jesus goes entirely against Gnostic thought. Hence Jesus is not dependent on Judas to be freed from his mortal coil, nor does Judas do Jesus a favor in assisting him on Jesus’ request. Th e Gospel of Judas does not teach us anything about the historical Jesus or a historical Judas; likewise, the gospel is neither uttered by nor meant for Judas—not to speak of his fellow disciples. Th e ulti- mate recipient and benefi ciary of the gospel, which apparently prefers to instruct by negative example and exclusion, is the audience beyond the text; the “Good News” inherent to the revelatory account is meant solely for the Christian-Gnostic community lying behind the Gospel of Judas. In order to make the relationship between the text and its implied audience more transparent, a closer look at the structural arrangement of the composition may reveal a transmission history that refl ects the community’s place in the religious environment of the second century that the document presupposes. By reasoning backwards from what the text expresses to its function in the community that used it, we may be able to determine the specifi c role the fi gure of Judas plays in the unfolding account from a diff erent—i.e. the community’s— perspective.

The incipit

In its present compositional form, the Gospel of Judas appears to have two preambles, each stating diff erent recipients of the message Jesus is about to convey. Th e fi rst one declares Judas to be the receiver, but the subsequent introduction to the account mentions Jesus’ disciples as the recipients of the revelation. As part of a brief summary of Jesus’ ministry, the anonymous narrator states, “ called the twelve disciples, and began to speak with them about the mysteries that are upon the world, and the things that will happen at the end.”7 Th e diff erence

7 Gos. Jud. 33,13–18. Th e translation “beyond the world” in Kasser et al. 2007 goes beyond the scope of the given Coptic preposition and thus presumably beyond the intent of the text. Th e prepositional phrase , here given as “upon the