Nashville, Tennessee - Friday, 04/14/06 - Tennessean.Com

New view of Judas sparks debate, discussions locally - Nashville, Tennessee - Friday, 04/14/06 - Tennessean.com

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Friday, 04/14/06 " New view of Judas sparks debate, discussions locally style="margin-top:15px;"> Coptic script in this image provided by the National By ANITA WADHWANI Geographic Society reads "Judas," from the "Gospel of Judas" Staff Writer on display in Washington, D.C. (AP) " As Middle Tennesseans, like Christians worldwide, mark Christ's crucifixion today, they are also reacting to a newly published account offering a different twist on the events leading to it: the "Gospel of Judas." Instead of Jesus' betrayer, Judas Iscariot is portrayed as a favored, obedient disciple who does Christ's bidding in betraying him for 30 pieces of silver. Judas does this so Jesus will be freed from his earthly body. And Judas does it with the full knowledge that he will be "cursed by the other generations," according to the translation of the 1,700-year-old text published by the National Geographic Society. Some local Christians have already denounced the text as "heresy" and criticized the timing of its release, in the week before the holiest week in the Christian calendar that includes Good Friday today, the day on which Judas' biblical betrayal led to Christ's style="margin-top:15px;"> A viewer gets an early look April 6 at an exhibit containing crucifixion. artifacts related to the "Gospel of Judas" on display at the National Geographic Society in Washington, D.C. (AP) Other pastors say the text adds new dimensions to the passion story at the heart of Poll/Forum the Christian faith. http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060414/NEWS06/604140411 (1 of 4)4/17/2006 9:38:05 AM New view of Judas sparks debate, discussions locally - Nashville, Tennessee - Friday, 04/14/06 - Tennessean.com

"I've always wondered if we misinterpreted Does the newly released "Gospel of Judas" change the story," said the Rev. Felicia Searcy of your view of the villain of the Easter story? Unity Church of Life in Murfreesboro. Yes | No | Voice your opinion

"After all, Judas traveled closely with Jesus, View Results and ultimately you could not be in his company and not be impacted. It's always Anita Wadhwani can be reached at 259-8821 or been difficult for me to imagine Judas being [email protected]. so self-centered. This (text) allows us to Related news from the Web pause and re-evaluate old paradigms." Latest headlines by topic: ● Dan Brown

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Church Cathedral says the text is clearly not ● Vocal gospel, written too long after other New Powered by Topix.net Testament books to be an authentic account and likely authored and later copied by heretics. TODAY'S TOP STORIES: ● Teacher plea deal built on sex bias

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Wide media coverage of the text's release and a National Geographic documentary about it that aired ● Easter message resonates for many

last Sunday have caused some stir here and elsewhere. ● Murfreesboro candidate decries developer contributions At Swanson's church this week, for example, a planned Bible-study class on the Gospel of John gave ● Tornadoes blew through emergency plans' cracks way to an impromptu discussion about the Judas text after church members raised questions. Other pastors say that Judas questions are coming up in conversations at church services and Bible- study classes. Belmont University will hold a lecture on both the Judas texts and the novel The Da Vinci Code by author Dan Brown on Wednesday. Earlier this week, several professors at Baptist- affiliated Union University in Jackson, Tenn., released statements calling the documents "heresy."

One Union professor, Ray Van Neste, likened the text to histories written during World War II that Outside Sales Representative denied the Holocaust, according to the Baptist Press, the official voice of the Southern Baptist Convention, in an article that will be distributed in Baptist newspapers across the state. Manager of Operations The "Gospel of Judas" was discovered by an Egyptian farmer buried in a box in the 1970s, according LPNPrivate Duty LPN's needed immediately to the National Geographic Society. It went unexamined by scholars as it changed hands until a Swiss- based foundation purchased it and invited National Geographic to study and restore the crumbling All Top Jobs document. The text says it is a "secret account" of the "revelation that Jesus spoke in conversation with Judas Iscariot." Todd Lake, vice president for spiritual development at Belmont University, said the Judas text appears to have been written long after the other New Testament books that record the events of Christ's life: Mathew, Mark, Luke and John. http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060414/NEWS06/604140411 (2 of 4)4/17/2006 9:38:05 AM New view of Judas sparks debate, discussions locally - Nashville, Tennessee - Friday, 04/14/06 - Tennessean.com

Those texts, he said, "were written in a period by people who knew Jesus and heard him speak," he said. "The eyewitness part is critical. We saw it; we were there; we are writing it down." "That simply cannot be the case with a document written in 300 A.D.," he said. "Whoever wrote it, no matter what their intentions, could not know." That point might be lost to many Christians reading about the Judas "gospel" in the press, he said. "I think the Christian church has done a poor job of educating their people, and all of us have been guilty of that. Unfortunately, I think it's very possible that this will create some doubts in people's minds because they won't know the difference between eyewitness accounts and others." Bishop Nicholas Boyle-Parsley of the St. Basil American Orthodox Church in south Nashville said the texts may shift his own understanding of the events of Holy Week. "If this was truly an act that he was asked to do for Jesus to complete his mission on Earth, that's a new light on this," he said. "The thing that interests me is that Judas might have had a choice. We talk about the devil entering Judas' heart to make him do what he did, that he had no choice, but what if he was given the choice by Jesus? That's certainly different from our understanding." Vanderbilt Divinity School professor Amy-Jill Levine, who was on a National Geographic Society advisory committee about the Judas text, said it may cause some people to think about how the image of Judas has been viewed throughout history. From late antiquity, in Nazi propaganda, and in writings of some Christian theologians, Judas has been a "symbol of the Jews" contributing to anti-Semitism, said Levine, a professor of New Testament Studies. From late antiquity on, "some Christians view(ed) the treacherous, villainous Judas as a symbol of all Jews," whose betrayal of Christ contributed to anti-Semitism, she said. But Glen Leven Presbyterian Church pastor Mark Bryan says that whatever the new text may say about Judas, it does not change his opinions. "My take on it is that I don't believe the gospels make Judas into a villain, even if it's been the general interpretation of the church that Judas is damned forever," he said. "The money he was paid for identifying Jesus in the crowd, he supposedly threw it back to those who paid him. Not long afterwards, Judas hung himself. He just doesn't seem like much of a villain." •

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