KUWAIT, August 6, 2007 — “When faced with any error or counterfeit, it is good to ask, ‘What is the original truth of this?'” This was the dictum behind a lecture on the Gospel of Judas held recently by the Kuwait office of the Bible Society in the Gulf (BSG).
The audience, consisting of some 160 Christians from Arabic-speaking Catholic, Orthodox and Evangelical Churches, gathered at Kuwait's National Evangelical Church in June to hear Youssef Sabry, the BSG Arabic Program Coordinator, give a lecture – in Arabic – entitled The False Gospel of Judas.
The Society was prompted to hold the lecture by the spate of popular books and films about the 'new gospels' published in recent years. Bombarded with competing claims about their faith and its history, many Christians have been left unclear about the true significance of these texts.
The Gospel of Judas is a fragment of Coptic text thought to date from the third century. It suggests that Judas betrayed Jesus at his own request in order that he might fulfil his divine destiny. The fragment is the subject of a television documentary made by the US National Geographic Society.
In his lecture Mr Sabry told the story of its discovery, described its Gnostic origin and analysed the heresies it contains.
The manuscript was found in a cave in Egypt in 1978 but it was some years before it come to the attention of scholars. For a while it circulated among dealers in antiquities – its condition deteriorating all the while – before being locked in a safe deposit box in New York by a collector. In 2000 a Swiss dealer realised its importance, bought it and gave it to the Maecenas Foundation for Ancient Art in Switzerland.
Where the Gospel differs intrinsically from the canonical Gospels is in its portrayal of Judas Iscariot not as the embodiment of treachery but as Jesus' most trusted disciple – the one who understands him best and who, at Jesus’ request, helps him to shed his fleshly body and return to the spirit world by turning him over to the authorities for crucifixion.
Mr Sabry aligned himself with other Christian scholars in discounting this portrayal.
The manuscript has been dated to between 220 and 340 AD and is thought to be the work of the Gnostics, a second-century sect whose views have long been regarded as heretical. Another Gnostic text, the Gospel of Mary Magdalene, was among the sources used by Dan Brown for his novel The Da Vinci Code.
Mr Sabry also described the process by which the early Church came to accept certain books as canonical. He ended his address by clarifying the traditional view of Judas' character and role according to the canonical Gospels. Afterwards participants made it clear that they welcomed the opportunity to have the case against the Gospel of Judas set out systematically.
“Beforehand, I had no real answers to these questions," said Shant, a member of the Armenian Orthodox Church of Kuwait. "But now ... I am capable of refuting the false teachings of such heresy. The seminar came at the right time.”
“By the end of the seminar I had gained more trust in our Holy Bible,” added Rafiq Mikhael, of the National Evangelical Church of Kuwait.
“I’m impressed by such a gathering,” said Father Angalyous, of the Holy Family Catholic Church, “and even more by the idea of so many Churches bonding through the Bible Society. I appreciate such a role.”
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