JUDAS IN THE NEWS: Judas has been resurfacing in the news recently, because of the new novel by Jeffrey Archer and Francis Moloney. The Independent has an article on him in FAQ format:

The Big Question: Should Judas be rehabilitated?
By Paul Vallely
Published: 22 March 2007

Why, what did he do?

In Christian tradition, Judas was the follower of Jesus who betrayed him to the Jewish authorities. The four gospels leave his motives uncertain, but his name has passed into common usage as a synonym for personal betrayal. "Judas" was what some folkie shouted at Bob Dylan when he set aside his acoustic guitar and went electric.

Isn't he the classic baddie?

Every story needs a villain, and Judas offers an archetype with his traitor's kiss. The trouble is that the modern fashion is not for heroes but for anti-heroes. And Judas makes a handy one of those too, hence the new book by a very odd couple, the perjurer-novelist Jeffrey Archer and one of the world's top biblical scholars, Professor Francis Moloney. A very unholy alliance. They have just written The Gospel According To Judas, which portrays Judas as traduced by the gospel writers since he was really trying to save Jesus from "an unnecessary death".

[...]

But wasn't the real Gospel of Judas found recently?

A 62-page codex, carbon dated to about AD300, but believed to be copied from an earlier document, was unveiled last year. It was in same Sahidic dialect of Coptic used in the Dead Sea Scrolls discovered in 1945 (which included the Gospel of Thomas), which the Church does not accept as divinely revealed but which prompted a major re-evaluation of early Christian history. It may be the Gospel of Judas that we know existed because it was condemned as heretical around AD180 by the second-century bishop Irenaeus.

What did it say?

It said that Judas, far from being Jesus's enemy, was his chief Apostle, who was acting at Jesus's request when he "betrayed" him to the authorities. Without Judas's help, Jesus would not have been crucified and God's plan to save mankind from its sins could not have been fulfilled. Someone had to do it, to fulfil Old Testament prophecies, the early Christians believed. Judas was the chosen one.

[...]

The writer seems unaware that an increasing number of specialists believe that Judas is as evil as ever in the Gospel of Judas.

UPDATE: Also, as Ellen Birnbaum pointed out in an e-mail, the article confuses the Nag Hammadi Library with the Dead Sea Scrolls (quoted above).