The Gospel of Judas, much like the Gospel of Mary Magdalene, was discovered in an Egyptian codex and illustrates details that contradict the canonical gospels of the bible. However, The Gospel of Judas resurfaced much more recently in the 1970s. While the gospels in the bible describe Judas Iscariot as a greedy man who betrayed Jesus for money, the Gospel of Judas tells an entirely different story. It suggests that Jesus told Judas to betray him to fulfill the prophecy of the resurrection, and that Judas was the only disciple among the twelve who was part of the “holy generation.” It also says that Jesus taught Judas the true gospel, which he did not teach to his other disciples, since Jesus decides he is the only one who truly understands his teachings. He speaks to Judas about lower gods, which the True God created, whom the disciples are able to please with physical sacrifice, yet these sacrifices do not please the True God. Only those such as Judas, who belong to the holy generation, can please truly please and live in eternity with God. Roughly a third of the text is illegible or lost, thus making the Gospel difficult to accurately interpret and translate.
This story of events is a major contradiction to the teachings of the Bible. The text became so controversial, in fact, that Pope Benedict addressed the Gospel in 2006, rejecting the idea that Judas followed the orders of Jesus during the betrayal; that Judas “viewed Jesus in terms of power and success: his only real interests lay in his power and success, there was no love involved. He was a greedy man: money was more important than communing with Jesus; money came before God and his love.” The Vatican also denies the credibility of the text, calling it a “late text.”
