DON
and Caroline Richardson went to live with the Sawi tribe, a Stone
Age people in Irian Jaya, in the 1960s. There they learned the
language and tried to understand the customs of the people.
The Sawi were illiterate and were ignorant about iron; their tools
were made of stone and wood. They also had some strange customs
- they considered treachery as the highest virtue.
When the Richardsons told them the story of Jesus, the people
were particularly interested in His crucifixion. When Judas was
mentioned, the Sawi listened very attentively. When they were
told that Judas betrayed Jesus with a kiss, they let out a gleeful
shout and gave Judas a hearty applause. This was their favourite
part of the story. Judas was the hero of the story, their hero.
The missionaries were at a loss. Later they found a way to tell
the biblical story, using the Sawi cultural concept of the "peace
child" and they finally got through. The Sawi responded to
the Gospel and were transformed by its truth and power. All this
is told by Don Richardson in his well-known book, Peace Child.
During this year's Holy Week, the media threw up a story about
the long-lost Gospel of Judas. This book was discovered in Egypt
in the 1970s and after having gone through the soiled hands of
the antiquities blackmarket, it finally landed in Switzerland.
The National Geographic documentary that introduced the Gospel
of Judas claims that the manuscript is real, implying that, therefore,
it is also true (which does not necessarily follow). The documentary
is a classic case of how the media can twist the facts and mislead,
keeping the discussion one-sided or producing the illusion of
a debate.
It is evident that there was a Gospel of Judas by the end of the
second century. We know this because the Church Father Irenaeus
mentioned it in his writings around 180 AD. The godly and learned
Irenaeus wrote:
"Others again declare that
Cain derived his being from the Power above, and acknowledge that
Esau, Korah, the Sodomites, and all such persons, are related
to themselves. On this account, they add, they have been assailed
by the Creator, yet no one of them has suffered injury ... They
declare that Judas the traitor was thoroughly acquainted with
these things, and that he alone, knowing the truth as no others
did, accomplished the mystery of the betrayal ... They produce
a fictitious history of this kind, which they style the Gospel
of Judas."
It is clear that while Irenaeus knew of its existence, he also
condemned the Gospel of Judas as heretical and anything but Christian.
This book was produced by a Gnostic sect called the Cainites.
The Gnostics had a broad range of beliefs centred around the notion
that matter was evil and that the Creator of the universe was
a fallen god, and therefore evil. The true God can only be known
through secret knowledge (an idea Paul vigorously condemned in
his letter to the Colossians; see chapters 1 and 2). The Gnostics
were considered by the Church as not Christian, and therefore
heretical.
The Cainites, who probably produced the Gospel of Judas, celebrated
Cain, Esau, Korah, and the Sodomites as the real heroes of the
biblical story. What an inversion of values! It was obviously
an attempt to subvert the biblical message and the truth about
God. Irenaeus therefore condemns the Gospel of Judas as a fictitious
story, made up to challenge Christianity and promote heretical
Gnostic ideas and values. Its claims that Jesus commanded Judas
to betray Him so that He could be released from the body which
clothed Him (a clearly Gnostic idea) were certainly false and
contrived.
We can dismiss the Gospel of Judas and its claims quite readily.
But why is it that these days there is so much interest in the
so-called alternate "Gospels". There are people who
have an axe to grind against historical and orthodox Christianity
who are trying their best to argue that there were diverse and
equally valid forms of Christianity. The recent discoveries of
long forgotten and discarded heretical texts provide them with
an opportunity to cast doubts and subvert Christianity. They want
heresies to be embraced by the church again. But this is not first
century diversity; it is the 21st century's postmodern ideology
at work, trying to impose its patterns on the silent voices of
the first century.
SUPPOSE
alternate but false accounts of the Holocaust are being written.
In fact, recently British historian David Irving was sentenced
to three years in prison for denying in his speeches and publications
that the Holocaust took place, or that there were gas chambers.
Suppose that in the mid 21st century, with values having changed
and living memory having faded, more books were written by people
like Irving. And suppose that after 1,000 years, some of these
books are rediscovered, and scholars suggest that the Holocaust
may not have happened, that in fact, it was a group of powerful
people who created the "myth" of the Holocaust, and
that they persecuted and suppressed the works of people like David
Irving. We would be outraged, and rightly so, because that would
be a serious distortion of the facts.
If
the first century Christians were here today to hear the discussions
about the alternate "Gospels" such as the Gnostic Gospels,
I believe they would be equally outraged. To attribute to Jesus
Gnostic ideas, inconsistent with His Jewish context (which is
what the Gospel of Judas and other such false Gospels do) is like
portraying Isaac Newton discussing Marxism with his friends around
the dinner table. It is clear that the heretical Gospels are later
inventions which do not ring true.
We have the four canonical Gospels
that tell the truth about Jesus. They have authority for us, and
were written so that we may know the certainty of the things we
have been taught (Lk. 1:4). It is strange that in our postmodernist
environment, what a Stone Age tribe did out of ignorance, is being
repeated, more out of rebellion rather than ignorance. True wisdom,
indeed, is in short supply.
QUOTE:
THE TRUTH
'We have the four canonical Gospels that tell the truth
about Jesus. They have authority for us, and were written so that
we may know the certainty of the things we have been taught (Lk.
1:4).'