The Gospel of Judas

In the entire course of the history of Christianity, he was being labelled as the traitor to Jesus before the cruxification happened. Many condemned him since. But when records of maybe a long-lost scroll about Judas surfaced which showed a different side of him, how will the public react.

This documentary was first shown on the National Geographic around the Easter period this year and I even managed to watch it when it was on the cable here. As from what I remembered in my earlier school days at those chapel sessions (given I once attended a missionary school and the chapel is part of the school), there is a traitor among all of Jesus's disciples when they were all having the Last Supper. So, this documentary began to change from what I remembered and gave me another perspective of who Judas is maybe.

It may be an two-hour long documentary as I realised, but then when there was a repeat of it, even on the local free-to-air television here at a later date, I tried to watch it again. It was really insightful as to hear from those who had researched about the subject and gave their opinions. Even how maybe the Bible we all knew today actually contain many gospels before the ones Christians actually knew nowadays. Real eye-opener for me, even as a non-Christian.

I mean coming back to the documentary, given when the scroll was found, it was almost becoming dust. And when it was being pieced together, it showed a very different Judas that we all knew from the Bible, whether we are Christians or not ourselves. I am not a Christian myself but then I feel the documentary has done a nice job somewhere along the line in shedding the light of Judas.

Maybe it may take some time for people to understand that actually there is a different side of Judas. But given how I had always know of the National Geographic's standards in producing their documentaries, I do have some faith in them. So, if you are not afraid in knowing the other side of Judas, this is recommended.

Those olds scrolls found in Egypt in last century gave us another interpretation over this cursed man called Judas, several Universities on United Kingdom, USA and Germany are studying this olds apocryphal texts with help of most bright intellectual leading experts on this field, the matter exactly explored is about an endless kind of differents texts allowed to study, all them have many sort of directions,in fact it's hard to follow a simply track, it's explained why the church threw away majority them available in 180 A.D. and choose only four gospels, pleased me a Juda's redemption, however it's impossible to apply today over such diffused old scrolls, there are the key to understand all puzzle, more the language used was another crossway to overcame by experts, in my humble opinion no one will get in anywhere with such kind of materials, they were wrote between 50 to 150 years after Jesus Christ's death by others people who pass on verbally spoken until somebody put it in the paper finally, many things probable were added or forgotten!!!

Resume:

First watch: 2011 / How many: 2 / Source: DVD Rating: 8

A documentary film that looks at the alleged discovery of what appears to be the missing gospel written by Judas Iscariot. Starting with the history of the document and how it was passed around the black market as various attempted sales failed, this looks at the popular conception of Judas within the bible while the attempted restoration continues, threatening (if it is genuine) to challenge all that we know about the character.

You can thank airport novels perhaps but it is certain that questioning the history of biblical times and the conventional religious teachings is certainly in vogue over the last few years. With many "secret" gospels doing the rounds and various other documents found, it is indeed an interesting subject. For Christians I am not sure how the impact is as there has never been a doubt that these documents exist but that they believe that a divine power guided the selection of the books in the bible and just because others exist doesn't mean they are correct, true or sacred.

Of course this does not mean that the documents have no interest because to me personally they do. Judas in particular is an interesting character because of his role – to complete the fate of Jesus, someone had to betray him so was this a role he did because he was greedy, one he did as a sacrifice or one he was fated to do? It is interesting because if he had done the "right" thing then how would things have worked out? Sadly this film does not really get to the core of this revelation of a document. We spend most of our time hearing about the accepted history of Judas and also about the recent history of his document. In regards details of the gospel it is very light – to the point that it feels like a trailer for another film where we will learn this. It is a real shame because this is what we all came for and it doesn't actually deliver a great deal.

Instead we get terrible re-enactments with stiff actors and the experts are not given enough time to discuss content so much as the challenge of getting to it. A disappointing film then that feels like it spends 90% of its time skirting around the issue and barely 10% discussing the content of this document we are told is a biblical revelation.

This film chronicles the discovery of an ancient text, known as the Gospel of Judas, that offers a different view of the disciple who betrayed Jesus.

How do we go about rating something that was made for television as a National Geographic special? The commercial breaks should be cut a bit better (on Netflix you are left looking at a blank screen far too long), but all in all it transfers to a 90-minute documentary well.

More or less, all you need is Elaine Pagels, the undisputed expert on the Gnostic Gospels and related books. And she was here, so that worked. Some of the "this is probably how it happened" probably was not necessary. And the order of events was a bit odd at times...

But, for history buffs and religious scholars, this was a good look at an old document that may be greatly important. (Even if it changes Christianity in no way, it changes our way of looking at the early churches and sects that sprouted up.)

I found this documentary very interesting and eye-opening. While interesting, I was disappointed in what the documentary actually tells us. In trying to put together the ancient text of the Gospel of Judas, the experts tell us that they were able to recover 85% of the text, making it readable for the first time in thousands of years.

Unfortunately, they only gave us a "glimpse" of what is written in the Gospel of Judas. The only written words confirmed were "Gospel of Judas." As far as I could tell, no other original quotes were mentioned. This seems unusual and I tend to question why? I'm going to the Internet to see if I can find more information on the actual words of this Gospel.