skippy the bush kangaroo: as if a fish that walked on land wasn't bad enough

Thursday, April 06, 2006

as if a fish that walked on land wasn't bad enough

the rapture cultists must be peeing in their pews (or pewing in their peas) this week. not only has scientists found a fossil that provides one of the missing links between water-breathing fish and air-breathing land animals, researchers have also found...wait for it...the gospel acccording to judas!

thanks to media needle, we are directed to the nytimes:

an early christian manuscript, including the only known text of what is known as the gospel of judas, has surfaced after 1,700 years. the text gives new insights into the relationship of jesus and the disciple who betrayed him, scholars reported today. in this version, jesus asked judas, as a close friend, to sell him out to the authorities, telling judas he will "exceed" the other disciples by doing so…

the discovery in the desert of egypt of the leather-bound papyrus manuscript, and now its translation, was announced by the national geographic society at a news conference in washington. the 26-page judas text is said to be a copy in coptic, made around a. d. 300, of the original gospel of judas, written in greek the century before…

the account goes on to relate that jesus refers to the other disciples, telling judas "you will exceed all of them. for you will sacrifice the man that clothes me." by that, scholars familiar with gnostic thinking said, jesus meant that by helping him get rid of his physical flesh, judas will act to liberate the true spiritual self or divine being within jesus.

unlike the accounts in the new testament gospels of matthew, mark, luke and john, the anonymous author of the gospel of judas believed that judas iscariot alone among the 12 disciples understood the meaning of jesus' teachings and acceded to his will. in the diversity of early christian thought, a group known as gnostics believed in a secret knowledge of how people could escape the prisons of their material bodies and return to the spiritual realm from which they came.

so, the next time someone calls you a "judas," say "thanks very much, i've often thought i was the only one who truly knew what was going on."

posted by skippy at 7:54 PM |