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Related: About this forumGospel of Judas text likely authentic, researchers find
A long-lost gospel that casts Judas as a co-conspirator of Jesus, rather than a betrayer, was ruled most likely authentic in 2006. Now, scientists reveal they couldn't have made the call without a series of far more mundane documents, including Ancient Egyptian marriage licenses and property contracts.
The Gospel of Judas is a fragmented Coptic (Egyptian)-language text that portrays Judas in a far more sympathetic light than did the gospels that made it into the Bible. In this version of the story, Judas turns Jesus over to the authorities for execution upon Jesus' request, as part of a plan to release his spirit from his body. In the accepted biblical version of the tale, Judas betrays Jesus for 30 pieces of silver.
As part of a 2006 National Geographic Society (the Society) investigation of the document, microscopist Joseph Barabe of McCrone Associates in Illinois and a team of researchers analyzed the ink on the tattered gospel to find out if it was real or forged. Some of the chemicals in the ink raised red flags until Barabe and his colleagues found, at the Louvre Museum, a study of Egyptian documents from the third century A.D., the same time period of the Gospal of Judas.
"What the French study told us is that ink technology was undergoing a transition," Barabe told LiveScience. The Gospel of Judas' odd ink suddenly fit into place.
http://science.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/04/08/17656331-gospel-of-judas-text-likely-authentic-researchers-find?lite
Duer 157099
(17,742 posts)Just imagine what people will read about 300 years from now! How will the Kennedy assasination be depicted? 9/11? So many things.
Nice to put things back into perspective anyway.
sinkingfeeling
(51,281 posts)as the apocrypha.
arcane1
(38,613 posts)That little bit never made sense to me
skepticscott
(13,029 posts)for killing Jesus. Wasn't that kinda the whole plan?
hrmjustin
(71,265 posts)Even if it was preordained it was still betrayal.
rug
(82,333 posts)It starts out with "The secret account of the revelation". It sounds pretty Gnostic.
The article isn't clear what the authenticity is. That it dates from 280?
skepticscott
(13,029 posts)is that it is not a more recent forgery, and does actually date to a time not too far removed from extant Biblical manuscripts. This says nothing about "authenticity" as far as the accuracy of the account relative to the canonical Gospel version.
rug
(82,333 posts)The more the age of ancient writings is verified, the better off we all are. Imagine if some of the manuscripts from the Library at Alexandria were recovered.
Warren Stupidity
(48,181 posts)Which is to say of almost no value at all as historical records of the time they relate, but of some value as historical records of the time in which they were written.