Another Take on Gospel Truth About Judas

Results of the research, Roberty said, will be released after Easter, when Christians around the world traditionally mark the official version of Jesus's death as told by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

Roberty would not discuss the contents of the codex, and a National Geographic spokeswoman in Washington, Mary Jeanne Jacobsen, would not comment at all. But scholars independently following the project have begun to anticipate some of its findings.

Working from photographs of the codex, Charles Hedrick, a retired professor of Coptic studies at Missouri State University, has translated six pages into English, including the codex's title, "The Gospel of Judas."

Some of the manuscript's passages echo descriptions in the New Testament of Jesus's arrest, recalling how Roman authorities aimed to "seize [Jesus] in the act of prayer" and how Judas "took some money and he delivered [Jesus] over to them," Hedrick said, quoting from his translation.

Although Judas cooperates in the arrest of Jesus, Hedrick said, the codex does not depict him as a villain.

"Judas is not a bad guy in this text," Hedrick said in an interview. "He is the good guy, and he is serving God."

Hedrick and other scholars said the codex was produced in the 4th or 5th century and reflects the theological traditions of a 2nd-century sect of Gnostics, a community that believed true spirituality derived from a self-knowledge, or "gnosis." Figures depicted as sinful in the Old Testament, such as Cain and Esau, were typically extolled under Gnostic theology.

As early as the year 178, Saint Irenaeus of Lyons, a heresy watchdog of the early church, targeted the community for declaring that "Judas the traitor . . . 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," Irenaeus wrote in "Against Heresies." Scholars say it's possible Irenaeus was reading an earlier version of the soon-to-be-published transcript, but that point is speculation.

William Klassen, author of "Judas: Betrayer or Friend of Jesus?," considers the forthcoming manuscript an asset to scholarly efforts to rehabilitate Judas's historical image.

Many scholars believe that Judas -- whose name literally means "Jewish man" -- was a victim of anti-Jewish slander that pervaded early Christianity in its struggle to break away from Judaism.

"It's important to look at this Gospel of Judas very carefully, because this is evidence that in the late 2nd century, in the time of Irenaeus, there was a group who held up the banner for Judas," Klassen said.

Other scholars are withholding judgment until the codex is publicly authenticated.

Michael White, director of the Institute for the Study of Antiquity and Christian Origins at the University of Texas at Austin, said researchers will be hard pressed to authenticate the codex if the history of its discovery is not clearly documented.

"They have to file artifacts of that sort with the government's archaeological oversight board," White said.

According to Roberty, such documentation is unavailable because the codex was smuggled out of Egypt before he purchased it in 2001.

"The manuscript itself was illegally exported because it had been stolen in Egypt," said Roberty, adding that he planned to eventually return the manuscript to Egypt.

James Robinson, a retired professor of Coptic studies at Claremont Graduate University and general editor of the English edition of the Nag Hammadi Library, vouched for the document's authenticity based on his experience in trying to purchase the codex as early as 1983.

"I don't know of any scholar who thinks this is fake," said Robinson, who is not involved in the National Geographic project.