Newly Translated Gospel Offers More Positive Portrayal of Judas

The National Geographic Society released yesterday the first modern translation of the ancient Gospel of Judas, which depicts the most reviled villain in Christian history as a devoted follower who was simply doing Jesus's bidding when he betrayed him.

The text's existence has been known since it was denounced as heresy by the bishop of Lyon in A.D. 180, but its contents had remained an almost total mystery. Unlike the four gospels of the New Testament, it describes conversations between Jesus and Judas Iscariot during the week before Passover in which Jesus tells Judas "secrets no other person has ever seen."

The other apostles pray to a lesser God, Jesus says, and he reveals to Judas the "mysteries of the kingdom" of the true God. He asks Judas to help him return to the kingdom, but to do so, Judas must help him abandon his mortal flesh: "You will sacrifice the man that clothes me," Jesus tells Judas, and acknowledges that Judas "will be cursed by the other generations."

Scholars said the 26-page document was written on 13 sheets of papyrus leaf in ancient Egyptian, or Coptic, and was bound as a book known as a codex. It is one of dozens of sacred texts from the Christian Gnostics, who believed that salvation came through secret knowledge conveyed by Jesus.

Its anonymous author was "obviously a Christian person very sympathetic to a Gnostic point of view," said Coptic scholar Marvin Meyer, of Orange, Calif.'s Chapman University. The codex was written in the 2nd century, when various groups of Christians circulated what they called gospels -- "good news" -- purportedly written by most of the disciples and several other followers of Jesus, among them Mary Magdalene.

Most were outlawed during a centuries-long battle to determine which sacred texts would make up the canon of Christian orthodoxy known today as the New Testament.

National Geographic, which funded much of the research, said it authenticated the codex through radiocarbon dating, ink analysis and study of the script. And despite the document's murky history, no scholar has suggested it is a forgery, a problem that has dogged several recent finds, most notably the bone box, or ossuary, purported to have contained the remains of Jesus's brother James.

As an authentic ancient Gnostic text, the Gospel of Judas is certain to spark a surge of interest by both theologians and the faithful, but scholars said it is unclear whether it will prompt a reevaluation of the traitor denounced by Matthew for betraying Jesus for "30 pieces of silver."

"At one level, the Gospels already see the betrayal as a mysterious part of God's plan," said the Rev. Donald Senior, president of the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago. He predicted the new text would produce "a short-term sensation" but that after Christians read it, "the impact on the lives of ordinary believers will be minimal."

The ancient manuscript, a 3rd- or 4th-century translation of a 2nd-century original, probably written in Greek, was unearthed by looters near El Minya, Egypt, in the 1970s. It came to the attention of scholars in 1983 when an Egyptian antiquities dealer tried to sell it to American researchers for $3 million.

After the document passed through several hands and venues, including 16 years deteriorating in a safe deposit box in Hicksville, N.Y., National Geographic reached an agreement in 2004 to help finance its authentication and translation in return for publication rights.

Terry Garcia, National Geographic's executive vice president for mission programs, said at a news conference that the society had contributed "more than $1 million" to the project so far. The organization released two books yesterday: an annotated translation and the story of how the text came to light. The gospel will also generate a magazine cover article, a television documentary, an exhibit and its own Web site.