Title: Reading Judas
The Gospel of Judas and the Shaping of Christianity
Author: Elaine Pagels and Karen L. King
Publisher: Viking/The Penguin Group
Copyright: 2007
Review Score: 4.00 
Summary:
This book presents us with a content analysis and the actual translated text of the Gospel of Judas, which was accidentally discovered in the 1970s by peasants who were working in a burial cave in middle Egypt near al Minya. The archaeological find was fimally made public by the National Geographic Society in April 2006. Award-winning authors, Pagels and King, who study, translate and specialize in early Christian writings, estimate that the gospel "was written sometime around 150 C.E., about a century after Judas would have lived. It is impossible that he wrote it; the real author remains anonymous."
In additiom to its outside-the-box spiritual teaching, this Gospel is valued because it clearly shows that the early Christian movement was not characterized by the unified, simplistic and fixed message that we hear today. Rather, it's yet another piece of evidence that demonstrates there were many different and controversial messages, each competing for a position of supremacy. Each claiming to be the divine truth. Each mesenger asserting to the most special and favored one. While many people are comforted by the idea that the 12 apostles worked together and that they unanimously embraced and delivered the same doctrines, this homogenized and white-washed picture is a distortion of the historical facts, rivalries and power struggles that are now being revealed.
Message of Love:
God DOES NOT will us to suffer
Score: 5.00
If God is love and only love, He cannot be violence. The Gospel of Judas renounces violence, sacrifice, martyrdom and even the cannibalistic practice of symbolically eating the body and blood of Christ as God's Will. This is in direct contrast to the central message of Christianity that asserts we must suffer to prove our love to God and to buy the right to eternal life. "With the suffering of just one hour, you can purchase for yourself eternal life."
This Gospel gives us another, more refreshing point of view. "...those who imagine human sacrifice pleases God have no understanding of the Father..." And even more, "By teaching that Jesus died in agony for the sins of the world and encouraging followers to die as he did, certain leaders send them on a path toward destruction -- while encouraging them with the false promise that they will be resurrected from death to eternal life in the flesh."
The Gospel of Judas teaches that eternal life has more to do with our spiritual, non-physical connection to God rather than to a resurrection of the human body. Judas explains that the crucifixion of Jesus demonstrates that the death of the body is not an end of our "real" life. "What dies is only the mortal body, not the living spirit."
Inspiration:
Score: 4.00
Inspiration from this work does not come to us in a conventional way, as an emotional surge. Instead, it comes to us more subtly. We are invited to think about the role of suffering in a new way. And we are invited to forgive Judas and to release him from the judgments we hold against him (and thus, against ourselves.)
Instead of meeting Judas as the predictable, villanous betrayer, we are re-introduced to him as the only who who really understands and "gets" the message that Jesus was trying to deliver. That suffering is NOT necessary. That suffering HAS NO VALUE. That suffering can be transcended. Judas is characterized as the only disciple who is ready and able to hear the mysteries of the kingdom: "...that there is another glorious divine realm above the material world, and an immortal holy race exists above the perishable human race."
Practicality/Relevance:
Score: 5.00
Anything that forces us to open the mind and look more closely at our fundamental, but unexamined religious beliefs to see if they still make sense is highly relevant.
The authors tell us that over the past 40 years "we have gained access to over forty Gospels, letters, and other early Christian works."
The Gospel of Judas is as important today as it was when it was written.
Organization/Readability:
Score: 2.00
Reading Judas is a scholarly, well-researched book. However, reading it is more like forcing yourself to take medicine or to do your homework rather than having a good read. You know you're supposed to do it, but you don't really want to do it. Because of this, the book would only appeal to a limited audience. Anyone who's looking for a quick and easy read would be better served with another choice.
