For thousands of years, Judas Iscariot has been reviled as the betrayer of Christ, the man who purposefully pointed out Jesus, possibly with a kiss, to an armed group of men who had come to take him away. But an archeological find made public by National Geographic provides a different slant on both Jesus and the man who supposedly betrayed him.

Sometime in the 1970s, a gospel according to Judas, translated from its second century Greek into Coptic, was discovered in Middle Egypt near Al Minya. Although damaged considerably, scholars did a remarkable job translating it into English by April 2006.

With Reading Judas one must conclude that the synoptic gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and now Judas’, portray the betrayal of Jesus as divinely willed by God. Jesus states his foreknowledge of Judas’ act clearly: “The one who has dipped his hand into the bowl with me will betray me” (Matthew 26:20-23). If so, then what Judas did to fulfill the will of God and Old Testament prophecies cannot damn the man forever into the annals of history as a mad traitor.

One of the clearest messages in Judas’ Gospel is his disagreement with the apostles and the original church fathers concerning why God became incarnate. Judas believed Christ proclaimed a message of love and life and joy. He believed in forgiveness and the resurrection of the soul after death.

But he adamantly opposed any idea that a good god would ever accept or require blood sacrifice of animals or human beings as martyrs for their faith. Suffering is not an essential ingredient for salvation; God did not need the offerings. In Reading Judas, the tortured, bloodied account of the Son of God being shamefully tortured for his sheep as the “pascal lamb” (I Corinthians 5:7) and then being crucified as a redemptive act “for the forgiveness of sins” (Matthew 26:8) horrified Judas Iscariot.

Furthermore, according to other gospels, Jesus had commanded his followers to “...eat my flesh ... drink my blood ...” (John 6:53-55). This was unthinkable to Judas as something possibly touching on cannibalism. Subsequently, the hideous annals of Christians actively seeking martyrdom so they could die like Jesus and gain instant access through the pearly gates was unconscionable.