Gospel of Judas Update

Finally! I found an internet article in which a biblical scholar – from Harvard, no less – acknowledges that the Gospel of Judas is homophobic. I was beginning to think I was the only one who saw the homophobia in it! From the Raleigh (NC) News & Observer story, “Judas Gospel hasn't changed story: Few expect to see impact on Christianity from text” –

. . . But those hoping to find a kinder, gentler Christianity – one more in tune with the mystical yearnings of the present generation – may disappointed with the Gnostics, and especially the Judas Gospel.

“It's dreadfully anti-Jewish and homophobic,” said Karen L. King, a professor of church history at Harvard Divinity School. “I don't think it makes progress.”

Karen King is the author of The Gospel of Mary of Magdala.

I was surprised to see a link to the Blog of the Grateful Bear at the New York Times story about the Gospel of Judas. As a result of the link, the number of visits to this blog shot up from 157 on April 7th to 446 on April 8th. And with the increase in traffic came an increase in off-the-wall comments that had to be deleted: incoherent rants; lengthy, badly-written sermons; off-topic posts about the evils of The Da Vinci Code; and most surprisingly of all, a large number of anonymous posts from people disagreeing with me about the holiness of the body.

This is the statement I made in my April 7th post that drew the most criticism: “Our bodies are the temple of God, not the prison of the soul as the Sethian Gnostics [who wrote the Gospel of Judas] believed.”

I had no idea there were so many people out there who view their bodies as prisons – and who get angry when people suggest otherwise. The dualism in the Gospel of Judas (its view of spirit as good and matter, including the physical body, as evil) may prove to be one of its selling points.