It is perhaps remarkable that since the middle of the 20th century more and more facts regarding the truth of Jesus Christ, his followers and his “secret” teachings are being discovered almost on a daily basis.
     It is clear that only now are we ready for such revelations, particularly the shocking truth contained in the Gospel of Judas Iscariot.
     In this amazing encounter with the most controversial Gospel, Herbert Krosney takes us on a thrilling voyage of discovery.
     He points out that it is strange, given how notorious Judas Iscariot is, that we know very few facts about him, other than he was one of the twelve apostles.
     His fame comes from being the one who “betrayed” his master and teacher for thirty pieces of silver. Judas’s dark deed came to represent the supposed villainy of the entire Jewish Orthodox faith, and he was always portrayed as a thief who stole from the money box and influenced by Satan.
     Yet there was another reference to Judas made obliquely in 180 CE by Irenaeus, a church elder who wrote scathingly against a text entitled The Gospel of Judas. Irenaeus tantalised researchers by referring to this apparently destroyed Gospel and its extremely controversial contents.
     Because of these contents, The Gospel of Judas had apparently been destroyed and so researchers could only glimpse its contents through Irenaeus’ letters of complaint. Irenaeus wrote bitter letters condemning the Gospel, claiming it to be the work of the devil. It was thrown to the flame and therefore its wisdom erased from history.
     Yet it seems that the very spirit of Judas Iscariot must have protected the one last remaining original book, lying dormant in a lightless vault in the arid Egyptian desert for almost two millennia.
     This Codex is clearly one of the greatest discoveries in Judeo-Christian archaeology.
     It was discovered in a cave-tomb in Egypt in the mid 1970s. It was hidden in a crumbling limestone box, bound in leather and written on ancient papyrus. It did not go straight to a museum or even a library, but rather began a somewhat bizarre, cloak-and-dagger journey through Europe and across the Atlantic for the next twenty-five years. The Gospel of Judas was treated like a piece of merchandise yet as it was moved from dry to damp conditions, and even stored in a freezer, it began to deteriorate. The manuscript was also stolen and sent to Switzerland where the Alpine air continued to deteriorate the fragile papyrus.
     Then at the beginning of a new century, the Codex was handed over to Yale University to be translated. Yet the controversial Gospel remained in contention. Yale was worried about possible legal issues and sold the book to an antiquities dealer in Ohio. This deal was botched again, and so the Codex returned again to Switzerland. By this time the Codex was so fragile that it dropped to pieces with the slightest touch.
     The Maecenas Foundation of Ancient Art in Basel, Switzerland specialises in supporting archaeological study projects such as this. Rodolphe Kasser, one of the world’s pre-eminent translators and scholars of Coptic, the language in which the text is written, joined forces with a document restorer in 2002 and began to painstakingly piece the fragments together. It was one of the most complex puzzles.
     The Gospel was written on thirteen sheets of papyrus, both front and back, but the papyrus was now in a million pieces. To avoid touching the document the team photographed the fragments and the pages and even devised a computer program to help identify the papyri fibres so that the pieces could fit more easily together. There are still hundreds of fragments left to place, but what has been revealed is dramatic.
     The text tells a story of the last days of Jesus, seen through the eyes of Judas Iscariot. Here we discover that Judas was in fact a close and trusted companion of Jesus. We also discover that Jesus shared his secret, more advanced teachings with Judas, but perhaps most chilling are Jesus’ words to Judas, saying: “You will become the apostle cursed by all the others. Judas, you will sacrifice this body of man which clothes me.”
     It is easy to see why the Church Fathers abhorred and feared The Gospel of Judas. Although its contents are clearly Gnostic in nature, they go further than any other Gnostic Gospel, such as those of Thomas and Phillip in revealing the hidden teachings of Jesus. The Gospel also makes it very clear that synoptic Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John contain huge errors, not the least of which was the “betrayal” by Judas.
     In this compelling, well researched and beautifully written book, Herbert Krosney takes us on a beautiful journey through the Jebel Qarara hills in the Egyptian desert, where the Gospel was found, to the dark and dusty markets of Cairo and the long and difficult journey of this lost Gospel.
     The book comes complete with colour plates of the manuscript and its delicate Coptic writing. But Krosney includes all the scientific data required by any serious student or researcher. The text was put through radio carbon tests and the results show that it dates to approximately 279 CE.
     Yet, with all due respect to science, it is the liberation of Judas that stirs the heart as the pages turn. It seems that Judas was not at all as he has been painted in the New Testament, quite the opposite.
     Judas was the most loyal and loving follower of Jesus and Jesus makes this clear in the Gospel, when he says: “Lift up your eyes and look at the cloud and the light within it, and the stars surrounding it. The star that leads the way is your star.”
     Judas does nothing that Jesus himself does not ask him to do. Judas listens to Jesus and remains faithful to him. Judas Iscariot turns out to be Jesus’ most beloved disciple and dearest of friends, and that indeed is a liberation for us all.
     Clearly this truth was so abhorrent to early Church Fathers that they went out of their way to destroy it. They preferred to paint Judas as the betrayer influenced by Satan, instead of a beloved friend merely following the orders of his master.
     Now, after wandering the Egyptian desert, and being stored, forgotten, in bank vaults and the shelves of academics, The Lost Gospel is finally remembered.