The Gospel of Judas
Well, we're working hard on getting our youth worship service together. So hard, in fact, that I forgot to bring up the big relgion/archeology story of the week: the discovery and release of The Gospel of Judas . The book that was discovered dates to the 2nd century and is written in coptic, an Egyptian language. This is a very impressive find, but not as impressive as you've probably heard... The MOST IMPORTANT thing to remember about The Gospel of Judas is that it is a gnostic work. Gnosticism comes from the Greek word for "knowledge", or, I think more precisely, "secret knowledge". They were a sect which seems to date back to the 2nd century C.E., though it might have started a bit earlier. They were condemned as heretical by the so-called "orthodox" church of the time. They were called heretics for good reason. Not to say that they should have been burned or tortured or anything, but their beliefs were very different from what was to become...