Four Gospels Of New Testament: The Gospel Of Judas

During the late second century, the dissemination of diverse Christian teachings was pivotal for the consolidation of Christianity. Most of the teachings came from the various narratives of Jesus’s relationship with his disciples and how each of them felt and learned from Jesus’s divine sermons and teachings and, most importantly, his crucifixion. The first four Gospels of New Testament are the most well-known and essential gospels that are the basis of Christian teaching. These Gospels are written by some of the renowned disciples (Matthew and John) and followers (Mark and Luke) and they not only recount the relationship between Jesus and the disciples but also delineate his teachings and miracles he had performed. However, the range of diverse
In general Christian teaching, Judas Iscariot is one of Jesus’s disciples who betrayed him for thirty silver coins, but in the Gospel of Judas, he was portrayed as a hero who sacrificed himself and became a traitor to help Jesus’s death. This led me to ask the following question: What do these disparate depictions of Judas delineate the true nature of the Christian community during the late second century? The conflicting representations of Judas demonstrate that Christianity is not a unified religious sect but in fact, divided by various groups that emphasize their own understandings of Jesus’s divine nature and crucifixion through portraying the disciples’ particular relationship with
In the Gospel of Matthew and in several Christian manuscripts, Judas Iscariot is a traitor by selling Jesus for thirty silvers. During the Passover when Jesus tells his disciples about the betrayal and his death, he said, “woe to that one by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been better for that one but to have been born” (New Oxford Annotated Bible, Mt. 26. 24). Jesus condemns Judas for the betrayal, and after the crucifixion, Judas commits suicide to chastise his impiety. On the contrary, the Gospel of Judas renders Judas as a helper to Jesus’s death. In this gospel, Judas betrayal is what he was destined to do to free Jesus from his physical prison. Even Jesus tells Judas, “ ‘you will exceed all of them. For you will sacrifice the man that clothes me’” (Kasser et al. 56). Judas is portrayed as Jesus’s beloved disciple because he is the only one who truly understands Jesus and sacrifices himself to free Jesus from the mundane world. The different images of Judas in the two gospels indicate the conflicting understandings of Jesus’s divine nature among the Christian community. The understanding of Jesus’s nature is important to define Christianity, and this can be shown through the relationship between Jesus and the disciples. However, the conflicting images of Judas undermine both the credibility of Jesus’s relationship with the