Monday, April 10, 2006

The Gospel Of Judas Is Truly Bizarre

And I love it.

Jesus is from a place called Barbelo.
He is not the son of God but a living avatar of Adam's third son, Seth.
There are multiple gods in Barbelo including a celestial mother.
Jesus laughs. A lot.

Many try to define religion in the purest black and white. I have always believed that giving into the various shades of gray makes it inifinitely more fascinating. I believe most people assume that the current Bible sort of sprang forth fully formed. Not so. The first two centuries of Christianity were a hodgepodge of gnostics, heretics and ascetics. Eventually, at times brutally, the Roman church melded everything into something resembling what we know as Christianity today.

Like the Gospel of Mary several years ago, it appears the Gospel of Judas is going to cause some more soul searching about that "old-time religion".

Full story at The New Yorker

It definitely has jumped to the top of my reading list.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

yyzjVery nicely put! Jesus' message was simple and meant to be accessible to everyone without the need for gaudy temples and a hierarchical clerical bureaucracy. If I understand it correctly, the spirit of God is within all of us and we just need to discover it.

That said, I'm an agnositc who enjoys pondering the wonderful mystery of existence. I don't embrace any particular faith, nor do I reject any that are reasonable. In fact, if you strip away all the ornamentation, ritual, and extraneous bells and whistles from every major religion, their fundamental message pretty much boils down to, "Don't be an asshole." Just about everything else is a lot of confusing noise.