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Last month the media made a lot of noise about an ancient text called "The Gospel of Judas." There will also be the release this month of the movie form of "The Da Vinci Code" which everyone expects to be a huge box office hit.
Both the movie and the new 'gospel' raise questions about the validity of the Bible that we read. There is nothing new in the plot to discredit the Bible. If the Bible can be shown to not be true, then one can recreate our Savior into whatever we want him to look like. This has vast implications on the nature of salvation and Christian ethical standards.
During the 18th Century, there was the rise of Liberal Theology, led by German theologians. Starting with a naturalistic world-view, these theologians attempted to remove much of the supernatural from the gospel accounts. To help their claim, they assumed that the New Testament must have been written in the second century or later and have been subject to multiple revisions. Their method of textual criticism reduced the Jesus of the New Testament to only a moral teacher.
Since the claims of Liberal Theologians were first made, careful research and new discoveries have exposed their assumptions to be false. There are few credible scholars today who would believe that the gospels of the New Testament were written in the second century. Skeptics still challenge the authority of the New Testament, but I would note that one is almost playing God to sort through the Bible saying which verse is true and which verse is false.
A few years ago I took in a lecture by a scholar
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from England who was applying textual criticism to the Koran. Compared to the New Testament, the Koran showed signs of later additions and factual mistakes. The lecturer was using textual criticism to make a case for the validity of the New Testament.
The current attacks against the Bible raised by The Da Vinci Code and the Gospel of Judas are both based in Gnostic writings. Gnosticism was a heresy that challenged the early church. In I John, John starts by saying that he has heard, seen, and touched Jesus. This is in response to an early Gnostic idea that Jesus was not human. The Gospel of Judas states that Jesus often appeared to his disciples as a child.
I will not take the time to contrast Gnostic ideas with Christian ideas, but as I read the Gospel of Judas, it was very clear that I was reading a text that was contrary to the New Testament. It amazes me that credibility is given to the Gospel of Judas which was not written in the first century and has been clearly condemned by the church since it was written. We have known about the Gospel of Judas from Irenaeus who endorsed Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, while rejecting Judas and others in 180 AD.
I close with the reminder that "All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness, so the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work." (II Tim 3:16,17) There is nothing new about the Bible coming under attack and soon those attacks will seem foolish. The real question is whether or not we live according to the Bible.
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