[BenLurkin]

Fake but accurate?

[formercalifornian]

Fake but fake.

[FormerLib]

As another poster noted why Gnostics are not Christians:

Gnostics (no matter what their stripe, or how Christian they seemed at first glance, and the philosophy predates the Christian faith) believed:

The God of the world was more or less evil because he made things out of matter.

The True God is only spirit, and each level of being, is less spiritual and more contaminated by matter.

That you have to have the secret gnosis to get out of the matter realm and into the spirit realm.

The Christian sounding gnostics didn't believe that Jesus came here in a real body, because that would mean he was contaminated with Matter.

It gets weird and interesting, and farther and farther away from what most people think of as Christianity the more you get into it.

So why should we really care. There are a lot of gnostic texts out there, easy to get hold of. They have no more validity as scripture to Christians than the Golden Ass does, except that they use a framework of Christian names to spout off what has a lot in common with the Golden Ass and other mystery religions like the Orphic traditions.

[ArrogantBustard]

Genuine ancient fiction. Written by Danus Brownus.

[TruthWillWin]

LOL.

MY first thoughts also. Bet that was common for many of us here on this site.

[InvisibleChurch]

It's probably the Times font that gave it away.

[lepton]

Fake but accurate?

It's apparently genuinely from around 400 AD, regardless of its contents. Thus it's not "Fake but accurate", but rather genuine but innaccurate.

Rather like a thousand years from now finding a recording of the infamous "I did not have sex with that woman" speech by Clinton: It's an actual recording; Bill Clinton really said that; but the contents are of a falsehood being uttered.

[Old_Mil]

In its release, National Geographic repeatedly states that it has "authenticated" the document. Several press outlets have simply repeated those claims. But "authentic" turns out to be a slippery term as used by the National Geographic Society. No scholar associated with the find argues this is a first century document, or that it derives from Judas. The release says the document was "copied down in Coptic probably around A.D. 300," although later that is changed to "let's say around the year 400." This amounts to saying that "The Gospel of Judas" is an authentic fabrication produced by a group of Gnostics in Egypt

The more you study science - especially biology and dating methods - the more you realize that a great deal of it is science fiction and assumption...the primary assumption being "God, as portrayed and defined by orthodox Christianity, does not exist."

[stop_fascism]

No, real but inaccurate. Just more gnostic BS.

[Conservative Texan Mom]

While we are on the subject of "fake but accurate" Bill Berkett has a bull for sale.

We're looking for one, my husband came across this on the interent. Bill Burkett in Baird TX. Didn't want to take the chance that he had forged the register papers.

[Mannaggia l'America]

Fake but accurate?

It's written in proportional Coptic - they didn't have the ability to do that back then!

[sportutegrl]

"Jesus wanted me to betray him"

Sounds like something Judas would say.

[lawgirl]

EXACTLY what I was thinking.