Posted on 05/04/2006 10:20:30 AM PDT by churchillbuff
the idea of a sacred Judas always seemed rational to me, at least in Christian terms. The New Testament tells us firmly that Jesus went to Jerusalem at Passover to die and to fulfill certain ancient prophecies by doing so. How could any agent of this process, witting or unwitting, be acting other than according to the divine will? ...[snip]
Now we have, recovered from the desert of Egypt, a 26-page "Gospel of Judas," . ...[snip]
The Judas gospel puts legend's most notorious traitor in a new light—as the man who enjoyed his master's most intimate confidence, and who was given the crucial task of helping him shed his fleshly mortality. And you can see why the early Christian fathers were leery of such texts. This book has the same cast but a very arcane interpretation. Right before Passover, as the disciples are praying, Jesus sneers at their innocence. Only Judas has guessed the master aright—and has discerned that he comes from the heavenly realm of the god "Barbelo." In the realm of Barbelo, it seems, earthly pains are unknown and the fortunate inhabitants are free from the attentions of the God of the Old Testament. The Judas gospel would make one huge difference if it was accepted. It would dispel the centuries of anti-Semitic paranoia that were among the chief accompaniments of the Easter celebration until approximately 30 years after 1945, when the Vatican finally acquitted the Jews of the charge of Christ-killing. ...[snip]let us all therefore give thanks for our deliverance from religion, and raise high the wafer that summons us to the wonders and bliss of the faraway realm of Barbelo and brings us the joyous and long-awaited news that Judas saves.*
(Excerpt) Read more at slate.com ...
Neither is saying positive things about the Iraq invasion. If being opposed to Iraq invasion automatically makes you a liberal - that means Bill Buckley, Tom Clancy and John Paul II are liberals.
And if being in favor of the Iraq invasion automatically makes you a conservative, that means Hitchens and Hillary are conservatives.
Not true.
Chamberlain wasn't a Nazi-lover, he was weak. He vacillated in the face of evil, tried to placate it. Chamberlain's crime was not malfeasance, but rather nonfeasance.
Yeah, I know. But this is really a mess and, from what I've read of his, I expected better.
It isn't a "lost gospel" of anykind. It was written some 300 years after the fact. It's simply a lost piece of fiction written by the same type of person as we find today writing works of fiction like the davinci code.
Well, if you are going to believe a bunch of nonsense you might as well advertise it. I don't think it's personal towards Christians as much as it is hatred of God. He doesn't seem to think much of religious Jews either, so it's the whole God thing that bugs Him. This article is nothing but a shaking fist towards heaven. It's not that he's blind but that he refuses to see. It's a battle between him and God. He thinks he can win. He can't.
Judas was a Muslim.
Fine, but I don't vacilate on the Iraq invasion. I have always thought it was a mistake - - not because I believed in placating Saddam, but because I believed and believe he wasn't an imminent threat. Hitler, obviously WAS a threat when Neville tried to placate him. Hitler was already occupying neighboring territory and he had a massive and threatening military. Saddam, in contrast, was contained by an aggressive sanctions program, and constant military flyovers, and he had no military to speak of.
all we can do is hope & pray that ol' Christopher sees the Light before he checks out.
Everyone who touches it becomes a Democrat.
Is this any different than GW telling us that all these illegals want is to come here & get a job that NOBODY else will do / Islam is a religion of peace? And yes, Hitchins IS unhitched.
Riiiight, herr general.
but Moses invests?
Then why does taunting God seem to be so important to him?
Judas couldn't have been a Muslim, the cult wasn't invented during his lifetime. Not until around 635AD did Mohammad make slaughtering, raping and pillaging into a religion.
Prolly dronk when he wrote it.
Catholicism is Christian. To suggest the two are different is insulting to Catholics (I was raised Methodist). No criticism intended, just a correction, though maybe I misunderstand your post.
You are not correct and I can prove it.
If my statement is wrong, which part of it was wrong? Was there not an aggressive sanctions program that was keeping Iraq from economic expansion? Was there not a systematic program of military flyovers to keep in Iraq in check? Did Iraq have a powerful military? (That it didn't was evidenced by our uninterrupted drive to Bagdhad; there was no military to stop us). Comparing Saddam's weak and contained situation in the early 80s to Hitler's military powerful and aggressively expansive stance in the 1930s simply doesn't hold water.
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