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My just-released novel, MICHAEL: Last-Days Lightning, which all too briefly, but nonetheless, thankfully, went to number one in Christian fiction on Amazon, has sparked the beginning of a follow-up novel. I’ve tentatively given the next novel the title MESSIAH: The Prince That Shall Come. The story will build on the protagonist’s experiencing Bible prophecy fulfillment while in a state of having dreams and visions as the result of a serpent bite he received while he was on the Island of Patmos. MESSIAH will deal with Antichrist coming to power as the world’s greatest deceiver. This understanding is based upon Jesus’...

Translator leaves popes in Hell but saves Islam's prophet from perditionUTRECHT, Netherlands (ChurchMilitant.com) - A new Dutch translation of the Divine Comedy has erased the name of Muhammad from the opus magnum of the Italian poet Dante Alighieri to prevent the epic poem from becoming "unnecessarily offensive" to Muslims. Translator Lies Lavrijsen told Belgian Radio 1 that she expunged the founder of Islam from her translation to give it the "widest possible accessibility," particularly for "a younger audience." "We knew that if we left this passage as it is, we would have unnecessarily hurt a large part of the readers,"...

<p>But then, you might not be taking into consideration two things: Chief Justice John Roberts and his disdain for the current occupant of the Oval Office, President Donald Trump.</p> <p>Thanks to Roberts, who was appointed by an establishment ‘conservative’ president, George W. Bush, the Census Bureau will likely not be able to include a citizenship question on the 2020 Census because…well, because.</p>

<p>In his upcoming biography of Jesus, "Basic Instinct" director Paul Verhoeven will say that Jesus was probably the son of Mary and a Roman soldier who raped her during the Jewish uprising in Galilee, according to the Hollywood Reporter.</p> <p>Verhoeven also claims that Christ was not betrayed by Judas Iscariot.</p>

Journalist Simcha Jacobovici believes that the nails discovered in a Jerusalem cave are revolutionary in their implications regarding the birth of Christianity. The Peace Forest is a small grove of pines sandwiched between the Abu Tor neighborhood and main promenade in Jerusalem. Anyone walking along the road that snakes through the grove can see a green pipe rising from the ground and reaching a height of several meters. This pipe, if journalist Simcha Jacobovici is to be believed, this is the physical tip of an archaeological detective story in the style of the Da Vinci Code. And this pipe is...

The 'Gospel of Judas' 4/6/2006 Interview With Father Thomas Williams, Theology Dean ROME, APRIL 6, 2006 (Zenit) - The National Geographic Society has announced its intentions to publish an English translation of an ancient text called "The Gospel of Judas" later this month. The 31-page manuscript, written in Coptic, purportedly surfaced in Geneva in 1983 and has only been translated now. We asked Legionary Father Thomas D. Williams, dean of theology at the Regina Apostolorum university in Rome, to comment on the relevance of the discovery. Q: What is the "Gospel of Judas"? Father Williams: Though the manuscript still must...

A long-lost gospel that casts Judas as a co-conspirator of Jesus, rather than a betrayer, was ruled most likely authentic in 2006. Now, scientists reveal they couldn't have made the call without a series of far more mundane documents, including Ancient Egyptian marriage licenses and property contracts. The Gospel of Judas is a fragmented Coptic text, traced back to Egypt, which portrays Judas in a far more sympathetic light than did the gospels that made it into the Bible. In this version of the story, Judas turns Jesus over to the authorities for execution upon Jesus' request, as part of...

Folks, I have updated the consolidated PDF version of my Brief Analysis of the Gospel of Judas. I think I have removed the most egregious typos, blunders, expression errors and barbarisms that crept into the text while I typed at all due speed. That's the price sometimes we have to pay for "combat writing." You may download the updated version from the blogpost. That way I can keep track of the approximate number of downloads. Thanks!

New revelationsRecently discovered Gospel of Skip and Muffy has all the makings of yet another blockbuster By Bishop Fred Henry Calgary Sun May 29, 2006 In early April, there was the climatologist who opined that back in the old days, Galilee experienced cold snaps, so maybe Jesus didn't walk on water, but was standing on ice. This, it was suggested, will force Christians to reconsider the foundations of their faith. However, a larger story soon emerged concerning the discovery of the second-century "Gospel of Judas", highly touted by the National Geographic Society and the New York Times. The opening...

They said, “Master, you are […] the son of our god.” Jesus said to them, “How do you know me? Truly [I] say to you, no generation of the people that are among you will know me.” DISCIPLES BECOME ANGRY When his disciples heard this, they started getting angry and infuriated and began blaspheming against him in their hearts. When Jesus observed their lack of [understanding, he said] to them, “Why has this agitation led you to anger? Your god who is within you and […] [35] have provoked you to anger [within] your souls. [Let] any one of you...

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 that the old Greek word behind the English term "gospel" means "good news," you have to wonder whether the much-touted and recently published Gospel of Judas really qualifies as either. Assuming you didn't give up the media for Lent -- which, come think of it ... oh, never mind -- you could hardly have avoided this month's announcement about the latest addition to the religious history files. To make a long story short: The Gospel of Judas is part of an ancient manuscript that apparently was unearthed in the late 1970s in Egypt. After a lengthy trip through the...

Washington DC, Apr. 24, 2006 (CNA) - Questions have arisen about the group of scholars who collaborated with National Geographic in its recent T.V. special about the “discovery” and contents of the alleged Gospel of Judas, which attempts to portray Jesus’ betrayer in a positive light.   Elaine Pagels is a feminist who has written several books against the Catholic Church, such as “The Origin of Satan,” written with the initial help of her colleagues at the Hebrew University of Tel Aviv.  With the assistance of the openly pro-abortion MacArthur Foundation, she researched and wrote “Adam, Eve and the Serpent,”...

The Gospel of Judas" is a long-lost bit of Gnostic apocrypha. Now that archeologists have found a copy, the media is abuzz with speculation that this ancient document will shed new light on or even change Christianity. According to "The Gospel of Judas," Jesus tells Judas to betray Him. This will enable Jesus' spirit to escape from its fleshly container. Jesus also is said to call Judas the only disciple who truly understands His message. Much of the rest of the "gospel" is just disembodied dialogue about "spirit" as opposed to matter, in sharp contrast to the historically detailed Gospels...

This is Part 1 of 3. The word "Gospel" means "good news," the message concerning Christ, the kingdom of God, and salvation, yet in the so-called "gospel of Judas" we only find bad news. In it we find a Jesus who is out of character with the one we find in the canonical Gospels; a Jesus who teaches "secret knowledge," who dismisses the Eucharist, and shows a condescending, even hostile attitude towards his Apostles. In this "gospel," Jesus denies the God of the Church, ranks Judas above the other Apostles, and embraces a Gnostic cosmology at odds with Judaeo-Christianity. This...

Many years ago, a Christian friend excitedly shared with me a document collection he had found. The front cover proclaimed the collection to be "Historical Court Records Concerning JESUS the CHRIST, Found in the Libraries at Rome and Constantinople." And, sure enough, there they were: Caiphas' reports to the Sanhedrin on the execution and resurrection of Jesus, Pilate's report to Tiberius on Jesus' arrest, trial and crucifixion, Herod Antipas' letter to the Roman Senate justifying the execution of John the Baptist, and a series of letters from Rabbi Hillel describing his reaction to the preaching and teaching of Peter and...

LANCASTER COUNTY, PA - “The Son of Man will go just as it is written about him. But woe to that man who betrays the Son of Man! It would be better for him if he had not been born.” Matthew 26:24 The words of the four canonical Gospels, the words that call Judas Iscariot a betrayer of Jesus Christ and a tool of the devil, have been read this Easter weekend in millions of churches around the world. To hear the hype about another gospel, though, Judas got a bum rap. In the Gospel of Judas, released April 5...

I don't normally mind offending holy men, but I can remember feeling absolutely aghast at the injured look that spread across the fine features of the Coptic Archbishop of Eritrea as we sat in his quarters in Asmara in 1993. Was it true, I had asked him, that in the Coptic Christian tradition Judas was considered to be a saint? He jumped like a pea on a hot shovel and, when he had regained his composure, demanded to know how I could possibly have heard such a wicked rumor. Nothing more profane could be imagined than this perversion of the...

The Archbishop of Canterbury today attacks society's obsession with books such as The Da Vinci Code which, he says, encourage people to believe that the Christian faith is a series of "conspiracies and cover ups". In a strongly worded Easter sermon being delivered in Canterbury Cathedral this morning, Dr Rowan Williams says that there is a tendency to treat Biblical texts "as if they were unconvincing press releases from some official source, whose intention is to conceal the real story". Fascination with "bringing secrets to light", he said, evoked All the President's Men, the 1976 film about the investigative journalists...

When the Rev. John Buehrens gives his Easter sermon this Sunday, he'll borrow a page from an unlikely source: the Gospel of Judas. The gnostic text, unveiled by scholars with fanfare last week, portrays Jesus Christ as an enigmatic guru who venerates Judas, teaching him secret accounts of creation and approving his imminent betrayal. Many Christians might find that offensive, or, like Mr. Buehrens of Unitarian First Parish in Needham, Mass., silly. But as an emblem of Christianity's long tradition of dissenting voices, the text is for him an inspiration nonetheless. "An awful lot of what passes for orthodoxy today...