Last Years Book of Judas Fiasco
Some of you may remember when National Geographic had produced some shows about the lost Gnostic gospel called the Gospel of Judas. I wouldn’t write about this if I didn’t think it was important, but in my very own family, I’ve heard my mother claim that they are discovering new scripture and the Bible is being rewritten. This is undoubtedly the influence of National Geographic’s work on the Gnostic gospel of Judas where the National Geographic Society put forward the idea that the Biblical text needs to be revised according to this new discovery.
Let’s first of all understand that the gnostic gospels are not a new discovery. During the early church, shortly after the death of Christ, a sect of people known as the Gnostics were already developing their own teachings that were contrary and opposed to the teachings of the Christians. They were known for their distortions and false teachings in the early church and it of course followed that none of their writings were considered to have any authority or claims to be God’s Word. It would be equivalent to taking the writings of some quack doctor who is clearly fraudulent to everyone in his midst and trying to get the medical professionals to adopt his methods. It just doesn’t happen. Yet we know very well, that nevertheless, people become victims of these quack doctors despite the obviousness to everyone else. So it is with the Gnostic gospels. The early church clearly recognized their fraudulent nature and they were never even considered for a moment for inclusion into the Bible.
So now we have National Geographic that finds this text and makes major headlines about it’s discovery, claiming that it contains hidden revelation that will shake the foundations of the Bible. Well, it turns out that this landmark discovery by National Geographic was never release for peer review by scholars near and far. They had kept it to themselves for translation and interpretation by only themselves. However, after they had aired their shows about the Gospel of Judas and after many of the public has already become convinced of their claims, the National Geographic has finally released the text for review by the public.
Now here’s the shocker (with a little sarcasm), the National Geographic society made previous errors in translating the text. Even people who are not Christians, but know the original languages are saying that Judas was not being portrayed as a hero in the text, but as a demon. And of course, the list of errors goes on. In short, National Geographic seems to have a bias against Christianity in this fiasco of attacking the credibility of the Bible using text that they did not allow for extensive review by professionals near and far. They released false information to the public, leading the public to believe them. I used to think National Geographic was a responsible organization that is good for education of our children, but it is clear that they cannot be trusted to give truthful information, especially when it comes to information about the most important truths relating to God and Jesus Christ. But Christian’s should not be surprised, these attacks on the Bible will continue.
I’m thankful that in the end, the information has been released and that the Bible once again comes out a victor against yet another attack. We can be thankful that God has preserved His Word for the generations and it will always prove itself as authentic and authoritative. And the proper response is to believe and trust in our Saviour Jesus Christ, take up our cross and follow Him.
For more on this story, click here to read Albert Mohler’s article.
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