An interview with Professor Charles W. Hedrick on the discovery of the gnostic Gospel of Judas, the translation of which was first published in 2006.

Charles W. Hedrick is Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Missouri State University. Among his many publications are The Apocalypse of Adam (Wipf & Stock, 2005), Many Things in Parables: Jesus and His Modern Critics (Westminster John Knox, 2004), and When History and Faith Collide: Studying Jesus (Hendrickson, 1999). He is the co-editor of Gospel of the Savior: A New Ancient Gospel (Polebridge Press, 2004) and Ancient Fiction: The Matrix of Early Christian and Jewish Narrative (Society of Biblical Literature, 2005). His book, Nag Hammadi, Gnosticism, and Early Christianity, co-edited with Robert Hodgson, Jr. of American Bible Society, is available from Wipf & Stock Publishers.

BIBLE RESOURCE CENTER (BRC): Was the discovery of this manuscript a total surprise? Are there people looking for such documents? Did we know about the Gospel of Judas* before now? What does this suggest about finding other gospels?

HEDRICK: It is always a surprise when someone "discovers" a new Christian gospel. I was surprised when I "discovered" the Gospel of the Savior on a light table in the Berlin Egyptian Museum. It was a gospel that had been "found," because it was in a museum, but was still "lost" because it was not recognized as a gospel. In the case of the Gospel of Judas, it was first mentioned in the second century of our era by Irenaeus (read more about Irenaeus and Gnosticism), a church leader of the late second century. It was also mentioned by a fourth-century church leader, Epiphanius. And so far as I know, it was never mentioned again until there were rumors that it had been found and was on the antiquities market for sale in the final quarter of the last century. Stephen Emmel, a distinguished American coptologist, teaching in Germany, saw it when he was a graduate student in 1983. Who knows what awaits us in the future? But the vast number of manuscript discoveries in the last century encourages us to hold open the possibility that there may still be discoveries forthcoming.

BRC: What, in your judgment, is the significance of this discovery—historically, religiously, and politically?

HEDRICK: The Gospel of Judas tells us nothing of historical value about the historical figures Judas Iscariot and Jesus of Nazareth. It can tell us a great deal of historical value about the interface between Sethian (Cainite) Gnosticism and Christian Orthodoxy in the second century. The Judas Gospel has a polemic against what we think of as Orthodoxy. So far as I can see, it has no significance for contemporary Christian confessions. We, after all, know of at least 34 gospels in the early period that take a different perspective from orthodox views and they have been around for a long time. Even the four canonical Gospels disagree among themselves and that has made little difference to contemporary Christianity.

BRC: The designation "Gnostic" is used to refer to a variety of related but highly diverse religious movements in the early centuries of the Common Era. With which strand of Gnosticism would you associate this particular text? How does it compare to other Gnostic writings?

HEDRICK: This text appears to stand in what some early church leaders knew as the Cainite tradition, which selected negative figures in Hebrew Bible history as heroes of their faith in their own tradition. The Cainites took their name from the biblical figure Cain, and extolled other such figures as Esau, Korah, and the Sodomites. The Gospel of Judas describes how Judas, like these other negative figures, was selected to serve the true "Power above"—the creator God of the Jews and the Christians. In other respects, the Gospel of Judas is a typical Gnostic text sharing many features with other Sethian texts from the Nag Hammadi Library.

BRC:Speaking of unity and diversity, how does a text like the Gospel of Judas reflect the unity and diversity of the ancient church and point to a similar situation in the modern church?

HEDRICK:The Gospel of Judas stands at odds with early Christian orthodoxy, and its "discovery" is simply a reminder that in the early centuries "Christianity" was very diverse. Standardization into one main stalk of Christianity was a second-century phenomenon, and occurred at the expense of the rich diversity of the early period. Such diverse groups stood in the stream of early Christian history, and because they trace their origins in some way to Jesus of Nazareth, deserve the designation "Christian." In a similar way, modern Christianity has a great deal of diversity in theology and praxis among the numerous and very different groups we include under the rubric "Christian."

BRC:The text makes reference to a number of interesting figures—Barbelo, Sophia, Adamas, the enlightened divine Self-Generated, Seth, Nebro, Yaldabaoth, Saklas, the stars, the twelve aeons, and the rulers. Could you tell us something about the most important of these characters?

HEDRICK:In Gnostic texts there is a bewildering array of mythical figures that inhabit the heavenly realm. Their role frequently differs from text to text, so it is not possible to define their overall significance with definitive specificity. Gnostic texts do not describe things logically. That said, the roles played in the Gospel of Judas by the figures you named are as follows: Barbelo is the name of the highest realm of divinity where dwells the Ineffable One. Sophia, mentioned in a fragmentary section as "corruptible Sophia," is "Wisdom." In some Gnostic texts she commits error in the heavenly realm that results in the formation of matter, which becomes the cosmos (the created world). This cosmos is a prison for the sparks that have broken off from the divine realm and that remain trapped in the cosmos.

Adamas is the first human being (Adam) of Genesis and also the paradigm for all human beings in the heavenly realm. Autogenes, (the Self-Generated One) in this text, is the first angel of the heavenly realm, who creates himself and gives birth to other denizens of the heavenly realm. Seth is the son of Adam, but in this text he is part of the heavenly realm where he is the progenitor for the race of Seth in the world, an enlightened generation of Gnostics. Nebro, Yaldaboath, and Saklas are names given to the wicked demiurge, who is the creator God of Jewish and Christian faith. He creates a whole series of creatures like himself who lord it over the cosmos.

BRC: What does the text mean when it says that God ordered Michael to "loan" people their spirits? How does this relate to Jesus' promise to Judas that he would "exceed" the others on account of "sacrificing" the man that "clothes" Jesus

HEDRICK: At this point in the text (page 53) there is a contrast between the kingless generation and the rest of the generations of the world. To the kingless generation is granted (given as a gift) both soul and spirit; to everyone else the spirit is "loaned." The significance is that the souls of the kingless generation will survive death; when the spirit leaves them their souls survive and they will be taken up. The souls of everyone else will die (p. 43). Why that is, I have no idea. This text is only at the beginning of its study. It will have to be analyzed in contrast with other similar Sethian texts for proper understanding. By betraying the man who "clothes" the heavenly Christ, Judas is performing a service to the Ineffable One (perhaps the Great Invisible Spirit) that far exceeds the service of all others (see page 45 where people are loaned spirit in order to perform service). The idea of being clothed by a body is a traditional Docetic concept (that is: "Jesus" is not human he only appears to be human). The essential essence of the figure who Jesus (the human) being clothes does not belong to the earthly realm, the cosmos, but comes from the immortal realm of Barbelo. With Judas' betrayal of Jesus, the spiritual essence of this immortal figure is free to return from whence he came. What Judas does for Jesus is the greatest service possible in this text, one for which Judas will be rewarded with a star that leads all the rest. In this text everyone has a "star," perhaps the spiritual essence of each individual.

BRC: Why do you think the figure of Judas fascinates us so much?

HEDRICK: I am not so sure the figure of Judas "fascinates" us. But if it is true that he does, it would likely be because of our deep faith in Jesus as the emissary from God who best makes God known. We wonder how anyone could be so misguided as to ever "betray God's Son"—who could be so evil as to do that? The canonical Gospels take different perspectives on Judas. In Mark, Judas is the betrayer of Jesus, but no motivation or explanation is given for this action; the priests do agree to give him money but that is not given as the motivation for the betrayal. In Matthew, Judas betrays Jesus for 30 pieces of silver; the motivation, it would seem, is greed. Judas later repents, raising the question, could he not be forgiven for his "mistake"? But in Luke and John, the betrayal is caused by Satan entering into Judas; Judas betrays Jesus as the very personification of evil. It would seem under such conditions repentance would not be possible. Judas' name has become a byword in modern culture epitomizing what it means to be an archvillain. Our use of Judas' name in such an expression—such as "You Judas, you!"—is also likely because of deep piety in Christian circles, attesting to the influence of the Bible on modern culture.

BRC: Who decided not to include this (and other extra-canonical gospels) in the New Testament and why? What does the variety of gospels suggest about the nature of the early church and the formation of both its identity and the canon?

HEDRICK: There was no one moment in early Christian history when a decision of church councils decided what could be read in all Christian churches. The list of appropriate books for reading in the church found in Eusebius (325), as well as the Easter Letter of Athanasius (367), was simply a statement affirming what the traditional practice had been in the churches. The New Testament canon was never closed by executive decision of some sort. These early churches were quite diverse, geographically widespread, and their practices were different. Eventually, what we call Orthodoxy won out in the debates, and our "historical" records have been preserved by those "orthodox" communities. We catch glimpses of the other side of the early debates with such discoveries as the Nag Hammadi Library, the Gospel of Judas, and other maverick gospels.

*This interview refers to the translation of Rodolphe Kasser, Marvin Meyer, and Gregor Wurst, in collaboration with Francois Gaudard, Copyright 2006 by the National Geographic Society.