num_pages: 267
description: Lance Jenott presents a new critical edition annotated translation and interpretation of the Gospel of Judas which for the first time includes all extant fragments of the manuscript. Departing from the scholarly debate over how this second-century Gospel portrays the character of Judas Iscariot he investigates the texts preoccupation with Jesus Twelve Disciples and why its author slanders them as immoral priests who unwittingly offer sacrifice to a false god. Jenott challenges previous interpretations of Judas as a Gnostic text that criticizes the sacrificial theology Christology and ritual practices of the orthodox church including Eucharist and baptism. Instead he emphasizes how its Christian author voices a political critique of the emerging clergy who established their ecclesiological authority through doctrines of apostolic succession and the exclusive right to administer the Eucharist. In the final chapter Jenott leaves questions about the authors second-century Sitz im Leben behind to consider how Judas may have appealed to the fourth-century Coptic Christians who produced our only known copy.
language: None
title: Gospel of Judas: Coptic Text, Translation, and Historical Interpretation of 'The Betrayer's Gospel'
publisher: Mohr Siebeck