The Jewish Background of the So-Called 'Gospel' of Judas‪.‬

Introduction Just before Passover 2006 the National Geographic Society (1) announced the imminent publication of a 'Gospel' that was written in an ancient language, Coptic, which is the abbreviation for aigyptios (Lambdin 1983:vii). This was one of the most epochmaking finds to be made in the Nile Valley, second only to the astonishing discovery of the Nag Hammadi corpus of texts in 1945 (Robinson 1972:1). It has been the talking-point of many discussions and controversies. In the process many issues have been addressed. One has to do with the question of whether this is in fact a Gnostic text and if so, what brand of Gnosticism is at issue (King 2003). Its relationship to Christianity and, more specifically, whether it should be seen as a gospel, as is indicated in the final word of the text, is another issue (Ehrman 2007). A crucial question is to ascertain what impact this discovery would have on Christianity, and whether the claim by Pagels and King (2007)--'it will shake Christianity to its foundations'--in fact holds true. (2)