Lost Gospel of Judas

It seems that the "lost gospel of Judas" had been making a stir in the media lately, along with a few other lost, hidden or new ideas. While we haven't read this "gospel," we really don't feel a need to for several reasons:

1. The gospel of Judas claims that Judas and Jesus were best friends...which is possible, but not likely since Jesus referred to Judas as "a devil" (John 6:70). While I do believe they were friends, and Jesus was just being honest about the character of Judas, it seems a bit far-fetched to believe they were best friends. Of course, Jesus could have simply said that to throw the rest of us off so we wouldn't know Judas was really "helping" Him.

That opens up its own can of worms though. If Jesus was just calling Judas a devil to throw the rest of us off the trail, then Jesus lied. And if Jesus lied about Judas, then Jesus most likely lied about a lot of other things too, which would mean that we really can't believe anything that Jesus ever said.

2. John called Judas a thief (12:6). Of course, that could just be John's opinion, but since "all Scripture is God-breathed" (2 Tim. 3:16), that would mean that not only did Jesus lie in calling Judas a devil, but that God lied by inspiring John to call Judas a thief!

There's that can of worms again. If God lied about Judas being a thief then we really can't trust anything that's in the Bible.

3. John is referred to as the disciple that Jesus loved (John 13:23, 19:26, 20:20, 21:7), so it would seem that if anyone had to help Jesus fulfill the Scriptures by betraying him, it would have been John. Again, all Scripture is God-breathed. There is no mention of Judas being the disciple that Jesus loved, though I'm sure Jesus did love him.

Of course, this could be due to the conspiracy that the two bosom buddies concocted in order to bring about the crucifixion, but...I dunno. It seems to stretch the imagination a bit that such a deep relationship could have been kept hidden from everyone for so long, considering that Jesus shared such close quarters with, not only Judas, but the other eleven disciples, too. Seems that somewhere along the way, someone would have noticed they had become best friends.

4. In fact, there is no mention of Judas Iscariot in the Bible at all, other than in passages referring to the betrayal of Jesus. Once again, all Scripture is God-breathed. Of course, maybe God didn't know of the plot that Judas and Jesus had cooked up?

5. Never before has God or Jesus ever needed to ask someone to help them fulfill prophecy!

Never!

And they never will.

"Son, let's go ask Bob to be the anti-christ so Scripture can be fulfilled. Beg, if you need to!"

Somehow, it just doesn't seem very realistic.

Nope, we haven't read the lost gospel of Judas. And it's fairly safe to say we won't. Is it a real document? Probably. That doesn't mean it's accurate and it wasn't written or inspired by God. At least not the God we follow.

"Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world." (1 John 4:1)