{"id":3055,"date":"2006-04-06T14:58:13","date_gmt":"2006-04-06T19:58:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/?p=3055"},"modified":"2006-04-06T15:01:15","modified_gmt":"2006-04-06T20:01:15","slug":"redeeming-judas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2006\/04\/redeeming-judas\/","title":{"rendered":"Redeeming Judas?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Today&#8217;s headlines contain <a href=\"http:\/\/news.yahoo.com\/s\/afp\/20060406\/ts_alt_afp\/usegyptreligion_060406173145\">news<\/a> of a new gospel:  The Gospel of Judas.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>This, of course, raises lots of questions:<\/p>\n<p>(1) <em>Is this genuine?<\/em>  This is a very difficult question to answer.  (What does genuine mean, anyway?  It could be a genuine third century document with completely false information or it could, theoretically, be an eighteenth-century document with completely accurate information.)  By way of comparison, for many years, the Secret Gospel of Mark was generally regarded as authentic, but in recent years, the tide has turned.  The prestige of the National Geographic Society is behind this document, but . . .<\/p>\n<p>(2) <em>What does it say?<\/em> Well, the headline grabber is that Jesus told Judas to betray him.  As far as I know (if I&#8217;m wrong, please correct me), this is an idea not taught in other ancient documents; at least, not in the canon.  Could it be true?  We&#8217;ll all need to think about that for awhile.  One data point:  President Kimball taught [1] that when Jesus told Peter, &#8220;Verily I say unto thee, That this night, before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice.&#8221; (Matthew 26:34), that that was a <em>commandment<\/em>, not a <em>prophecy<\/em>.  (If anyone has the citation for his statement, please let me know.)  In other words, Peter was commanded to betray Jesus.  This parallel would lend some (but not overwhelming) credibility to the idea that Judas was commanded to betrary Jesus.<\/p>\n<p>(3) <em>What difference does it make for Latter-day Saints?<\/em>  This one also requires some thought.  If we accept that Judas was commanded to do this, what difference does it make?  Why, then, did he kill himself?  I&#8217;m tempted to think about parallels to the Fall, where there is a necessity for a sin\/transgression.  I&#8217;m sure there are other implications and parallels.<\/p>\n<p>More information <a href=\"http:\/\/www9.nationalgeographic.com\/lostgospel\/\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>[1] I have heard it said that the Greek does not support this reading, but I am unsure whether that closes the case for those who regard President Kimball as authorized to offer authoritative interpretations of scripture.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today&#8217;s headlines contain news of a new gospel: The Gospel of Judas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3055","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-corn","category-scriptures"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3055","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3055"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3055\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3055"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3055"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3055"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}