I just watched the "gospel of judas" episode on national geographic.a very intriguing episode it was.MY STAND:no matter what role Judas plays in the Gospel or the New Testament my faith in Jesus remains unshaken.However the episode has injected a faint belief that Judas could have been a confidant of Jesus.The reason i say that is because the first gospel that is the gospel of Mathew doesnt portray Judas as a traitor and neither does the gospel of Mark. ill get more info soon...
Even God cannot change history but his created men can certainly distort it! Whether Jesus asked Judas to betray him or Judas did so on his own accord, does not change the fact that the Son of God died for our sins and resurrected himself to show the power of the kingdom of God. It is no secret that the subsequent wearers of the ring of the fisherman, distorted the gospels, hiding some and destroying others, for their own benefit-after all, what would you expect from people who passed on the mitres to their illegitimate children or selling them to whosoever paid the most. Were they not Judas of their times? An attempt to review history in the light of fresh facts should be appreciated and encouraged and not seen as questioning one's faith.
The document may be genuine as it is carbon dated but it cannot be proved wheather it is written by Judas or the opposition who wanted to supress the ever growing Christian empire at that time. If it was true it would be pronounce at that time not today
Judas committed suicide almost immediately after Christ's crucifixion.So the chances of him writing a gospel is very less.But there is overwhelming evidence that all the other disciples wrote gospels.Do not forget that Christ expressly instructed everyone to spread his Word before His departure.They knew that writing about Christ's life and teachings is the best method to spread His Word. Since many of his followers understood the historic importance of Christ's momentous life and His path-breaking teachings,they proceeded to write it down.Hence,there was a lot of material available to the early church fathers,when they proceeded to compile the Bible.They selectively included those works which highlighted the positive aspects of Christ's life and diligently avoided(or edited) those works which included both positive and negative aspects of his life. It is clear that they wanted to emphasize the divinity of Christ and discourage looking at Christ as a human being.Hence the gospels of Philip,Thomas etc.were not included in the Bible.But these and other unknown works resurrected 50 years back in the form of Coptic scrolls(found in Egypt)and the Dead Sea Scrolls ,giving a better pic.
