BYU Studies Quarterly BYU Studies Quarterly
Volume 45 Issue 2 Article 7
5-1-2006
The Apocryphal Judas Revisited The Apocryphal Judas Revisited
John W. Welch
Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/byusq
Part of the Mormon Studies Commons, and the Religious Education Commons
Recommended Citation Recommended Citation
Welch, John W. (2006) "The Apocryphal Judas Revisited,"
BYU Studies Quarterly
: Vol. 45 : Iss. 2 , Article 7.
Available at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/byusq/vol45/iss2/7
This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at BYU ScholarsArchive. It has been
accepted for inclusion in BYU Studies Quarterly by an authorized editor of BYU ScholarsArchive. For more
information, please contact [email protected].
e Jebel Qarara hills, containing the cave where the Gospel of Judas was reported to
have been found by local farmers. e dry conditions of Egypt are ideally suited for the
preservation of papyrus. Ironically, the document survived nearly , years buried
here but was nearly lost during a thirty-year period in the hands of antiquities dealers.
e document journeyed across three continents in a remarkable odyssey that eventu-
ally brought it into the hands of scholars and preservationists, allowing the study of
another text from the growing collections that constitute the New Testament apocrypha.
© Kenneth Garrett
1
Welch: The Apocryphal Judas Revisited
Published by BYU ScholarsArchive, 2006
BYU Studies 5, no. 2 (26) 45
R
eading the Gospel of Judas and much that has been said about it makes
one wonder, how could such a thing happen? How could anyone
take the New Testament stories of Judas (of which the writer of the Gospel
of Judas is clearly aware) and distort the story so diametrically? How could
such a negative story be turned on its head, with evil being called good,
and good being called evil?
One factor at work in the Gospel of Judas is the impelling Gnostic
drive to discover new insights. Gnosticism took personal revelation to the
extreme. Seeking to uncover mysterious insights or intertwined strands
in the doctrines or experiences of religious gures was the daily bread of
Gnostics. In this milieu, spinning gold out of Judas’s straw would have
been a consummate Gnostic coup.
Another factor might be the politics of exclusion. ere can be no
question that the author of the Gospel of Judas found himself on the out-
lying margins of Christianity. Indeed, there is so little in this text that is
distinctively Christian, one wonders if it might have been inuenced by
Jewish Gnosticism (the name Judas looks a lot like the word “Jew”). In
any event, the elevation of Judas at the expense of the other Apostles is
clearly consistent with the general Gnostic rejection of the mainstream
Christian power centers that based their authority on Peter, Paul, and
other Apostles.
While we may never know precisely all the motives that led the author
to cast Judas in an astonishingly favorable light, it is clear that the Gospel
of Judas is not alone in fabricating a novel apocryphal story of a key New
Testament gure.
e Apocryphal Judas Revisited
John W. Welch
2
BYU Studies Quarterly, Vol. 45, Iss. 2 [2006], Art. 7
https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/byusq/vol45/iss2/7
46 v BYU Studies
Apocryphal Cousins
Filling in the gaps in traditional biblical stories, elevating the inter-
ests of one early Christian community over the others, and uncovering
new or old secrets with the aim of enlarging the canonical corpus are all
hallmarks of the disparate body of literature long referred to as the New
Testament Apocrypha, the word apokryphos meaning “hidden” or “kept
secret.” With this in mind, the Gospel of Judas can be well explained by
positioning it alongside its apocryphal cousins. All these works are related
to the books of the New Testament, but they are faint reections of the
brightness and simple clarity of the canonical texts.
Facing the onset of the Apostasy as early as the second century, writ-
ers of apocryphal works sought to breathe new life into old stories and
to supply creative answers to questions that had arisen in some minds
perhaps precisely because the New Testament gospel accounts are so brief
and simple. Apocryphal accounts, like folklore in many cultural settings,
tend to elaborate on the received traditions. ese eorts are usually well
intended, striving to edify or entertain (such as the medieval mystery
plays that tell the audience what Jesus wrote in the sand or what Lazarus
learned while he was dead
) or to embellish certain views or caricatures
(such as in the Slavonic Josephus, where the thirty pieces of silver paid
by the chief priests to Judas are transformed into thirty talents of gold or
silver paid by the chief priests as a bribe to Pilate
). But despite any good
intentions, the apocryphal writings are generally wrong-headed and
unreliable nonetheless.
When Joseph Smith came to the Old Testament Apocrypha, thirteen
ancient books bound into the Bible he was using as he produced the Joseph
Smith Translation, he inquired of the Lord whether he should translate
those apocryphal works. He was told that “it is not needful that the Apoc-
rypha should be translated,” with the explanation that readers who are
“enlightened by the Spirit shall obtain benet therefrom,” but without
the Spirit, readers “cannot be beneted” (D&C :, –). If this principle
. See generally, Stephen J. Patterson, “Apocrypha: New Testament Apocry-
pha,” in Anchor Bible Dictionary, ed. David Noel Freedman, vols. (New York:
Doubleday, ), :–.
. Hans-Jürgen Diller,
e Middle English Mystery Play: A Study in Dramatic
Speech and Form, trans. Frances Wessels (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University
Press, ), –.
.
“e teachers of the Law were overcome with envy, and gave thirty talents
to Pilate, in order that he should put him to death,” from the Slavonic Josephus, in
H. St. J. ackeray, trans., J
osephus: e Jewish War, Books –7 (Cambridge, Mass.:
Harvard University Press, ), .
3
Welch: The Apocryphal Judas Revisited
Published by BYU ScholarsArchive, 2006
V 47e Apocryphal Judas Revisited
applies in the case of the Old Testament Apocrypha, a person will need the
Spirit to an even greater degree in siing the cha from the few kernels of
wheat in the even more disparate and exotic New Testament Apocrypha.
Biblical Ambiguities about Judas
In many cases, the impetus behind the New Testament Apocrypha’s
impulse was lodged within the heart of the Christian tradition itself. With
conicts and uncertainties appearing within the sacred records, it seems
almost inevitable that someone would step forward to supply the missing
answers and desired resolutions. As if attempting to steady the scriptural
ark, apocryphal writers oen sought to pin down points more precisely
where inspired scriptural writers had le those matters unexplained.
For instance, and perhaps most signicantly with regard to Judas,
the Greek word paradidōmi (and its Coptic equivalent), which is oen but
not always translated as “betray,” can also mean simply “to turn over,” “to
commend,” or “to allow.” As is discussed in detail by William Klassen,
the
normal Greek word for “betray” is prodidōmi, used consistently and oen
by Josephus. But prodidōmi is never used in the New Testament to describe
what Judas does in precipitating the arrest of Jesus in the Garden of Geth-
semane; the New Testament consistently used paradidōmi. Furthermore,
when Jesus is handed over to Pilate to be judged (Matt. :; Mark :;
John :) or by Pilate to be crucied (Matt. :; Mark :; Luke
:; John :), the text consistently uses the same word (paredōken)
as is used to describe Judas’s act in handing Jesus over. When Paul says
to husbands, “Love your wives, even as Christ loved the church, and gave
himself for it” (Eph. :), the word again for “gave” is paredōken. So, this
linguistic subtlety invites the question, Did Judas actually betray Jesus, or
simply hand him over? Conicts and uncertainties amidst the New Testa-
ment Gospels themselves provided fodder for grazing minds looking for
lumps to chew on. In addition to the points mentioned by Frank Judd,
other questions can be asked about the Judas story in the four Gospels:
Did Judas go to the chief priests “so that” he might turn Jesus over
(Mark :), knowing what he wanted to do but not knowing how it could
be done without attracting a lot of public attention (Luke :), or did
he seek an opportunity to turn Jesus over only aer the chief priests had
oered him thirty pieces of silver (Matt. :)?
. William Klassen, Judas: Betrayer or Friend of Jesus? (Minneapolis: For-
tress, ), –.
.
See Frank F. Judd, Jr., “Judas in the New Testament, the Restoration, and
the Gospel of Judas,” in this volume, –.
4
BYU Studies Quarterly, Vol. 45, Iss. 2 [2006], Art. 7
https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/byusq/vol45/iss2/7
48 v BYU Studies
Did Jesus give a sop of bread to Judas (John :) or did Judas put
his hand into the bowl with Jesus (Matt. :), or was Judas the one whose
hand was with Jesus “on the table” (Luke :)?
Did Satan enter Judas before the Passover meal (Luke :, ) or only
aer Jesus gave Judas the sop (John :)?
Did Judas actually kiss Jesus (Matt. :; Mark :), or only come
up and was about to kiss him (Luke :)? And why does John not men-
tion the kiss at all?
With unanswerable questions such as these, it is easy to understand
why an array of views has proliferated over the centuries about Judas. As
Kim Paenroth sensitively shows,
Judas has been seen over the years as an
object of curiosity, horror, hatred, admiration, or hope, an array of views
that commenced early in Christian history.
Apocryphal Answers to Questions about Judas
With this background in mind, one rereads the Gospel of Judas and
the New Testament apocryphal accounts about Judas with a new set
of eyes. To the inevitable questions about Judas, the Apocrypha comes
through with readily fabricated answers.
To the question of what was wrong with Judas, Irenaeus answered that
Judas simply lacked faith. is view is found in an otherwise unknown
apocryphal conversation between Jesus and Judas: “When Judas the traitor
believed not, and asked: ‘How then shall these growths be accomplished by
the Lord?’ e Lord said: ‘ey shall see who shall come thereto.’”
To the question of when Judas rst was possessed by the Devil, an
answer is found in the Arabic Gospel of the Infancy: He was possessed by
the Devil at least from childhood. As a boy, so we are told, Judas hit Jesus
and “the devil [le] him in the form of a dog.”
Did Judas act with premeditation? A Coptic narrative says that when
Judas received the thirty pieces of silver,
. See Kelsey D. Lambert, review of Judas: Images of the Lost Disciple, by Kim
Paenroth, in this issue, –.
.
Irenaeus,
Against Heresies, .., in Montague Rhodes James, e Apoc-
ryphal New Testament, corr. ed. (Oxford: Clarendon, ), . is text is from
Lyons, France, ca. –.
.
Arabic Gospel of the Infancy, (from Syria, ca.
–), in J. K.
Elliott, e Apocryphal New Testament (Oxford: Clarendon, ), . A Coptic
narrative from Egypt in ca. – states that as early as the feeding of the
ve thousand, “Judas was the last to receive the bread and ‘had no inheritance’ in
it.” Elliott, Apocryphal New Testament, .
5
Welch: The Apocryphal Judas Revisited
Published by BYU ScholarsArchive, 2006
V 49e Apocryphal Judas Revisited
his wife was foster-mother to the child of Joseph of Arimathaea, which
was seven months old. When the money was brought into the house, the
child (fell ill or would not stop crying). Joseph was summoned: the child
cried out, begging him to take it away “from this evil beast, for yesterday
at the ninth hour they received the price (of blood).” Joseph took the
child away. Judas went to the priests. ey arrested Jesus and took him
to Pilate.
In other words, Judas had fair warning out of the mouth of babes and thus
went to the chief priests with full consciousness and premeditation.
According to the Acts of Pilate, Judas was not entirely alone to blame.
Both he and his unbelieving and unhelpful wife were given a divine sign
that Jesus would rise from the dead, which reinforced Judas’s decision to
hang himself:
And departing to his house to make a halter of rope to hang himself, he
found his wife sitting and roasting a cock on a re of coals or in a pan
before eating it: and saith to her: “Rise up, wife, and provide me a rope,
for I would hang myself, as I deserve.” But his wife said to him: “Why
sayest thou such things?” And Judas saith to her: “Know of a truth that
I have wickedly betrayed my master Jesus to the evil-doers for Pilate to
put him to death: but he will rise again on the third day, and woe unto
us!” And his wife said to him: “Say not nor think not so: for as well as
this cock that is roasting on the re of coals can crow, just so well shall
Jesus rise again, as thou sayest.” And immediately at her word, that cock
spread his wings and crowed thrice. en was Judas yet more convinced,
and straightway made the halter of rope and hanged himself.
According to yet another account, several other people were complicit
in the scheme that led to the execution of Jesus. A late appendix to the
apocryphal Acts of Pilate makes the novel claims that Judas was actually
a nephew of the High Priest Caiaphas and that Jews had bribed Judas for
over two years to be an inside informant. According to this story, Judas
falsely blamed Jesus for stealing the law and deling his cousin, who was a
prophetess in the Temple. e tale begins by declaring that the Temple had
been pillaged and deled by Demas (one of two robbers sent to Pilate seven
days before the arrest of Jesus). As a result,
Caiaphas and the multitude of the Jews had no passover but were in
great grief because of the robbery of the sanctuary by the thief. And
they sent for Judas Iscariot who was brother’s son to Caiaphas, and had
been persuaded by the Jews to become a disciple of Jesus, not to follow
. P. Lacau, Fragments d’apocryphes coptes (Cairo, ), in Elliott, Apocry-
phal New Testament, . ese fragments are from Egypt, ca. –.
. Acts of Pilate, in James, Apocryphal New Testament, . is text is from
Jerusalem, ca. –.
6
BYU Studies Quarterly, Vol. 45, Iss. 2 [2006], Art. 7
https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/byusq/vol45/iss2/7
50 v BYU Studies
his teachings, but to betray him. ey paid him a didrachm of gold
daily; and as one of Jesus’ disciples, called John, says, he had been two
years with Jesus. On the third day before Jesus was taken, Judas said to
the Jews: “Let us assemble a council and say that it was not the robber
who took away the law, but Jesus.” Nicodemus, who had the keys of the
sanctuary, said “No:” for he was a truthful man. But Sarra, Caiaphas’
daughter, cried out that Jesus said in public, “I can destroy the temple
(etc.)”. All the Jews said: “We believe you.” For they held her as a proph-
etess. So Jesus was taken.
And what about the eternal fate of Judas? Was there any room for
his repentance or any hope for him in the eternities? Not according to
the Coptic book of e Resurrection of Christ, in which Jesus met and
rejected Judas in the underworld while his body lay in the tomb. ere,
Jesus bound demons and broke doors, but “then he turned to Judas Iscar-
iot and uttered a long rebuke, and described the suerings which he must
endure. irty names of sins are given, which are the snakes which were
sent to devour him.”
However, according to e Acts of Andrew and Paul, Jesus saved
Judas so that the forces of hell could not claim to be stronger than Jesus.
In this text, Paul visited Judas in the underworld and learned that Judas
had repented, had given back the money to the chief priests, and had found
Jesus and begged his forgiveness. Jesus sent him to the desert to repent.
But the devil came and threatened to swallow Judas up; in response Judas
“worshipped him. en in despair he thought to go and ask Jesus again
for pardon, but [by then Jesus] had been taken away to the praetorium. So
[Judas] resolved to hang himself and meet Jesus in Amente [the under-
world]. Jesus came and [liberated] all the souls but [Judas’s].” When the
powers of death claimed that they were stronger than Jesus because he
had le a soul with them, “Jesus ordered Michael to take away Judas’s soul
[from Amente] also, that Satan’s boast might be proved vain, and [Jesus]
told Judas how [Judas] had destroyed his own hopes by worshipping Satan
and killing himself. Judas was then sent back [to the underworld] till the
. e Narrative of Joseph of Arimathaea, (a text from the Pilate Cycle), in
Elliott, Apocryphal New Testament, . is text comes from Jerusalem, ca.
–.
. e Book of Resurrection of Jesus Christ by Bartholomew the Apostle,
in Elliott, Apocryphal New Testament, . is text is from Egypt, ca.
–. “is text contains an execration against Judas Iscariot said to have
been pronounced by Jesus in ‘Amente,’ an Egyptian mythological term for hell.”
It “amount[s] to an excommunicative curse.” Testament of Job, in Old Testament
Pseudepigrapha, ed. James H. Charlesworth (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, ),
: n. d.
7
Welch: The Apocryphal Judas Revisited
Published by BYU ScholarsArchive, 2006
V 51e Apocryphal Judas Revisited
day of judgment.”
Although Judas ultimately succumbed to the Devil, at
least he had tried to repent and Jesus protected him to spite the forces of
hell. is story reects a glimmer of hope for Judas’s redemption through
the grace and power of Christ.
Indeed, right within the New Testament are the seeds of a positive
view of Judas’s fate. Even aer the death of Judas, Peter armed that Judas
“had obtained part of this ministry” (KJV) or that Judas “had received by
lot the assignment (klēros) of this service (diakonias)
” (Acts :, author’s
translation). e role of “becoming a guide (hodēgou) to the ones who
took Jesus” was his calling, a fate that Peter says was prophesied concern-
ing Judas.
Discerning between Truth and Fabrication
From all of this, it is clear that many exotic things have been said about
Judas, and not only in the Gospel of Judas. e Gospel of Judas oers just
one more concocted story about Judas which is no more credible than
any other apocryphal tale that has been spun out about his childhood,
his wife’s dead rooster, or his being bribed for two years as an undercover
agent. us, it deserves to have no greater impact on people’s views of
Jesus, Judas, or the New Testament than any other apocryphal story.
e
Gospel of Judas does not become any more persuasive simply because the
text of this long-known heresy has now been unearthed.
More than ever before, as books are coming forth from antiquity, their
truths and errors must be discerned through the Spirit, as Joseph Smith
was instructed in Doctrine and Covenants :–. e rule that applied
for the relatively tame Old Testament Apocrypha applies even more to the
New Testament apocryphal accounts, including the Gospel of Judas. e
spirit of discernment is of leading importance: “Wherefore, beware lest ye
are deceived; and that ye may not be deceived seek ye earnestly the best
gis, always remembering for what they are given” (D&C :).
Satan’s corruption of truth typically involves telling half-truths, imi-
tating reality, hiding behind other people, and mingling the ideas of men
with scripture. All of these strategies are readily apparent in the Gospel of
. e Acts of Andrew and Paul, in Elliott, Apocryphal New Testament,
–. is text is from ca. , location uncertain.
. On the obvious ctional character of much of the New Testament Apocry-
pha, see further Richard Lloyd Anderson, “Imitation Gospels and Christ’s Book of
Mormon Ministry,” in Apocryphal Writings and the Latter-day Saints, ed. C. Wil-
fred Griggs, Religious Studies Monograph Series, no. (Provo, Utah: Religious
Studies Center, Brigham Young University, ), –.
8
BYU Studies Quarterly, Vol. 45, Iss. 2 [2006], Art. 7
https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/byusq/vol45/iss2/7
52 v BYU Studies
Judas. is text presents several true ideas about the coming apostasy, the
problem of anger, the wickedness of priests in the temple of Herod, souls
rising aer death, angelic visionary escorts, Judas handing Jesus over for
money, and it quotes or paraphrases scripture ( Cor. : and passages
on the arrest of Jesus).
But this text also mingles these true ideas with
claims that Christ is Seth; that no mortal can associate with the generation
of heaven; that the Twelve were seen leading people astray and stoning
Judas; that Judas would rule over all the other generations, angels, aeons,
and luminaries above; and that this world below is called “perdition.”
Whereas true revelation sustains the divinity of Christ and is consistent
with the truthfulness of the Bible and the Standard Works (Morm. :), the
Gospel of Judas seeks to divide that house even against itself.
In the spirit of the gospel of Jesus Christ, however, answers to most of
the traditional questions about Judas can be given. Satan inuenced Judas
to betray Jesus; Judas knew well what he was doing and acted voluntarily;
Jesus’ death was part of God’s plan for the salvation of his children; and
Christ had control over his life and death notwithstanding Judas’s actions.
Judas apparently tried to repent (see Matt. :), although the details of this
“change of heart”
or “remorse of conscience”
remain unknown.
. Rodolphe Kasser, Marvin Meyer, and Gregor Wurst, e Gospel of Judas
(Washington, D.C.: National Geographic, ), –, –, –, –, ,
Codex Tchacos –, , , , .
. Kasser, Meyer, and Wurst, Gospel of Judas, , –, , , –, Codex
Tchacos , , , –.
. “Two Fates,” Millennial Star (December , ): . Elder James E.
Talmage has written that Judas was not “in the least degree deprived of freedom or
agency in the course he followed to so execrable an end.” James E. Talmage, Jesus
the Christ (Salt Lake City: e Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, ),
n. . See also C. Wilfred Griggs, “e Last Supper According to John,” in From
the Last Supper through the Resurrection: e Savior’s Final Hours, ed. Richard
Holzapfel and omas Wayment (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, ), : “God’s
knowledge was not a causative agent depriving Judas of the responsibility to
choose freely.” See also Bruce R. McConkie, e Mortal Messiah, vols. (Salt Lake
City: Deseret Book, ), :, , , , ; David Rolph Seely, “e Last Supper
according to Matthew, Mark, and Luke,” in Holzapfel and Wayment, From the
Last Supper through the Resurrection, , ; S. Kent Brown, “e Arrest,” in From
the Last Supper through the Resurrection, –; Richard A. Holzapfel, A Lively
Hope: e Suering, Death, Resurrection, and Exaltation of Jesus Christ (Salt Lake
City: Bookcra, ), , ; and John W. Welch, “Latter-day Saint Reections on
the Trial and Death of Jesus,” Clark Memorandum (Fall ): .
. Andrew Skinner, Golgotha (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, ), .
. McConkie, Mortal Messiah, :–.
9
Welch: The Apocryphal Judas Revisited
Published by BYU ScholarsArchive, 2006
V 53e Apocryphal Judas Revisited
Summing up this colloquium, it is clear to all that the story of Judas
will continue to attract attention, for many people are drawn to catastro-
phes as ies are drawn to corpses. But Judas’s catastrophe should not be
compounded by pouring theological salt in his wounds. Victims of disas-
ters should not be taken advantage of. Yet, in writing the Gospel of Judas
someone took advantage of Judas, using him to promote certain theologi-
cal and sectarian views against his will. Judas is not a willing participant in
this situation. So, as I wonder how such a writing could come to be, I also
wonder how Judas must feel to be used this way. I doubt that he recognizes
much of himself in this “gospel” that bears his name. Even Judas’s name
can be taken in vain.
John W. Welch (welchj@byu.edu) is Professor of Law at the J. Reuben Clark
Law School, Brigham Young University. He earned an MA in Greek and Latin
at BYU and a JD at Duke University. He is editor in chief of BYU Studies and
serves on the development council of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious
Scholarship at BYU.
10
BYU Studies Quarterly, Vol. 45, Iss. 2 [2006], Art. 7
https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/byusq/vol45/iss2/7
