Gospel of Judas

There has been a recently released translation of the Gospel of Judas, a work of early Christianity that had been lost for many centuries. In it Judas is portrayed in a very different light than in the New Testament.

Being neither a Christian nor a Biblical scholar, I am only tangentially interested in this topic. The part that interests me is what will happen next. You see, I've always taken it as given that once the First Council of Nicaea declared certain books of the Bible to be orthodoxy and some to be heresy, that the Biblical accounts had been given a spin that was politically expedient for the time.

Its long been an known that history has been written by the winners, and its clear that Judas was never on the winning side of anything. I've also come across any number of bits of folk music (Bob Dylan: With God on Our Side), science fiction (Peter F. Hamilton: Judas Unchained, Phillip K. Dick: A Scanner Darkly), and fantasy (Dave Duncan: The Great Game), which have primed me to think that the Christian orthodox view of Judas is only one possible interpetation of events.

In other words, the existance of a Gospel of Judas, no matter its contents, will have as close to zero impact on my knowledge of Christianity as is possible. Its impact on Christians in general (as opposed to theologicians) is bound to be different, and that's what I find fascinating. I would hope for it to have an equally minimal impact on them, but somehow I doubt it.

Rube Goldberg.

Thanks to _grey_knight, here's three video's each featuring a dozen nifty Rube Goldberg machines!

Wikipedia Meme.

I'm a sheep.

( Baaaaah. )