A Gospel of Judas that was in use among an early Christian gnostic sect called Cainites was alluded to by Irenaeus, in Adversus Haeresis, written in Lyon, about AD 180. No trace of it had been known, until a Coptic Gospel of Judas turned up on the antiquities "gray market" in the 1990s. The 62-page leatherbound codex was purchased by the Maecenas Foundation in Basel. Its owners claimed that it had been uncovered at Muhazafat Al Minya in Egypt during the 1950s or 1960s, but that its significance had not been comprehended until recently. In a statement issued March 30, 2005, a spokesman for the Foundation announced plans for edited translations into English, French and German, once the fragile papyrus has undergone conservation. A team of specialists in Coptic history will be led by a former professor at the University of Geneva, Rudolf Kasser, and their work will be published in about a year. The Foundation's director, Mario Jean Roberty, announced that carbon dating put the Coptic manuscript in the third or fourth centuries, a century earlier than had originallybeen thought.

Professor Kasser revealed a few details about the text in 2004, the Dutch paper Parool revealed [1]. Its language is the same Sahidic dialect of Coptic in which the Nag Hammadi library is written. The text is probably a translation from Greek. The Codex has three parts: an Epistle to Philip that is ascribed to Peter (a variant is in the Nag Hammadi collection); the Revelation of Jacob (also known from Nag Hammadi); the Gospel of Judas. Up to a third of the codex is currently illegible.

A scientific paper will be published later in 2005.

A novel by Simon Mawer, The Gospel of Judas published in 2000 (UK) and 2001 (US) revolved around the discovery of a Gospel of Judas in a Dead Sea cave, and its effect on a scholarly priest.

A Judas Testament, on the other hand, is a pejorative term refering to a hypothetical and apocryphal gospel written by any disciple of Jesus or Jesus himself that would severely call into question the historicity of the words and acts attributed to Jesus in the New Testament and create great dismay amongst most devout Christians.

A novel by Daniel Easterman, The Judas Testament published in 1994 revolved around the discovery of a Judas Testament in Moscow by an Aramaic scholar, who becomes the unwitting pawn in a murderous struggle by various crypto-political forces to possess the scroll.

See also

• Dead Sea Scrolls
• Nag Hammadi Library
• New Testament apocrypha

External links

• Early Christian Writings: Gospel of Judas
• Patrick Baert, "Gospel of Judas back in spotlight after 20 centuries"