why do Christians always invariably lump the denial of the existance of Christ in with the denial of existance of God? It seems as if they automatically assume that one MUST be linked to the other..

C. Poley also says , “Even if the parchment lies, there is still some proof of the existence of a man named Jesus and a man named Judas, which should shock the world more than the fact that this text seems to prove the Bible wrong. Being an ignorant person myself and not a scholar on any account, why should we suddenly choose to believe this old scrap of parchment”

What ‘proof’ is that, C. Poley? On what do you base your faith that this is true? Because you wish it to be true? Would that life were that simple.. you ask why we should suddenly choose to believe an old scrap of parchment, but by the same token, aren’t the Dead Sea scrolls ‘old scraps of parchment’ as you say? I could pose the exact same question to you with as just as much (or as little) validity, as the case may be- you can choose to believe whatever you wish, but believing it does not necessarily make it the truth- the reality is that what REALLY happened 2,000 years ago will probably never be truly accurately known in this life because of the poor technology for keeping records in those days- and we only actually have the words of those writers who incidentally belonged to this ‘cult’ to lean on- there are no corroborating writings in the histories of any other cultures or civilizations of that era including the Roman empire that even speak of this relatively little known phenomenon- it is entirely couched within its own self-contained environment, a hoax perpretated by the early Christian church in order to foster a following and build up the church, therefore, the power of the church- and as we can see, very successfully so- the indoctrination of the human spirit to this repeated moral brainwashing over the centuries has taken deep root, regardless of how the content of the text is often contradictory and even flies in the face of credulity at times..

because people like to believe in fairy tales and myths- you say Jesus is real- and I can’t prove he’s not.. because so many people believe in him that he must be real.. I could just as easily say Santa Clause is real- because so many people believe in him.. and you can’t prove he doesn’t exist… which of us is right?

Perhaps you are asking the wrong questions, C. Poley…

Phil

You have many questions that cannot be fully answered here. Curiosity is a very good thing and I would recommend reading further on the subject. What I will say (to address some of what may be misunderstandings of my post) is that nowhere here do I claim that the Gospel of Judas provides us with information about the actual, historical Judas or the actual peasant Jesus. Nor am I concerned with questions of what is “true” theologically here. Instead, I discuss this document (like I would any other historical document) as a window into what one, specific author (and some other kin authors in the second or third centuries) thought about Judas and Jesus a couple of centuries after those figures lived. I am concerned with what the worldview of a certain type of early Christian was, and there were many other early Christians who thought differently.

The Gospel of Judas does not claim to be written after Judas’ death. Rather it _claims_ (also notice this word in my post) to provide a discussion between the living Jesus and Judas BEFORE the “betrayal”.

Hope this helps to clarify. Perhaps a re-read of the post itself would clarify some of your questions.

Phil