The Gospel of Judas

Salon's featured interview today with Karen L. King, the religious historian who wrote Reading Judas: The Gospel of Judas and the Shaping of Christianity, brought to mind a series of conversations I had with my friend Scott. Six or seven years ago, Scott converted from the church of rock n' roll to the significantly more conservative Seventh Day Adventist church. Which would have been all well and good except his literal interpretation of the Bible led him to criticize my less-than-Christian ways... especially funny since I'm Jewish...

I was armed with all that I learned during a New Testament history class - an amazingly challenging class taught by a Duke doctoral candidate. I asked Scott things like: What about the magicians who lived during the same time as Jesus, who performed similar "miracles" but have since been forgotten? What about the many gospels that didn't make the cannon, including one (I wish I could remember the name...) that showed Jesus as an impetuous child who would kill his playmates when they angered him but would resurrect them when their parents complained? Do you not find it at all suspicious that the canonized gospels were written 50 to 150 years after Jesus died or that the gospels disagree with one another in details or that their deviation from their historical context could easily have been caused by a desire to appease the ruling class - that is, the Romans?

I'm generally not in the business of trying to debunk people's beliefs. I think religion is useful and comforting to a lot of people and I would never want to take anything away from a person that makes them feel a little better about life or a little stronger or more hopeful. But I also chafe at being held to the standards of another person's religion.

Of course, my questions did not, in any way, alter Scott's belief, though he did eventually get over the phase of judging me and has gone back to just being a friend. But that's faith - he, like more believers, believes what he believes because he believes it. The historical context of all religious texts are fascinating to me but to most people, it's a largely irrelevant setting of the story of their belief. Sometimes that is enough.

That said, tonight is Pesach, or Passover, a holiday in which Jews recall the story of Moses leading us from slavery in Egypt. The "us" is very intentional - within the ritual meal to celebrate the holiday, a story is told in which only the wicked child would dare insinuate that we are not the same Jews who were slaves all those centuries ago. Isn't religion fascinating?