1. Definitively the product of persons with a "Gnostic" orientation. A few lines (as provided by Pearse) should be of interest:

   Jesus said to them, “How do you know me? Truly [I] say to you, no generation of the people that are among you will know me.”

   But their spirits did not dare to stand before [him], except for Judas Iscariot. He was able to stand before him, but he could not look him in the eyes, and he turned his face away. Judas [said] to him, “I know who you are and where you have come from. You are from the immortal realm of Barbelo. And I am not worthy to utter the name of the one who has sent you.” Knowing that Judas was reflecting upon something that was exalted, Jesus said to him, “Step away from the others and I shall tell you the mysteries of the kingdom. It is possible for you to reach it, but you will grieve a great deal. For someone else will replace you, in order that the twelve [disciples] may again come to completion with their god.”

   Judas said, “Master, as you have listened to all of them, now also listen to me. For I have seen a great vision.” When Jesus heard this, he laughed and said to him, “You thirteenth spirit, why do you try so hard? But speak up, and I shall bear with you.”

   “The twelve aeons of the twelve luminaries constitute their father, with six heavens for each aeon, so that there are seventy-two heavens for the seventy-two luminaries, and for each [50] [of them five] firmaments, [for a total of] three hundred sixty [firmaments …]. They were given authority and a [great] host of angels [without number], for glory and adoration, [and after that also] virgin spirits, for glory and [adoration] of all the aeons and the heavens and their firmaments.

2. It was written no earlier than the second century. The manuscript itself is a 3rd or 4th century Coptic translation. Irenaeus (c. 180 AD) mentions a gospel with Judas as the star, that was written by heretics, and this is probably it as it matches what he describes.

Now here are some observations about how this Judas gospel is being presented and received.

1. It is being used by the "politically correct" crowd to promulgate the idea of "diversity" in early Christianity. The underlying theme seems to be that this document presents another "point of view" that deserves a hearing. What never seems to be discussed is whether it does deserve such a hearing; it is merely assumed, that by existing at all, it warrants attention. The credibility of the source is never called into question.

   The absurdity of this sort of view is manifest once the evidence is considered. The Jesus of GoJ, with his airy pontificating over aeons and luminaries, is teaching the sort of thing that would never come from the mouth of a hardtack peasant teacher in first century Jewish Palestine. This Jesus is an elitist who mocks the disciples for not being as informed as he is about things that they never would have cared about, historically speaking. If the historical Jesus had pulled this sort of thing on a Peter, chances are he and the other disciples would have beat Jesus up, not held him in high regard. At the very least this sort of Jesus would have been a rogue and a deviant who would have been totally ignored by his Jewish contemporaries, or regarded as a madman. This is the sort of thing Gnostics cared about, having the leisure, as they did, to contemplate such things, which a peasant farmer, artisan, or fisherman did not.

   The simple fact is that either one or the other view about Jesus (the canonical Gospels, or GoJ) is right while the other is wrong, or else both are wrong. The Jesus of the canonical Gospels nestles comfortably in his setting: that of rural Palestine of the first century. The Jesus of GoJ is one that comes from the urban leisure class, at best. Which view is more likely to be wrong? That's not hard to decide. While GoJ should certainly have interest for those tracing deviant views of Jesus at a later date, to regard it as something from which an authentic memory of the Jesus of the first century can be gleaned is to suggest something that requires a tremendous burden of proof to fulfill.

2. The PC crowd is giving GoJ credence that it would never give the canonical Gospels. It is odd indeed to see how this works: Here we have in GoJ a single copy, written 300 or more years after the period it is alleged to be describing, and with no external attestation earlier than Irenaus some 150 years after the time of Jesus. On the other hand, we have the canonical Gospels, with much more and greater textual and external attestion, and they are treated as second class. One wonders what would happen if, say, Luke had been unknown until now, and then a single copy from the 4th century were discovered. Would the PC crowd suggest that this new document contained authentic memories?

   The story is virtually the same each time on of these "new" documents is uncovered: The much better attested canonical Gospels are treated as the bad guys and ignored, while the new kid on the block who can barely walk and chew gum at the same time is asked to all the parties.

   That said, there are few (if any) bold statements being made by what I would call the Pagels-Ehrman Axis to suggest that GoJ offers some sort of authentic witness to history. Craig Evans is quoted as saying: "It is possible that the Gospel of Judas preserves an old memory that Jesus had actually instructed Judas in private, and the other disciples did not know about it..." Evans is more sober in his studies, ordinarily, than this statement would suggest; we would hope that by "possible" he means merely in theory rather than in actuality. If this can be taken as actual proof of an old memory preserved, all objections to the full authenticity of the canonical Gospels just flew out the window. The Pagels-Ehrman Axis cannot have its cake and eat it too.

3. The desire for diversity. Pagels is on about how GoJ is "exploding the myth of a monolithic Christianity." Diversity is the buzzword of the day, but my response as usual is, "Who cares about diversity of error?" Perhaps the media would get happy if some of us provided some "diversity" by suggesting that Richard Nixon did nothing wrong with Watergate but was in fact framed by Bob Woodward. Or maybe the Pagels-Ehrman Axis would appreciate some "diversity" in our understanding of the lives of those two scholars by writing a "biography" portraying those two as having a torrid love affair. Then, when they object, we can accuse them of trying to suppress something, or of being afraid of diversity, and simply say we are "exploding the myth" of their personal lives being so clear of wrongdoing.

   Once again: In the end, there can only be ONE story of history that is correct; the rest must be wrong, or all stories are wrong. The GoJ and the canonical Gospels offer mutually exclusive portraits of Jesus. Diversity of views is irrelevant to what actually happened. It is also illicit to define every deviance from Christianity as "Christianity". The word has meaning, and it is not whatever meaning the Pagels-Ehrman Axis assigns to it today (which seems to be, now, "these are people who passed by a document that had the word 'Jesus' on it"). Witherington's assessment as reported by Goodstein is far closer to reality:

   "The manuscript tells us nothing about the historical Jesus or the historical Judas," said Ben Witherington III, professor of New Testament interpretation at Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, Ky. "It tells us a lot about a group that were labeled heretics in their own day...."

   He said that unlike the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, which were written in Christianity's first century, Gnostic works were produced in the second century and afterward. To say that the Gospel of Judas reveals anything factual about Judas, Dr. Witherington said, "is like saying a document written 150 years after George Washington died tells us the inside truth about George Washington."

4. The big hype tripe. The media is making the biggest deal of this secondhand Gospel, with such wild statements as GoJ being one of the "most important archaeological discoveries of the century". Huh? Not hardly, guys, unless you add the caveat which says, "...to those doing research into late heretical sects that used Christian characters." All this gives us is some insight into an obscure, deviant group of people 150 years too late to have history on their side. As Philip Jenkins has noted in Hidden Gospels, these guys in the media have a "powerful if undiscriminating hunger" for this kind of thing [178]. The media people lack the critical capacity needed to distinguish between good and bad research, so they treat fringe and mainstream scholarship with equal weight.

   Here is a typical comment from the media that represent the sort of uncritical nature Jenkins refers to: "In 1959, when the Gospel of Thomas was first published in English, many Christians were shocked to learn that any gospels existed other than Matthew, Mark, Luke and John." -- Laurie Goodstein, NY Times. Let me just say again, Who cares? Goodstein's comment reflects a naivete' that "other Gospels" merely existing means anything. I can type up a "Gospel of Sam the Barber from Nazareth" right now; should anyone be "shocked" about that? Of course not. But this is typical hype from a media maven with no discernment where the relative value of texts is concerned.

So in conclusion, I can find nothing more appropriate than offering a modified version of "Weird Al" Yankovic's "EBay Song":

Tell me why (I need another gospel)

Tell me why (the canon isn't helpful)

(Don't know why ... the documents you'd throw away)

(I'll buy on eBay)