[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by ernie

Not sure this is a Fata but i didn't see it.

A 300 AD text believed to be the only surviving copy of the biblical book the Gospel according to Judas has been translated by a National Geographic team. A Bibilical Scholar from Acadia University was part of the team so it is front page news today in Nova Scotia.

The biblical scholar in question would be Dr. Craig A. Evans, I presume. Can this be confirmed? He was the second reader for my M.A. thesis defense in 2002.

Originally Posted by ernie

According to the story in the local paper today it is a book believed to be a part of early Christianity and was believed to be removed from the bible around that 300 AD date.

Here is a misnomer about "the Bible" that persists ad nauseum in circles Christian and otherwise. Prior to the first Church Council at Nicea in the fourth century, there was no such thing as a "Bible", only collections of authoritative pieces of literature circulated among a variety of individual Christian communities. the Bible was a result of a process of canonization, which was intended to quell "heresy" in favour of a defined, monolithic standard of theological and spiritual observance that became the Christian faith. One of my colleagues actually suggests that the use of the word "scripture" and related terms in patristic literature (first to early fourth century C.E.) never actually refers to anything resembling modern concepts of the Bible.
The events were somewhat similar to the process of "canonization" which took place in the second century C.E. under the guidance of the early rabbinic Jews, who conferred the distinction of "scripture" once for all upon the Masoretic Text. Prior to 200, there probably dozens of religious collections of books whcih were deemed with similar divine authority; one such example is found in the Dead Sea Cave surrounding Qumran.

Originally Posted by ernie

Basically, it portrays Judas as the hero apostle. That Jesus asked and essentially conspired with Judas to have Judas "betray" him so Jesus could get done what he needed to get done.

This is nothing new. The Gospel of Judas is in line with the theology presented in many other products from the Nag Hamadi library, and was itself alluded to by Irenaeus before 200 C.E.

Originally Posted by ernie

It will be an interesting discussion for years to come among the Christian faith.

Discussion, yes. But in the end, the Gospel of Judas is useful in only two regards:
1) It provides more evidence for the diversity of theology in the pre-Constantinian Church, and provides additional context for the "gnostic controversies" which were so prevalent in the first three centuries of the Christian era.
2) It provides much needed new material for studies in the history of the early Church and the development of theology. I very seriously doubt that any long-term effects of the findings in the Gospel of Judas will register in any branches of mainstream Christianity.
The newly discovered Gospel will take its (proper) place among the other pieces of gnostic literature such as the Secret Sayings of Thomas Didimus, and the Gospels of Mary and Phillip. All of these compositions continue to function within the discipline of Biblical Studies as auxiliaries to other discussions related to history, theology, biblical interpretation, and sociological developments within the early Church communities. It will not be added to anyone's Bibles; while it is an interesting piece of ancient literature, it remains one whose substance is very much historically dubious.