JUDAS THE BEST FRIEND

It is indeed good timing - right before Good Friday, newspapers are brimming with articles on the publication of the Gospel of Judas by the National Geographic Society last week.

The gospel is very interesting because it is yet another evidence of the divisions within the early church. As a Catholic friend put mildly tonight over the phone, history is told by the victors. According to him, the four canonical gospels (Mark's, Luke's, Matthew's and John's) reflect the victorious factions within the church back then, a couple of centuries years after Jesus died on the cross. The Judas gospel belonged to the losers group, and one could argue the same about the Gospel of Thomas (the gospel's emphasis on individual spirituality was most likely the main reason for its exclusion from the New Testament canon).

But to me the most interesting aspect of the Gospel of Judas is that Judas Iscariot emerges as Jesus' best friend and favorite apostle. There are several references to Judas' relevance and singular position among the apostles - and more importantly, the gospel says that it was Judas who enabled Jesus to fulfill his mission by delivering him to the authorities that eventually tortured and crucified him.

This is the revealing phrase in the gospel: "The star that leads the way is your star, Jesus said to Judas... You will exceed all of them for you will have sacrificed the man that clothes me." According to scholars, this passage means that through Judas the soul of Jesus will be liberated from the body that entraps him (Jesus) and then ascend to heaven.

So if I understand it correctly - basically, there was Judas Iscariot, supposedly helping his best friend Jesus die and achieve immortality. A mild case of assisted suicide maybe?

I also cannot help but wonder about the etymology of Judas Iscariot the name. Judas means, to be sure, Jew. All the apostles and Jesus himself were, as we all know, Hebrews; they were all "Judases". But Judas Iscariot is the only one who went down in history simply as the Jew. Which probably was a custom-ordered role for him as early Christianity moved steadily to break with Judaism completely.

And what happens now? Will Easter, the most important religious holiday of the Christian liturgical year, change? Traditionally, Good Friday recounts the events that led to the crucifixion of Jesus at Calvary. It is a very somber day, and growing up in Brazil I witnessed many street processions and reenactments of the betrayal of Jesus by Judas Iscariot...

More than anything, the Gospel of Judas and the questions it raises remind me that religion and spirituality are not the same thing. Sometimes the quest for spiritual meaning is overlooked in the name of dogma and politics, and we forget to first look within ourselves before adhering to absolute truths and constructs that hold organized religion and practice as necessary for our social (and individual) survival.