유다의 복음서: 배신에 대한 영지주의적 관점

### 유다의 복음서: 배신과 신적 지식에 대한 영지주의적 관점
* 📜 1970년대에 발견되어 2006년에 출판된 영지주의 텍스트인 유다복음은 **예수와 가룟 유다에 대한 대안적인 관점**을 제시하며 유다를 **배신자가 아닌 호의적인 제자**로 묘사하고 있습니다.
* 👥 이 텍스트는 **유다를 예수의 신성한 사명을 진정으로 이해하는 유일한 제자**로 묘사하여 전통적인 기독교 서사에 도전하며, **세티안 영지주의 종파와 관련된 독특한 신학적 세계관**을 강조합니다.
* 🌌 기원전 2세기에 쓰여진 유다복음에는 **하나님과 우주의 본질에 대한 예수의 가르침**을 드러내는 대화가 담겨 있으며, **영적 통찰력이 부족한 다른 제자들**을 비판하고 있습니다.
* 💬 예수님은 제자들과의 대화에서 제자들의 기도를 비웃으시며 **"너희 중 어느 세대도 나를 알지 못하리라"**고 말씀하시며 하나님에 대한 이해와 거리를 두시는 등 제자들의 잘못된 믿음에 대한 경멸을 드러내십니다.
* 🔍 유다는 **예수의 신적 기원을 불멸의 영역인 바벨로에서 찾으며** 영지주의 우주론에서 신들의 복잡한 위계를 암시하는데, 이는 주류 기독교 신앙과 대조를 이룹니다.
* ✨ 본문은 예수의 십자가 처형에서 유다의 역할이 신성한 계획의 일부임을 드러내며, 예수께서 **"너는 그들 모두보다 더 큰 일을 할 것이다"**라고 말씀하시며 유다의 오해된 의미를 강조합니다.
* 🕊 유다복음은 **제자들의 관습을 잘못된 것으로 비난**하고 물질 세계를 초월한 참된 희생에 대한 깊은 이해를 옹호함으로써 **정통 기독교를 비판**합니다.
* 📖 궁극적으로 유다복음은 **유다를 더 높은 목적을 달성한 영웅**으로 포지셔닝하는 반전 서사를 제시하여 기독교 전통에서 유다를 단순히 악당으로만 인식하는 것에 도전합니다.

유다복음은 유다를 전통적인 기독교 신앙에 도전하며 신성한 목적을 달성한 오해받는 영웅으로 묘사합니다.

The Gospel of Judas is a Gnostic text discovered in the 1970s and first translated and published in 2006. Unlike the canonical Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, the Gospel of Judas presents an alternative view of Jesus, his disciples, and Judas Iscariot's role in the events leading up to Jesus's crucifixion. This text is particularly significant because it challenges traditional Christian perspectives on Judas, portraying him not as a traitor but as a favored disciple who understood Jesus's divine mission in a way the others did not. The Gospel of Judas reflects a distinct theological worldview, likely associated with a Gnostic sect known as the Sethians. The Gospel of Judas is believed to have been written in the second century CE, likely in Greek, and later translated into Coptic. It is thought to have been composed by a group of early Christians

who were influenced by Gnostic thought, and though whilst it is not a narrative gospel in the style of the canonical Gospels but rather a series of dialogues between Jesus and his disciples, culminating in a unique interaction between Jesus and Judas. The Gospel of Judas is deeply rooted in Gnostic cosmology, which views the material world as a creation of lesser, ignorant deities rather than the work of a benevolent Supreme God. Gnosticism emphasizes hidden knowledge (or gnosis) as the path to salvation. According to this worldview, the physical realm, including the human body, is a prison for the divine spark or soul. True salvation comes from transcending this material reality and reuniting with the divine source. In the Gospel of Judas, Jesus is depicted as a revealer of secret knowledge. He teaches his disciples about the nature of God, the cosmos, and the path to spiritual liberation. The text criticizes the other

disciples for their lack of understanding and portrays them as adhering to false teachings. In contrast to the canonical Gospels, where Judas is the betrayer who hands Jesus over to the authorities for thirty pieces of silver, the Gospel of Judas presents Judas as the only disciple who truly understands Jesus. In this text, Judas is depicted not as a villain but as a favoured disciple chosen by Jesus to carry out a crucial, albeit difficult, task of essentially betraying him. First, we see that Jesus observes his disciples' beliefs, traditions, and prayers and begins to laugh at them. When they ask him what he’s laughing at, Jesus answers them, saying, “I’m not laughing at you. You’re not doing this because you want to, but because through this your God [will be] praised.” Similar to the Gospel of Thomas, Jesus finds humour in his disciples’ efforts to be pious.

and moral, and he actually calls them out for it, for he knows they (like many others) are not praying for the goodness of others or to honor God, but only for themselves. Furthermore, Jesus seems to alienate himself from them - or at least, from the idea that he is the son of God, for he refers to his disciples’ God as ‘your God’ - suggesting that the disciples aren’t even praying to the right God anyway. This confuses the disciples, as they attempt to confirm, ‘Master, you [...] are the Son of our God!’ And Jesus replies, ‘How do [you] know me? Truly [I] say to you, no generation of the people among you will know me.” Again, Jesus continues to distance himself from his disciples. He questions not only their faith, but also their intelligence and their intentions. The disciples get quite riled up about this because as far as they’re concerned, they do know

Jesus - in fact, they’re under the notion that no one knows Jesus as well as they might do. There is an inclination by the original authors here that the disciples weren’t even brave enough to know Jesus entirely…. All except for Judas Iscariot, who even still, could not look Jesus in the eye. Judas said to Jesus here, “I know who you are and where you’ve come from. You’ve come from the immortal realm of Barbelo, and I’m not worthy to utter the name of the one who’s sent you.” Now, according to gnostic beliefs, this ‘Barbelo’ is actually something of a primordial goddess, and sometimes the very first emanation of God. Her name is used frequently across gnostic cosmogony and biblical mythology, and she is believed to live above the ‘eighth heaven’ - where she is described in the gnostic Apocryphon of John as ‘the womb of everything’. Additionally,

she was also believed in gnostic mythology to be the mother of the god Yaldabaoth, who took possession of the world as we know it and decreed himself as the one true God. In other belief systems, including Sethian and Ophite traditions, Yaldabaoth (sometimes recognized as Yahweh) is regarded as the malevolent ‘false god’ of the Old Testament. But here in the Gospel of Judas, Judas recognizes Jesus as coming from the realm of Barbelo - suggesting that Jesus had come from the primordial mother (who is sometimes androgynous), and that Judas knew he was not worthy to even say the name of Barbelo - or whoever had sent Jesus from that realm. This then gets Judas thinking about the hierarchy of the divine and possibly had him considering whether it was God who was the most powerful or whether it was Barbelo - or

someone else from these mysterious realms. But before Judas can get carried away with his thoughts, Jesus stops him in his tracks and takes him away from the other disciples, so as to impart on him exclusive knowledge for his ears only. Unfortunately, a lot of the text in this section is fragmented and so, a complete understanding of exactly what Jesus is saying is hard to establish. Furthermore, the gnostic nature of Jesus’ words also throws it into the realm of ambiguity, yet, we are given some rather powerful imagery and some concepts and notions that are far removed from the canonical bible and the accounts by the four accepted apostles. We are told of the spirit of the body, which lives within the prison of the body and that upon the mortal death, it is the spirit that will be taken up to the heavens, where it has the potential to live forever. There is also the ‘spiritual house’ or the ‘kingdom of heaven’,

of which Jesus allows Judas to glimpse. However, much to his disappointment, Judas is told that this place (wonderful as it was) was reserved for the holy and that no mortal person could ever set foot here. It begs the question as to why Jesus even showed Judas this place if he wasn’t allowed to enter it, but perhaps it might be said that he wanted to show Judas the true scope of how things were in the spiritual realm. After this, we are told that Jesus revealed everything to Judas, as the text descends into even more metaphysical ambiguity. We learn that there is a great, boundless realm whose horizons no angelic generation has ever seen - a realm where there exists a great invisible Spirit, also of which no one has ever seen and no one has ever comprehended. Furthermore, this Spirit has no name, but it appears in the form

of a luminous cloud before Judas, and he - the Spirit - creates a great angel to attend him. We learn here of the ‘Self-Begotten’ - a deity of sorts that takes on an omnipotent form. The ‘Self-Begotten’ may be seen as a god who created the very first realm, as he is seen to bring a realm into being - a realm he populates with several angels. In the text, he is also seen to create the ‘luminous realm’, which is also created alongside several other ‘realms of light’. We are told in the text that he made these realms to be ruled and, once more, created for these realms myriads of angels without number to assist them. So, it would seem that in this part of the text, we get even more exposition as to what happened in the beginning of creation - that there were two principal angels named Yaldabaoth and Saklas who each created six angels that presided over heaven.

Jesus then proceeds to go on a bit of a tirade about the angel Saklas and how when the angel’s lifespan has come to an end, then the generations will do terrible things in Jesus’ name - including sleeping around, murdering their children, and committing human sacrifices. Many will come to serve Saklas and do terrible things, but they will also continue to use Jesus as a scapegoat in an effort to continue sinning. Judas does not question this further and instead decides to ask about those who have been baptized in his name, for surely they would be spared from being destroyed, would they not? Jesus tells him that the baptism that has been received in his name is actually kinda counter-productive and that tomorrow, ‘they’ (possibly the Romans) will torture anyone who bears his name. He goes on to say that no hand of a mortal human will ever fall upon him, perhaps reminding Judas here that just because his mortal

body will come to an end; his spirit will not, and thus cannot be harmed because of who he is. He continues that Judas will do more than anyone because he will become the person who sacrifices Jesus - the mortal vessel of Jesus, anyway, allowing him to return to heaven in his spirit form. Put simply, he tells Judas that though it’s a huge burden for him and that he’ll be remembered as a traitor forever and ever, he’s actually doing Jesus a favor here by enabling his spirit to become free. ‘You’ll do more than all of them,’ he tells Judas. ‘Because you’ll sacrifice the human who bears me.’ Following this, Judas looks up and sees a luminous cloud, which he proceeds to enter. Unfortunately, it’s not clear what Judas sees or experiences here because the text is once again broken. What we do know is that after this,

Judas didn’t see Jesus anymore, and this was the last time the two were alone together. One of the most important aspects of the Gospel of Judas is its critique of what would become orthodox Christianity. As we can see, the text is highly critical of the other apostles and their lack of spiritual insight. With Jesus laughing at his disciples, it suggests that their practices and beliefs are misguided and ignorant of the true nature of life as we know it. Mainstream Christian practices—such as communal worship, sacrifice, and the adherence to certain doctrines—are fundamentally shown here to be flawed and misaligned with the spiritual teachings imparted by the Gospel of Judas. We see Jesus condemn the sacrifices made by the disciples as being to false gods and suggests that true sacrifice involves transcending the material body - something the disciples prove to be ignorant about. This perspective aligns with Gnostic disdain for the material world and institutionalized religion.

which is quite the contrast with the more physical interpretations of sacrifice found in more typical Christian traditions. The key takeaway from the Gospel of Judas, and one that re-illustrates Judas as more of a hero than a villain, is Jesus's prophecy about Judas's role in the divine plan. Jesus tells Judas that he will be cursed by future generations for his involvement in his apprehension by the Romans, but in truth, it is believed by Jesus here that he will exceed all of the other disciples. This prediction underlines the gospel's counter-narrative: where Judas's actions are misunderstood by those without gnosis (or knowledge), but that he is, in fact, serving a higher purpose. As always guys, if you’ve enjoyed today’s episode, then don’t forget to give this video a thumbs up and don’t forget to subscribe for more content just like this! Until next time!

Was Judas Really The Hero? | An Abridged Guide To The Gospel of Judas | Gnosticism

The Legends of History

유다의 복음서: 영지주의적 관점

1970년대에 발견되어 2006년에 출판된 유다복음은 예수와 가룟 유다에 대한 다른 관점을 제시하며, 유다를 배신자가 아닌 호의적인 제자로 묘사하고 있습니다.

기원 후 2세기에 쓰인 것으로 추정되는 이 영지주의 텍스트는 구원의 길로 숨겨진 지식을 강조하고 다른 제자들의 이해 부족을 비판합니다.

유다복음은 예수님과 유다 사이의 독특한 상호작용을 보여 주는데, 예수님은 비밀 지식을 공개하고 배신이라는 어려운 임무를 수행하기 위해 유다를 선택하셨어요.

제자들과 거리를 두는 예수와 유다의 인정

예수님은 제자들의 이기적인 기도를 꾸짖으시고 그들의 하나님을 "너희의 하나님"이라고 부르며 제자들과 거리를 두십니다.

제자들은 예수님을 하나님의 아들로 믿는 믿음을 거부하는 예수님에 혼란스러워하며 관계에 균열이 생깁니다.

그러나 가룟 유다는 예수의 진정한 기원을 원시 여신 바벨로에서 찾으며 영지주의 신앙에서 신의 복잡한 위계질서를 강조합니다.

유다에 대한 예수의 독점적 계시

예수님은 유다를 제쳐두고 배타적이고 단편적인 지식을 나누며 인간의 죽음 이후 영혼의 여정에 대한 강력하고 모호한 개념을 드러냅니다.

유다는 영의 왕국을 엿보지만, 그곳은 거룩한 자들을 위한 곳이라는 말을 듣고 계시의 목적에 의문을 품게 됩니다.

그런 다음 본문은 무한한 영역의 창조와 여러 영역과 무수한 천사를 창조하는 '스스로 태어난' 신에 대해 탐구하며 창조의 시작과 두 주요 천사, 얄다보스와 사클라스의 형성에 대한 통찰을 제공합니다.

예수님은 천사 사클라스를 비난하며 그의 영향력이 예수의 이름으로 행해지는 끔찍한 일로 이어질 것이라고 예언합니다.

그는 자신의 이름으로 받은 세례가 역효과를 가져올 것이라고 설명하며, 유다에게 자신을 희생시켜 궁극적으로 예수의 영혼을 해방시킬 수 있는 사람이 될 것이라고 경고합니다.

배신자로서의 유다의 역할은 예수가 영의 모습으로 하늘로 돌아갈 수 있도록 하기 위해 필요한 짐으로 설정됩니다.

유다복음은 정통 기독교와 다른 사도들의 영적 통찰력을 비판합니다.

제자들을 비웃는 예수의 웃음은 제자들의 잘못된 믿음과 관행을 강조합니다.

복음서는 신의 계획에서 유다의 역할을 영웅적인 것으로 묘사하며, 예수님은 유다가 다른 제자들을 능가할 것이라고 예언하여 그의 행동에 대한 전통적인 인식에 도전합니다.