Posts Tagged ‘jigsaw puzzle’

Did Jesus Ask Judas to Betray Him?

Was there ever a Gospel According to Judas? An ancient book found in an Egyptian cave could be just that–and have an explosive message for Christians.
About three decades ago, a 2,000-year-old mystery surfaced when a farmer looking for treasure in an Egyptian cave instead found a decaying leather-bound book, called a Codex, written in ancient Coptic. Not realizing what he had, he sold it to an antiquities dealer.
Five years after the Codex was found, a scholar named Stephen Emmel was asked to look at it, but under the condition he not photograph it or make any notes. He told ABC’s "Primetime" that he leafed through it and spotted a dialogue between Jesus and Judas and his disciples. "The name Judas came up again and again," he recalled. Then for 16 years it sat crumbling in, of all places, a safe-deposit box in a Long Island, N.Y., Citibank. In 2000 it was sold to former antiquities dealer Frieda Nussberger-Tchacos, who told "Primetime," "I think the circumstances of this manuscript coming to me were predestined. Judas was asking me to do something for him."
National Geographic and ABC News report scholars now think this is the long lost Gospel of Judas that was banned by the early church as blasphemous and ordered destroyed. Deciphering it was a monumental task since the 13 pieces of papyrus were in more than 1,000 pieces. Swiss restorer Florence Darbre and her partner painstakingly fit the tiny pieces together like an ancient jigsaw puzzle. Then Emmel and another scholar, Rodolphe Kasser, were called in to authenticate the text. "I’ve looked at hundreds of papyri, Coptic papyri, in my career, and this is absolutely typical of ancient Coptic manuscripts," Emmel told "Primetime." "I’m completely convinced." The final task was to use radio carbon-dating to authenticate it, which meant destroying tiny pieces of the precious document. The result? The text was written between the third and fourth century and is believed to be a copy of a much older document written in Greek in the second century.
What it has to say could shake Christianity to its core: The Bible says that Judas is the one who betrayed Jesus Christ for 30 pieces of silver, handing him over for crucifixion, an act that damned him for all time. But this Gospel of Judas tells it differently: Jesus asked Judas to betray him.
"Now, the Gospel of Judas also has Judas say to Jesus in fear and terror that he has a dream that the other disciples will hate him and will stone him to death, will attack him, Elaine Pagels, a professor at Princeton University and one of the world’s foremost experts on ancient religious texts, told "Primetime." "And Jesus says, ‘Yes, in fact, they will think that you are a terrible person because of what you did. This is part of the burden that you bear. But they will be wrong about that.’ So it is an extraordinary transformation of the ordinary understanding of Judas Iscariot."
What does it mean? Pagels says that it shows Judas’s betrayal of Jesus was not a reprehensible act or the act of a traitor. "It’s a secret mystery between him and Jesus."
Herbert Krosney, author of "The Lost Gospel: The Quest for the Gospel of Judas Iscariot," goes even further. He calls Judas "the favored disciple of Jesus," adding, "He is the one whose star shines in the heavens and in the skies, and Judas, therefore, becomes unique. He is Jesus’s best friend rather than his betrayer."
Pagels admits there is no historical proof for the Gospel of Judas, just as there is no historical proof for the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. However, she is quick to say, "The Christian message is a message about faith and hope and, you know, the relationship between God and human beings. It’s not a matter of historical fact."
–From the Editors at Netscape

Matthew 7:16 you shall know them by their fruits, does this scripture gives you a clue. For those who believed that the apostle Paul was a scholar, let’s define scholars first before claiming what Paul was. A Scholar is somebody who has a great deal of knowledge, especially an academic who specializes in a particular arts subject.

No offense, but Paul was no scholar. The man went around causing havoc among God’s people and if he really had as much knowledge as people claim him to have, then he would have known who Jesus was through scripture since the old testament does tell you about the coming of Christ and he wouldn’t have been going around doing the things he did. By the way, Paul teaching comes from the old testament books. So instead of saying he was a scholar tell people the truth, Paul was clueless.
It wasn’t until Paul was baptize that Paul received the Holy Spirit and it was the Holy Spirit that was teaching Paul. So the things Paul knew came from The Holy Spirit, not from Paul being a scholar as the church would like you to believe. If anyone should be called a scholar, it would have to be the disciples since they walked with Christ and was taught by Christ.
And to be able to sit down and write books from their experience, now that is what a true scholars, is. But to say that Paul was a scholar is like putting a little leaguer in with the big league.

We had a nine year old boy who came to the mission to preach one day and the boy had a lot of knowledge. reminded me of the apostle Paul cause he just went from scripture to scripture preaching away but at the end of the service, when the guys went to ask the boy some questions, dealing with the things he taught the boy was clueless.

If Paul was here today, I would have questioned his teaching since a lot of his letters are nothing but a big jigsaw puzzle scrambled around from different scriptures out of the old testament. There are letters that Paul writes that if you sat down (in which I did) and went and found where he says it is either written or scripture, it would have been found in all different part of the old testament. And for those who believe Paul to be all mighty with his teaching, he isn’t. cause there are things that Paul says it is written, which isnt even in the bible. Paul was nothing but a man who sat down with a pen and a pad and picked scripture from the old testament to add to his letters including scriptures of his own belief which is not written as he claim.
Paul may have been choosen by Christ, but Paul was also a liar according to his own letters. since not everything Paul claim to be written is found. anyone can sit down with a piece of paper and pen and write the things Paul wrote. the bible tells us to test the spirit and if you read for yourself the things of Paul, you will know that most of the things Paul wrote are taken out of context, words have been subtracted and added from the scripture he has used.
I believe Paul’s letters are what Paul believed but I would never teach most of the things Paul believes since most of the letters are contradicting and rather it was meant to a certain group of people, why in the world would we teach it to everyone if it was not meant for everyone. If we were to remove Paul’s letters from the bible, I believe it would help us to grow and learn the ways of Jesus and not the ways of Paul.
Paul says he doesn’t allow women to preach, that is not any man call since that is not the way nor the truth. and for a man to tell a woman she can’t preach, is not of God and if its not of God then it shouldn’t be taught. God may have used Paul, but he also used Satan.