THE JUDAS GOSPEL & THE DA VINCI CODE
Oh my, how callous have we become?
A Dissection by Rev. Gamaliel B. Filio
The Robe
They literally disrobed Jesus Christ when they nailed him to the cross. Now they are AGAIN trying to “literarily” disrobe Him of His Divinity and to reduce him to a mere man by marrying him off to Mary Magdalene and by demeaning him through his betrayer Judas Iscariot.
It would be funny if it does not hurt when you laugh. Because they are nailing Jesus on the cross once more and once more for the same reason – M O N E Y. Judas betrayed him for thirty pieces of silver and now after him come Dan Brown, using DA VINCI to make Jesus look bad, is making a lot of money – at the expense of Jesus.
The Crown of Thorns
Is there nothing sacred anymore? Have we really sunk this low? I decried the fanaticism and mysticism of the Roman Catholic Church of my youth. And yet I cannot help but be appalled by what this generation have replaced it with. We have crowned his head with thorns of disrespect.
The Lashing!
We use to utter the Name of Jesus with awe and reverence as befits the Son of God. But Dan Brown disrespected Jesus and lashed & tore his flesh once more at the center of an international audience through his Novel and now the movie “The Da Vinci Code.” And Oh how some people lapped it up and made it a best-seller and translated it into 44 languages. The movie, because of the controversy it created, is running all the way to the bank.
The New Pontius Pilate
The novel is FICTION, a product of the author’s imagination, and therefore not fact. Dan Brown took a button and sewed a colorful, imaginative but historically inconsistent and multi-layered SHIRT on it.
But since it is fiction it should be read like “Harry Potter”, “The National Treasure”, “James Bond”, “Mission Impossible” and even C.S. Lewis’ “The Chronicles of Narnia.” Nothing less, nothing more. That it is being given an importance it does not deserve is a testimony of how sacrilegious our world has become.
One said that while it is fiction there are some truth in it. They should stop pulling our leg because this statement is incorrect. You have to take a novel as a whole and not in parts. Even if some truths are injected into it, it is still fiction woven out of whole cloth.
The Nails
It grieves me that Brown did a Pontius Pilate in desecrating the name of Jesus by means of fictitious allegations and imaginations as did that Roman Procurator. That is disrespect on the Name of Jesus and every Christian martyr, living and dead.
The plot is imaginative but based on loose premises and untruths masquerading as widely accepted truths. “The book opens with the claim by Dan Brown that "all descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents, and secret rituals in this novel are accurate"; but this claim is disputed by academic scholars in the fields the book discusses. As widely noted in the media, there has been substantial confusion among readers about whether the book is factual. Numerous works have been published which explain in detail why any claim to accuracy is difficult to sustain.” (From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)
The Cross
They are crucifying Christ on the Cross of Controversy. Because without controversy books, television, movies, and media has no other way to call attention to itself. And if people do not pay attention to them they will not make money. Truth is no longer important but Controversy that attract people. That spells M-O-N-E-Y.
Who is Da Vinci anyway that what he is implying in his Last Supper painting is being passed off as the truth? Brown made him the keypoint to his Novel and concocted a conspiracy as only a Fiction-Writer can. Congratulations, he started a controversy and he is now a rich man because of it!
But as soon as the controversy wears out, the book, together with its author Dan Brown, will be forgotten but the name they disrespected – JESUS – will stand forever.
The Tomb
Jesus died in calvary and they laid him in Joseph Arimathea’s tomb. Judas committed suicide and was buried in Potter’s Field. But while Jesus resurrected from the dead on the third day, it is the Gospel of Judas that is being resurrected today.
It is being presented not as fiction but as an original factual manuscript. And here the first debate lies, and secondly on what it contends.
Is it real or fake? The debate cannot end even up to doomsday, perhaps. I believe, however, that it is an absolution after the fact, written by one of the close friends of Judas to redeem him from what he has done.
But a discussion on the real role of Judas in the fulfillment of the prophecies about Jesus Christ is quite relevant to us today.
It is evident that the language and style of this gospel is so different, if not inconsistent, with the 4 gospels of the Bible. Jesus speaks in a different manner and about things not discussed in the four. Mathew, Mark, Luke and John are compatible and their books compliment each other although different in style and approach. And Jesus speaks in a way that is common to the 4 and other books of the Bible.
However, the verse that intrigues and the point of contention is that one where Jesus supposedly told Judas: “But you will exceed all of them. For you will sacrifice the man that clothes me.”
The Judas Gospel is contending that Jesus, instead of letting the prophecy be fulfilled through the people that has been foretold thousands of years ago, conspired with his “friend Judas” so that the prophecy will happen. And yet the verse admits that he is both man and God. If Jesus is God as he demonstrated when he raised up Lazarus from the dead, he does not need to conspire with anybody to make things happen. Prophecies will be fulfilled no matter what anyone does.
Did Jesus make a mistake in choosing Judas as one of His disciples? My answer is he did not, because the role of Judas was something that was prophesied and it was part of the plan of Salvation that God put in place. Nobody could stop it, nobody could change what Judas was, not even the Son of God.
