So after my foray into liberal theology, I listened to a book in secular scholarship about a non-canonical book, Reading Judas: The Gospel of Judas and the Shaping of Christianity by Elaine Pagels and Karen King. To my surprise, I actually liked it. I was preparing myself for all sorts of nonsense about how this should be part of the canon, yada yada yada, but I did not get any of that. Instead, this book took the book of Judas to be what it was, an obvious pseudonymous work dated to the mid second century at the earliest, and explored what that might mean. Most notably, it used the content of this book and other heretical writings of the time to analyze what it tells us about the church today. Rather than trying to raise controversy, it was simply an attempt to peer into history, and an interesting look it was.
The summation of it all was that the book of Judas probably was written to argue against the attitude of martyrdom of the time. The idea was that the writer felt marytrdom was exalted to the point that the church bascially implied that realy Christians get martyred, or something of that nature. The writer of the Book of Judas attempted to invoke Christ and Judas as a reprimand for essentially recommending human sacrfices. It also dealt with some more esoteric ideas, but that crux of the historical nuances gained centered around the martyrdom point.
The biggest gain I personally had to this book is it finally showed me something about secular biblical scholarship I had been grappling with but not quite grasped. There are two types of secular biblical scholars. The first study the Bible with the explicit intent of showing Christians up. This author, and others like her, are of another sort. They study the Bible as a historic piece of literature. Much like my undergraduate paper at Oklahoma Baptist on Germanic culture in Beowulf, they study the Bible to understand a segment of early Christianity. They are not trying to prove Christianity wrong, they really don't care. They may be amused that we take these things so seriously, but they are not out to attack us. Rather, they are simply taking an academic literay and historical approach to the Bible like others do the Iliad or Gilgamesh. Its helpful to realize that, I think, as it lets me know intent. To be fair, some of this scholarship does create controversy and difficulties in the church, but they are not attacking, merely studying.
Overall, I would say it was a good read (or listen in my case). It gives an interesting insight into the book without getting all preachy about what it really means for the Bible as the National Geographic tends to. It also gives some possible insight into what was happening in the second century, though I wonder if there might be competing explanations, or at least wonder if we still have enough information to reach much of a conclusion. I'd recommend it as a reading of interest to thouse dabbling in Church history, but probably does not have broad appeal.
The summation of it all was that the book of Judas probably was written to argue against the attitude of martyrdom of the time. The idea was that the writer felt marytrdom was exalted to the point that the church bascially implied that realy Christians get martyred, or something of that nature. The writer of the Book of Judas attempted to invoke Christ and Judas as a reprimand for essentially recommending human sacrfices. It also dealt with some more esoteric ideas, but that crux of the historical nuances gained centered around the martyrdom point.
The biggest gain I personally had to this book is it finally showed me something about secular biblical scholarship I had been grappling with but not quite grasped. There are two types of secular biblical scholars. The first study the Bible with the explicit intent of showing Christians up. This author, and others like her, are of another sort. They study the Bible as a historic piece of literature. Much like my undergraduate paper at Oklahoma Baptist on Germanic culture in Beowulf, they study the Bible to understand a segment of early Christianity. They are not trying to prove Christianity wrong, they really don't care. They may be amused that we take these things so seriously, but they are not out to attack us. Rather, they are simply taking an academic literay and historical approach to the Bible like others do the Iliad or Gilgamesh. Its helpful to realize that, I think, as it lets me know intent. To be fair, some of this scholarship does create controversy and difficulties in the church, but they are not attacking, merely studying.
Overall, I would say it was a good read (or listen in my case). It gives an interesting insight into the book without getting all preachy about what it really means for the Bible as the National Geographic tends to. It also gives some possible insight into what was happening in the second century, though I wonder if there might be competing explanations, or at least wonder if we still have enough information to reach much of a conclusion. I'd recommend it as a reading of interest to thouse dabbling in Church history, but probably does not have broad appeal.
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