Judas -- good guy, or still a weasel?

Damn those Coptic revisionists! I think Homer Simpson exclaimed in such a manner at one point -- or should have. Here we have gone throughout the history of Christendom condemning the lapsed disciple as being the acme of betrayal for the sake of filthy lucre, and now the newly-found gospel of Judas suggests he was nothing like the duplicitous creep we've all been told he was since we were infants in Sunday school. Indeed, the man has been a metaphor for all that is sleazy and greedy. While he may have been a role model for certain politicians or business magnates, it has never been considered a compliment to be accused of being a Judas.

But, the newly-uncovered Gnostic gospels suggests that not only has Judas Iscariot been a victim of remarkably bad press over the last two millennia, but that he was not only a pretty decent dude -- good to his mother, kindly with tiny tots, a friend to Jerusalem's down-and-out -- but he was, in his so-called "betrayal" of Jesus, actually doing what the boss wanted him to do. If Christ was to be released from the flesh, then he had to be turned in so that the Romans could do their dirty deeds. After all, this was preordained as we've always been taught, but I guess there had to be a catalyst, and Judas who, according to the Judas scrolls, was well-respected and deeply trusted by his CEO, was deemed to be the guy who would pick the short straw. In return, he would earn 30 pieces of silver, which was pretty big bucks back in those days, and would have to suffer the scorn of not only the other disciples, some of whom were pretty darn self-important, but of much of humanity down through the ages. But, maybe it attests to his love of Jesus that he was prepared to make the sacrifice. And, 30 pieces of silver could maybe get him a decent condo on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, and an up-to-the-minute chariot.
Of course, like all matters pertaining to scriptures, this will be open to debate for arguably the next millennium at least. Where do you sit? Would you rather see Judas continue in his traditional depiction as the Christian heavy, or would you like to see a revisionist version, all smiles and sincere in his adoration of the Lord, as in the picture above? Mind you, JC is looking just a teeny bit suspicious in that depiction. But, that's probably because the artist believed the old Matthew, Mark and Luke version of the tale, rather than the Gnostic version.