I know this following text is from an Orthodox Priest, but it remeinds 
everyone to be careful.

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This Pascha, the media keeping up with its annual policy, has found something 
else with which it can attack the faith of Christians.  The National 
Geographic Society is headlining its May edition with a sensationalized report 
on what it claims challenges one of the most firmly rooted beliefs in 
Christian tradition.  For the next few weeks, newspapers, magazines, 
television and radio will be proclaiming this newly discovered Gnostic text 
called The Gospel of Judas. 
 
This manuscript of The Gospel of Judas is a fourth or fifth cnetuary copy of 
an earlier document produced by a Gnostic sect called the Cainites.  
Gnosticism is a collective name applying to various pantheistic sects, which 
flourished from before the coming of our Saviour.  These pagan sects borrowed 
the phraseology of Christianity but otherwise had little in common with the 
Faith.  Their  pantheistic thought was based on the belief that this world was 
the creation of an evil creator-god and that the parent-gods, through a series 
of descending steps came into contact with humans in order to lead them to the 
return to the parent-god. This process was facilitated by various saviours who 
would set free the divine spark captured in the evil human body.
 
St. Irenĉus of Lyons was one of the many Holy Fathers that combated the 
teachings of the multitude of Gnostic sects that existed at his time.  In his 
great work Against Heresies, he describes a Gnostic sect called the Cainites. 
They were related to another sect called the Ophites.  The Ophites, a name 
based on the Greek word for snake, worshiped the snake in the Garden of Eden 
because it showed Adam and Eve how to escape from the evil creator-god.  The 
Cainites worshiped Cain, wo killed his brother Abel and in this way freed him 
from the captivity of the creator-god (Against Heresies 1, 31:1).
 
This manuscript, which is being portrayed as a great find, portrays Judas as 
obeying a divine ordinance in betraying our Saviour.  The text begins by 
announcing that it is the secret account of the revelation that Jesus spoke in 
conversation with Judas Iscariot during a week, three days before he 
celebrated Passover.  It continues by having our Lord say that it is necessary 
for someone to free him finally from his human body and he preferred that this 
liberation be done by His closest friend, Judas.
 
This manuscript has a vague background but it seems that it was found in the 
1970’s.  In 1983 the then owner was asking for three million dollars.  
Eventually it was acquired by The National Geographic Society and today they 
are trying to make a profit on their investment by sensationalizing this pagan 
document which was known as early as the second century.


In Christ,
+Fr. Panagiotes
--- SBBSecho 2.11-Win32