War's True Horror

Wrote this sonnet for a friends homework. Now ya'll can't say I never did nothing for somebody.

My vision clears, my ears no longer ring,
The battle over, our victory won.

But no cheers sound out amongst the dying.

The true battle for them only begun.

The horrors of the war now fill my gaze,

horrors of pain, of blood, and flesh and steel

horrors that were lost in the battles haze.

The truth that now has become very real
That the horror isn't that men are dead

but that its our hands that are painted red.

Reading Judas Con't

Upon finishing "Reading Judas" I find my hopes that I had expressed in my last post have been unmet to the greatest of degrees. The final three chapters contain a wealth of information that had me very excited to read the primary document. I was intrigued to hear exactly what this book said, as the authors explained it with such passion. From their points on Jesus calling out the other disciples as heretics and murderers to Judas learning the true meaning of heaven. I read eagerly as they explained its take on the early Christian church and how this book would mesh well with the original gospels and clarify and provide new information to strengthen my faith.

Here is what I thought I would get, before I go on to the disappointing conclusion. The gospel of Judas, as the introductory chapters lead me to believe, would tell me about the truth behind heaven, how martyrdom is wrong when it is searched for, an ounce of redemption for Judas and to further show that Christianity is strong because it can handle many viewpoints but keep its core intact.

Here is what I found. I found a document no more than 14 pages long that held no answers. Every time a question was posed it would be followed with parenthesis stating that the rest of the paragraph is illegible due to its bad quality and deterioration. Where did the authors get their information from? As I have found it not in these 14 pages. Every paragraph that could of held any good answers, such as how do we get to heaven, is baptism necessary, should we perform communion, is Judas a traitor, started with the question posed by Judas and then Jesus saying one word before the whole text is illegible and lines go missing. The only "answer" it provides is that Jesus is from the stars, and has been sent here to stop us from worshiping the sun and start looking for the true god within ourselves in order to reach heaven, which he also says we can't reach. It also does a little to help Judas by quoting Jesus as saying he will be hated for centuries but he needs to do what he will do and he will rule all who hate him one day.

As I said. This is very disappointing and without any more details the book gives us nothing of any value except ramblings that don't prove or disprove anything. I don't recommend giving it a look through. Even though the authors captured my attention and got me thinking about a myriad of things in the end I found out they had lied to me and the book proved rather useless. It does explain why the protestant reformation happened though, at least in the long run. If voices were shut out so early and schisms were formed since Christianity's creation, it was inevitable that one day the church would split.

I give this book a "Don't Read". I'll work out a rating scale as the blog progresses, but this book is not worth your time. It has some great history in it, but nothing you can't find from a better source that will provide you with what you are looking for in detail.

Reading Judas

Reading Judas,

As I wandered through Borders clearance isle, a great place filled with many a treasure, I stumbled upon a title that sparked my interest. "Reading Judas" in bold font, the famous renaissance piece by Giotto of Judas' kiss to Jesus spread out above the title. I am a religious man, but find one of the best parts of my faith to be able to test it, to take in new information, question what I know, and find the truth in my faith. So a book about the gospel of Judas caught my attention in a good way.

Seeing as the warmth of spring has decided that today would be the day it would bless us I ran outside into my sisters tree fort with a cup of tea and peeled open the first page. Of course, the first thing I did was to see who the author, or in this case authors, is. Two professors of Gnosticism who have done many books on similar topics. I wish they had told me their faith, as it would help me dispel any worries of bias, but it did not, so I will keep a grain of salt with me as I take in the books info.

The first two chapters deal mainly with why the gospel of Judas is so controversial and the original Gospels take on the story of Jesus and his "Most trusted disciple" Judas. Very interesting stuff. The introduction dealt greatly with the early Christian church and how it was very fractured. Fractured. An interesting word. I had always assumed the Christian church didn't fracture until Martin Luther and the reformation. Apparently the early church was made up of a multitude of factions, their main differences being on which Gospels they accepted, and which they didn't, and Christianity today is based off of the side who won, the side who accepted the 4 gospels of Mathew, Mark, Luke and John as fact. All else was considered heresy.

With this in mind I finished the introduction, the rest of it dealing with why the Gospel of Judas is different from the others, and how it has to do with important things such as martyrdom and in a way clearing Judas' name as the great betrayer. Chapter two spoke of the differences in the 4 gospels. I found it intriguing to find out that they are so very different. It appears that the earlier gospel, Mark, was written with a lot of questions unanswered and with few additions, just a basic overview of what happened. I theorize this may be because it was written 10 years after the death of Christ, and by adding more would be signing ones own death sentence. The later Gospels all add to the story. Each one, as stated in the book, adds to Jesus' power, until the book of John, where Jesus is spelling out exactly who will betray him and how instead of vague prophecies. Matthew also parallels greatly with Zachariah, and it seems to me much of it is added to, as the book calls it "Prophecy historicized". This simply means that some of the Gospel is changed to fulfill a prophecy to add legitimacy. An interesting concept, and I can see this happening, the bible is written by man and mistakes can be in it, especially in the Gospels where the stories sometimes differ greatly.

Chapter two ends with my curiosity high, as it says in Judas' gospel it will instead tell of how Jesus told Judas what would happen, and that Judas did it as a faithful servant, not as a betrayer. The story is unchanged, and in my mind, if this is true, makes the power of Jesus even greater, to inspire such commitment in me that even after they know they will be seen in all of history as a demon they will be seen to god as just.

I'll finish up this blog as my reading on the subject continues. The gospel of Judas was written 150 years after his death, and its author is unknown, but that doesn't stop its message from being a good one. To finally find out, once I have all the "facts", and decide for myself if Judas was the most horrible being, or the most faithful man in the new testament.