Word: martyrdom
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...authors suggest the text was a polemic--and a losing one, since martyrdom became a pillar of the church. But its angry tone supports a favorite theme of Pagels': that not all early believers embraced doctrines now accepted as handed down directly from Jesus...
...Before these discoveries, we knew little about Christians who opposed martyrdom - or opposed encouraging it - because the people who challenged the dominant view were ridiculed as cowards and heretics, and their writings didn't survive. The Gospel of Judas shows what intense and painful arguments martyrdom caused among Christians...
...Both Catholicism and, to a lesser extent, Protestantism honor martyrdom. And some scholars suggest that Islam picked up the idea from Christians. Is it possible that despite all that, martyrdom isn't really intrinsic to the faith...
...Before either Christians or Muslims spoke of martyrdom, Jewish communities celebrated those who were willing to "die for God." After Jesus was crucified by the Romans, those who still remained his followers were suspected of treason against Rome, and leaders were executed. The focus on crucifixion has a lot to do with fact that his followers remained in danger of arrest, torture, and execution themselves. Without that I can't imagine that discussions of his suffering and death would have occupied the central place that they do for many Christians...
...concern was about leaders who encouraged martyrdom, and in this gospel, the other apostles stand in for these leaders, and he criticizes them harshly. I don't want to sound like I'm advocating the Gospel of Judas. What I love, is that this sort of document shows you the other side of the moon, the voices of the pe ople who were regarded as not articulating what became the official doctrine of the Church - a more dense, more detailed, more human picture of the early Christian movement than we've ever had available before...