Far from being the traitor Judas was the favorite disciple, invited by Jesus to join the eternal bliss of 72 heavens and an army of jubilant angels, if only the soul could be liberated from the human body keeping it prisoner.\u00a0 Judas was the helper in the process, not the traitor.\u00a0 The kiss was not false, but the kiss of deep friendship (also homosexual?).\u00a0 The suffering was not for our, but for his own salvation.\u00a0 Gone is suffering for salvation by representation, gone is suffering of the Father losing his only Son; probably now awaiting arrival and reunion.<\/p>\n
Gone is Christianity?\u00a0 Depends on the gospel’s weight. Bishop Irenaeus of Lyon (140-200?), a key gate-keeper for the Canon, ruled around 180 that the Judas gospel is invented. It is gnostic, a part of oppositional sectarianism, apocryphal.<\/p>\n
Imagine we shift the weight to the Judas leg, what kind of Christianity would we get?\u00a0 Maybe even more focus on the stark contrast between this world and the next, and on finding a cause for the sacrifice of one’s body and the soul’s eternal life.<\/p>\n
A war would do the job, so would a revolution.\u00a0 Che Guevara of the Bolivia diaries, and the brilliant movie based on them, comes up.\u00a0 In an interview in the early 60s he conveyed to this author his disappointment that his respected Fidel privileged Soviet support against a US attack, and the Soviets wanted raw sugar in return for their industrial goods.\u00a0 Bolivia had in 1952 an agricultural reform, Che knew his continent, was not naive and probably a non-believer like the Judas gospel Jesus laughing at his disciples.\u00a0 Were the peasants betraying him to the Army-CIA, his Judas gospel friends releasing him from this world’s trap?\u00a0\u00a0 His half naked body, after execution, was strikingly similar to the images of the Christ, even with the bullet wounds in the right place.\u00a0 And as an icon his soul got eternal life.<\/p>\n
Not a promising Christianity.\u00a0 But, is what we have much better, with Christ only good and Judas only bad?\u00a0 What is the deeper message, so deep that it survives such minor ripples on the Western waves as the Enlightenment?\u00a0 Maybe two messages, one carried by Jesus and one by Judas, both easily recognizable.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0From Jesus:<\/em>\u00a0 in this world we can comfort those who suffer and relieve them of some pain, and we can lash out against the pharisees and overturn their tables, like right now when their money dealing has proved somewhat excessive.\u00a0 But the poor will always be with us, no basic change in this world, that is for the next.\u00a0 We are the slaves of our imperfections.\u00a0 Jesus does not solve conflicts; Jesus heals the victims and scolds the perpetrators.\u00a0 No alternative economics there. Jesus is an archetype as a Savior<\/em>, opening the gates to eternal salvation.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0From Judas:\u00a0<\/em> he is of this world, and is also an archetype as the Traitor<\/em>, opening the gates to eternal damnation through his satanic acts of treason.\u00a0 Of Jesus there was only one, the Christ.\u00a0 Of Judas there are many.\u00a0 As important as knowing the way to Jesus the Savior is guarding against the ways of Judas the Traitor, never mind that the drama presupposed both.<\/p>\n So we get churches to guide us to the Savior and security agencies to protect us against the Traitors.\u00a0 The more churches the more agencies, like in the USA.\u00a0 Take Judas away from us and you remove a half of our identity, not the narcissism of being chosen for salvation, but the paranoia of permanent insecurity.\u00a0 With both we can be the city-upon-a-(gated security) hill of Western megalomania, radiating security if not salvation.\u00a0 Never mind that somebody else may share that worldview but see the threat in New York and Washington rather than in the Hindukush.<\/p>\n Jesus, save this<\/em> world.\u00a0 Judas, join Jesus.\u00a0 Che, stay Cuban.<\/p>\n __________________________________________<\/em><\/p>\n Originally posted<\/a> on 20 Apr 2009 #59<\/em><\/p>\n There is an exercise called Western Civilization, and a dramatic narrative at the center of that exercise with two persons in the key roles, Jesus and Judas.\u00a0 Easter times, now, are here to remind us of the drama.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[867,2642,716,530,663,260,1050,171,124,70],"class_list":["post-258977","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editorial","tag-anglo-america","tag-anti-imperialism","tag-che-guevara","tag-cuba","tag-fidel-castro","tag-history","tag-imperialism","tag-revolution","tag-united-nations","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258977","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=258977"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258977\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":258979,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258977\/revisions\/258979"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=258977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=258977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=258977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/johan-galtung-hardanger-150x150.jpg\")
<\/a> Johan Galtung (24 Oct 1930 \u2013 17 Feb 2024), a professor of peace studies, dr hc mult, was the founder of <\/em>TRANSCEND International<\/a>, <\/em>TRANSCEND <\/a>Media Service<\/a>, and rector of <\/em>TRANSCEND Peace University<\/a>. He was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize numerous times and was awarded among others the 1987 Right Livelihood Award, known as the Alternative NPP.<\/em> Galtung\u00a0has mediated in\u00a0over 150 conflicts in more than 150 countries, and written more than 170 books on peace and related issues<\/em>, 96 as the sole author. More than 40 have been translated to other languages, including <\/em>50 Years-100 Peace and Conflict Perspectives<\/a> published by <\/em>TRANSCEND University Press<\/a>. His book, <\/em>Transcend and Transform<\/a>, was translated to 25 languages<\/em>. He has published more than 1700 articles\u00a0and book\u00a0chapters and over 500 Editorials for <\/em>TRANSCEND Media Service<\/a>. More<\/em> information about Prof. Galtung<\/em><\/a> and <\/em>all of his publications<\/em><\/a> can be found at <\/em>transcend.org\/galtung<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"