Gospel of Judas

About this text

Presents Judas as Jesus' most trusted disciple who alone understood the secret teaching. Jesus asks Judas to betray him to liberate his spirit from his body.

Significance

Offers a radically different perspective on the betrayal. Made international headlines when published in 2006.

How to Read This Historical Text

Gospel of Judas is included here as a historical and educational resource, not as Scripture and not as a replacement for the biblical canon. Readers may find it useful for understanding the ideas, debates, devotional language, and literary settings that surrounded Jewish and Christian communities in different periods.

Read this text with context in mind. Notice its era, category, and relationship to canonical passages, then compare its themes with the Bible itself. Some library works preserve valuable historical background, while others represent viewpoints that many Christian traditions rejected. Inclusion in this library does not mean endorsement of every claim or doctrine in the text.

For more about how The Bible Companion handles public-domain writings, Bible translations, attribution, and devotional material, see the Sources & Editorial Policy.

Key excerpts

"You will exceed all of them. For you will sacrifice the man that clothes me."

"Step away from the others and I shall tell you the mysteries of the kingdom."

Scripture cross-references

• Matthew 26:14-16 — The canonical account of Judas' betrayal
• Acts 1:16-19 — Peter's account of Judas' fate

Continue exploring

This text is one of 16 in the Gnostic Texts (Nag Hammadi & Related) category, and one of 62 across the entire library.