Christianity

The first translation of an ancient, self-proclaimed "Gospel of Judas" will be published in late April, bringing to light what some scholars believe are the writings of an early Christian sect suppressed for supporting Jesus Christ's infamous betrayer.If authentic, the manuscript could add to the understanding of Gnosticism, an unorthodox Christian theology denounced by the early church. The Roman Catholic Church is aware of the manuscript, which a Vatican historian calls "religious fantasy."According to scholars who have seen photographs of the brittle manuscript, it argues that Judas Iscariot was carrying out God's will when he handed Christ over tohis executioners.

The manuscript could bring momentum to a broader academic movement that argues Judas has gotten a bum rap among both historians and theologians, as well as in popular culture. The manuscript's owner says he has cut a deal with the National Geographic Society to release the English translation with a multimedia splash after Easter.   Monsignor Walter Brandmuller, president of the Vatican's Committee for Historical Science, called it "a product of religious fantasy."   In an interview, he said the manuscript would not have any impact on church teaching.   "We welcome the (manuscript) like we welcome the critical study of any text of ancient literature," Brandmullersaid.   He said that despite some reports to the contrary, the drive to improve Judas' reputation does not have the support of the Vatican.   "There is no campaign, no movement for the rehabilitation of the traitor of Jesus," said Brandmuller.   Brushed onto 31 pages of papyrus in Coptic, an Egyptian script, the manuscript has become tattered after spending centuries buried beneath the sands of middle Egypt and decades on the gray market.   According to Mario Roberty, a Swiss lawyer who currently owns the manuscript, the document, known as a "codex," has undergone restoration and translation by a team of researchers headed by the Swiss Coptic scholar Rodolphe Kasser.   "They've put ......

The world was transfixed by the year 2000--worried about the'Y2K' bug in computers, millennial madness in cult groups, political union in Europe, and a proposal to make Mary "co-redemptrix" in the Catholic Church. While Rome flirted with blasphemy, few realized that the true 2000th lunar anniversary of the birth of Jesus was August 22, 1998, or on September 11, 1998 by the solar calendar dating we now use.
Many may live to see the consequences of the anniversary, if it foreshadowed a coming fake Christ. Or at the least, there were dozens of lunatics eager to take advantage of the year 2000 hysteria to get the attention of the gullible. Yet the 2000th anniversary of the Nativity actually came 475 days before year 2000 began. The correct anniversary date was about sundown, Jerusalem time, the end of the Sabbath, Saturday August 22, 1998. How can we know the exact day--and nearly the hour--of the birth of Jesus?

Simple arithmetic. A child could have done it, if only the basic assumptions had been correct. But they weren't. In the 19th century, critical scholars made a crucial decision to reject a total lunar eclipse in January 1 BC and to accept instead one in March 4 BC, as the chronological cornerstone for dating the death of Herod the Great, and thereby, the possible birth years for Jesus. By so doing, the critics could argue Jesus had to born before 4 BC, contradicting Luke, who tied Jesus' 30th year to the 15th year of Tiberius Caesar, 27-28 AD. Luke effectively placed the birth in 3 BC, as did many of the early church fathers. Ironically, even the date used by the Pope during the Christmas Eve midnight mass ritual is itself consistent with the last half of 3 BC. The dirty little secret is that virtually all the available evidence has always pointed at the harvest period of 3 BC as the focal point of the Nativity--including the possibility of a late summer birth. By rejecting Luke, scholars also threw out the date of the birth Luke gives in his Gospel. In his second chapter, Luke tells what happened the day Mary came to the Temple for purification 40 days after the birth of Jesus. All one has to know is what day this was. And Luke plainly names the day. In fact, he includes three statements identifying the day. So what day was this?...

Just days after a London judge decided that the "The Da Vinci Code" author Dan Brown didn't steal the foundational ideas for his novel, the author who sued him says he has potential answers for questions about early Christianity that go beyond the speculation fueled by Brown's best-seller.      Michael Baigent, the author who sued Brown for copyright infringement, told the Deseret Morning News this week that "all Dan Brown's questions on the subject of religion, the court revealed he took from us . . . Brown took all that material from (Baigent's earlier book) 'Holy Blood, Holy Grail.' The judge establishedthat.

We lost the case because they decided (Brown) hadn't taken enough to establish infringement."      A Hollywood version of Brown's book starring Tom Hanks — which builds its storyline around uncovering a religious secret: that Jesus and Mary Magdalene had a child together — is slated for release May 19. Catholic and evangelical scholars have widely criticized the novel. Dozens of "debunking" books have been published trying to help readers separate fact from fiction, and Christian leaders in some quarters are urging the faithful to avoid the film.        "The Da Vinci Code," though a fictional tale, raised questions among millions of readers that Baigent says were originally raised in his own book, "but(Brown) didn't explore" the questions in any detail. "I live and breathe this area. I care about this," he said, adding "it's dishonest to raise (questions) without asking the steps of how you got there. To just throw something out of the ether and confront someone with it — that's very contentious when you're dealing with some people's very deeply held beliefs."        And yet Baigent's new book, "The Jesus Papers," purports to "expose the greatest cover-up in history" — that Jesus may have survived the crucifixion — using evidence that evokes images "The Da Vinci Code" readers will recognize, including hidden clues to the truth in an artist's depiction of Christ's crucifixion and burial.        Baigent'sbo......

IT’S a theory that many have signed up to, most lately writer Dan Brown in his bestselling book the Da Vinci Code. Thousands of avid fans who have read the novel now harbour some suspicion that the Holy Grail is, indeed, somehow linked to Midlothian’s Rosslyn Chapel. So much so, visitor numbers have shot up - in July a record 9029 people visited the 15th-century chapel - a 96 per cent increase on last year. In fact the Grail is a miniature industry in itself, spawning books as well as films and tourist booms like that at Rosslyn. The Grail has been a powerful symbol of Christianity for more than 2000 years and the search for it hascaptured the imagination of generations, both Christian and non-Christian.

There are even theories about what the Grail itself is - some believe it was the cup that caught the blood of Christ at the crucifixion; others, that it was the cup from which Jesus drank at the Last Supper. Some even believe it is a metaphor for a bloodline running from Christ himself. Telling chivalric tales of heroic knights on Grail quests, medieval romance writers and poets made the myth popular, while films such as King Arthur and of course, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade are eager to exploit the mystery surrounding it. Tonight, a documentary on Channel Five explores the theories around what the Grail is - and what might have become of it. Onepossibility is that Rosslyn Chapel, the spiritual home of the Knights Templar, a group of crusading monk-knights who defended Jerusalem, is the secret resting place of the Grail. The Templars’ purpose, when they were formed in the 12th century, was to protect pilgrims heading for Jerusalem, which had been captured by Christian crusaders in the 11th century. The crusaders’ hold on their tiny patch of Middle Eastern land was tenuous, so several orders of military monks were established to defend it. The Knights Templar was one of these orders - and was spectacularly successful, not so much in defending Jerusalem, which fell to the Muslims in the 12th century, but in attracting rich patrons. Soon the order became one of the wealthiest inEurope -. ...