What Are The Judas Gospels?

The Judas Gospels are an alternative account of the life and death of Jesus found in a set of papyri in 1978. Written from the perspective of Judas himself, they differ significantly from traditional church teachings. According to the new account, Judas was the only one of the disciples who knew that Jesus was divine; and Judas' betrayal of Jesus was not what it seemed but had been arranged in advance with Jesus himself.

After being bought by an antiquities dealer in Egypt, the papyrus sheets were stored in a New York bank vault until 2001. No one was willing to pay the asking price for them and no scholar had been allowed to study them. That changed in 2001 when a Swiss foundation purchased the texts and began preparations for their restoration and scholarly appraisal. The documents have been dated to between 300 A.D. and 400 A.D. and it is generally agreed that they are authentically ancient and not modern forgeries.