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Lost for almost 1,700 years, a manuscript entitled "Gospel of Judas" is putting a new spin on the case of the biblical bad guy, maintaining that Jesus actually asked disciple Judas to betray him.
The third- or fourth-century ancient Coptic manuscript -- authenticated, translated and displayed Thursday at National Geographic headquarters here -- paints a different picture of Judas and Jesus.
The papyrus manuscript known as a codex maintains, as the bible does not, that Jesus requested that Judas "betray" him by handing him to authorities, something it says pained Judas greatly.
"The codex has been authenticated as a genuine work of ancient Christian apocryphal literature on five fronts: radiocarbon dating, ink analysis, multispectral imaging, contextual evidence and paleographic evidence," said Terry Garcia, executive vice president for Mission Programs for the National Geographic Society.
"This dramatic discovery of an ancient non-biblical text -- considered by some to be the most significant in the past 60 years -- enhances our knowledge of the history and theological viewpoints of the early Christian period, and is worthy of study by historians, scholars and theologians," Garcia said.
"This process will take time and ongoing dialogue which has just begun."
The leather-bound papyrus text believed to have been copied down around 300 AD was located in the 1970s in the desert near El Minya, Egypt. It then moved among antiquities traders from Egypt to Europe and the United States.
It was purchased by Zurich-based antiquities dealer Frieda Nussberger-Tchacos in 2000, and now was to be returned to Egypt and housed at Cairo's Coptic Museum.
mdl/cl
US-Egypt-religion-archaeology
AFP 061725 GMT 04 06
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