"Forget The Da Vinci Code! This is the real deal," says arts and antiquities dealer Michel Van Rijn of the revelation two weeks from now that he believes will alter the world's thinking and undermine 2,000 years of Christian teaching.

Found in the 1970s in a tomb in Egypt, and later acquired by a Swiss foundation, The Gospel of Judas is set to be published in the April issue of National Geographic magazine, reports the Guardian Unlimited.

History tells us that a Gospel of Judas was denounced by a bishop in the second century. Presumably, this is the same text.

The text, reports say, presents Judas not as the vilest of traitors, but rather as a hero, doing what he did at Jesus's request. Indeed, it is supposed, that without the "betrayal," there would have been no martyrdom; Christ's destiny could not have been fulfilled.

Not everyone, of course, is as excited or worried about this bit of historical revisionism as is Van Rijn. The world will keep on turning, the Pope will still do what the Pope does, the Baptists will still do Baptists do, and this blog will publish yet another article. The masses won't even notice.

But slowly, surely, another brick in the wall of modern Christianity will be eroded, another "eternal verity" will be dispensed with. I'm not entirely sure that's a bad thing.

Christianity | Jesus Christ
Judas Iscariot | Gospel of Judas
Heresy | National Geographic | Egypt | Antiquities