There’s a lot of buzz about the recovered Gospel of Judas. In a made for TV style, the National Geographic Channel promises a tell-all show this Sunday night.

The Cainites are not new to Christian historians. Since they considered the god of the Old Testament evil, anyone punished by this god was revered. It’s no surprise they revered Judas Iscariot as well. The New Advent website provides the following definition:

A Gnostic Sect of the second century was called Cainites or Caianites. They regarded all characters held up to retrobation in the Old Testament as worthy of veneration, as having suffered at the hands of the cruel God of the Jews; hence Cain, as the first man cursed by Hysteraa, the Demiurg, claimed their special admiration. This sect of Antinomians never found many adherents, and Hippolytus at the beginning of the third century dismisses them with the bare mention of their name.

Talk about rooting for the underdog…

The fact that this is touted as a rival to the accepted Gospels demonstrates large-scale ignorance of how the New Testament was formed in the first place. I am hopeful that this national interest will spark some educational opportunities to learn about canonization. I think our national skepticism can easily question the decisions made by various councils. I’ve been there myself.

I used to use a table like this one to read certain extrabiblical books and try to come to some decision on my own as to their canonicity. After all, if Irenaeus the Shepherd of Hermas to be biblical, it must have some value. I also marveled at all the books that Clement considered canonical enough to cite in his works. He cited obscure books like the Gospel to the Egyptians and others. I was ready to dive into all of these to make up my own mind.

Then, in Greek class, my professor began telling us about Julius Africanus. He wrote a history of the world trying to come up with a date for creation. He also wrote a few other things here and there. Of interest to our professor, though, was a letter to Origen. Tersely and forthrightly, Julius chides Origen for preaching from the Book of Susanna, a book in the OT Apocyrpha. Origen’s response was not overly critical, but in a roundabout way, Orgien basically says that he can preach authoritatively from it if he wants to. He can discern the difference between the recommendation to read it and the admonition to avoid teaching from it.

That got me thinking – here is the great Origen and this obscure guy from Emmaus. Where did he get the confidence to chide Origen? He simply trusted that his earlier predecessors did their due diligence in determining the canon. It also got me thinking that surely God would not allow the Bible to stand for centuries only to get one book wrong. I realize that the NT wasn’t officially canonized by the time of Julius Africanus, but the disputes were much smaller by then. (Earliest NT canon that matches the current accepted NT is 354.) In any case, God knows the message He wants to impart. Either he will allow his message to be obscured or not. Like Julius, I choose to believe that God knows what he is doing.

Granted, I don’t think this act of faith excuses good research, but let’s face it. With all the things that can be researched, is this a higher priority than trying to understand the current canon, first? After almost twenty years of study, I don’t think I have understood the present canon well enough yet! I’ve done my little foray into it and I’m content to stick with what we’ve got.

But that doesn’t make for good television. Ask Dan Brown.