What a world part II

I was waiting for my english class to start when I decided to read the New York Times. On the front page, they had a story about the so-called "Gospel of Judas." I took some notes on it, and here is my reaction. This is in order of the article, so it might not make total sense unless you read the article first.
First of all, the document says that Judas was the "favored" disciple. The "best." Hmm. They (scholars) believe it to be a gnostic text. For those of you who don't know, the Gnostics were a cult in the time of the early church. In fact, I've found in my study of 1st John this semester, that the book of 1st John was written to dispell gnostic myths. The gnostics believed that knowledge was the key to heaven. They also believed that all matter was evil; that only the soul was redeemable. In turn, they thought it was perfectly fine for them to drink, have sex with anyone, and all sorts of bad behavior because there was simply nothing they could do about it. Keep that it mind. The document also says that Jesus told Judas to betray him. The scholar's mentality? "The standard gospels either give no motivation for Judas to betray Jesus or attribute it to the pieces of silver or the influence of Satan." Wow. You mean that saying that Satan took over Judas' life and then proceeded to appeal to his greed for money isn't good enough? Now, I'm not one to say what Jesus said or didn't say throughout his life. No one but God can know that. I'm just saying that in my opinion, Jesus wouldn't have had to tell Judas that. Jesus was totally reliant on God. God was/is/is always going to be in control. Also, the document quotes Jesus as saying that Judas will "exceed" the other disciples. Try and figure that one out. Judas commited suicide shortly thereafter Jesus' crucifixion. The article says that the document is probably a Coptic (some language) translation of the original Greek text from around 300 AD. 300. That's more than 250 years later. They also said that the manuscript was formed from over 1000 fragile and brittle fragments. No margin of error, huh? Anyway, here's a part that really confuses me. This thing was actually discovered in the 1970s! It jumped around a little and than sat in a New York City bank safe-deposit box until it was purchased by a collector and then given to some antiquity board to translate more than 30 years later. Wow.
Here is a quote from the document featured in the Times article:
Knowing that Judas was reflecting upon something that was exalted, Jesus said to him,
“Step away from the others and I shall tell you the mysteries of the kingdom. It is
possible for you to reach it, but you will grieve a great deal. [36] For someone else will
replace you, in order that the twelve [disciples] may again come to completion with their
god.”
Huh? Jesus never ONCE mentioned in that that He is the way to the kingdom. This seems awfully ambigious, even for Jesus. And what is with the last sentence: "...12 may again come to completion with their god."? Who knows.
The article also said that Jesus shared with Judas alone the "mysteries of the kingdom." This is what I have a real problem with. Jesus did not share with only one person. He died, and therefore shared, for the entire world. Also, there are no mysteries of the kingdom. When he died on the cross he vanquished all the Levitical laws and long lists of the Old Testament. He took the world's sins from all times and paid for them. There is no "holy of holies," no high priest, none of that. Jesus took care of all of that.
Now we get to the actual writing. The scholars said that it was probably a Cainite, another cult member (they didn't go into detail about what the Cainites were, only that they considered Cain and Judas (as well as other "villians") as heroes. Another Hmm.
Next, a scholar named Rev. (ha) Donald Senior said that the document could undermine Christianity if they believe that "early church authorities supressed the free-thinking spiritual gnostics 'for the sake of uniformity and conformity.'" Pardon my French, but B.S. Free-thinking and spiritual is not always a good thing. That's like saying "This is all-natural poison ivy! It must be good since it's all natural!" That statement is just plain drivel.
The last statement in the article said that the Church (the Vatican) is just ignoring this. It's "not on their radar screens." They don't believe that this poses a big enough threat to tell people that it's wrong. We are told to not allow Satan a foothold. If the church does nothing to refute this, that splinter will get in our heads with doubt. We must refute this now.
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Whew! Done with that. Nothing else going on here this week at KU. There's some big casino night in Templin tonight, but it looks pretty lame. Oh, and there's a possibility of a mumps breakout on campus! Exciting! Besides that, life as normal.