The content of the New Testament wasn’t fixed until long after Jesus’ death. As late as the 16th-century there were debates about which books belonged in the New Testament and which were apocryphal. Some books of “Apocrypha,” such as Esdras and Maccabees, were often printed in standard versions of the Bible. But apocryphal Gospels were never included.

Many of the most shocking Gospels were discovered only recently. The Gospel of Mary Magdalene was found in Cairo in 1896. A scroll of The Gospel of Thomas, a collection of 114 sayings attributed to Jesus and the most famous of the “Gnostic Gospels,” was found near Nag Hammadi, Egypt in 1945. But the most shocking discovery was unearthed just last year: The Gospel of Judas.

The Gospel of Judas purports to be an account of a conversation that Jesus had with Judas Iscariot only days before Judas betrayed his master. In this Gospel, Judas is The Christ’s closest ally and confidant. He is the only one who Jesus tells about the realm of “Barbelo,” where earthly pains are unknown. Most shockingly, Jesus wants and expects Judas to “betray” him: only then can he be martyred and fulfill the prophecies.

There are discrepancies between the four Canonical Gospels of the New Testament, but none so dramatic as this. If The Gospel of Judas had made the original cut, we’d be living in a very different world today.

Read The Gospel of Judas here.

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