The Judas Generation
THE JUDAS GENERATION
------Now, Its Own Gospel!
A Non-scholarly commentary on The Gospel of Judas as God’s Message for Today
By Sid Thomas, Ph.D.
http://www9.nationalgeographic.com/lostgospel/document.html
(hint 1: it’s OK to betray, if you go that way)
(hint 2. but you really don’t want to)
*******
All boundaries between the sacred and profane once regarded as categorical metaphysical differences can be addressed through this question: what fate befell the one who betrayed him, as it relates to us?
*******
The mainstream media gobbled up the recent publication of “the Gospel of Judas”, as if the betrayal role it relates that Jesus assigned Judas Iscariot to carry out somehow was somewhat excused, he was part of God’s redemptive plan all along. On the whole, in today’s highly excited religious context, it’s message was received as a good thing. In as much it removes a condemnation-reflex evoked by the name itself, one linguistic well-spring of animosity toward Jews is capped, some said.
Close reading of the text, however, and application of it to the post-Vietnam war “baby-boomer” generation, shatters this picture to smithereens. In fact, it shows the appearance of The Gospel of Judas to be part and parcel of the web of self-deception this generation has spun, as it has succomed to the ministry at the alter of the twelve sacrificial priests. They are by the thirteenth spirit; Judas.
The entire thing turns on what is to be made of Sacrifice, in general, to which the pre-Christian Jews were ritually addicted. Jesus is quoted saying: “some sacrifice their own children, others their wives, praise and humiliate each other; some sleep with men; some are involved in slaughter; some commit a multitude of sins and deeds of lawlessness.” So The Gospel of Judas says the disciples And these sacrificers correspond, today, proceeding backward from the last: Iraq; Abramoff/Libby scandals;, civilian-Pentagon war planners; hatred of homosexuals politically stirred up for the 2004 election; comraderie at Duke University LaCross team, etc. (boys ‘acting out’); security moms; actual youth and children killed.
The disciples speak of “a great house …large altar …twelve men, priests … and a name, and a crowd of people is waiting at that altar until the priests receive their offerings.” Jesus said to them: “Truly I say to you all the priests who stand before that altar invoke my name. Again I say unto you, my name has been written on this (… ) of the generations of the stars (as Pisces, on the Zodiac? See below) through the human generations. And they have planted trees without fruit, in my name, in a shameful manner.”
Comment: If, as the parentheses above suggest, the missing terms link what Jesus is called to a star-object, a “luminosity”, or “spirit” represented by planets and star constellations, a startling cosmological background of the drama is brought into view. The text has two straightforward metaphysical indicators pertaining to Christology. One is this radical dualism: “But you will exceed all of them (evildoers). For you will sacrifice the man that clothes me.” Of all things to sacrifice, that would be the worst – Judas’ lot. The “me” consciousness speaking is “clothed” by the body that will suffer from his betrayal. As identical on the spirit-side with the “god” of the twelve, the metaphysical dualism extends from individual to shared group-consciousness by communication (using his ‘name’). That is one of the metaphysical indicators of what Jesus’ inner life was taken to be like.
The second consists in use of the phrase “self-Generated”, in English translation, as part of the description of “A great angel, the enlightened divine Self-Generated, emerged from a cloud. Because of him, four other angels came into being from another cloud, and they became attendants for the angelic Self-Generated.” This bears unmistakable post Aristotelian earmarks – the “Self-Generated” as “Self-Caused cause”, the Self-actualizing Form of all Forms, “thought thinking thought” – but is as undeniably interlaced with specific Sumerian-Egyptian tokens. The Johanine doctrine of “Logos” – Word made flesh – mediates these in classical Christology. The composit of Self-Generated Divine Being (which Judas is not supposed to have seen, incidentally; except that “his star has led him astray”), plus Spirit of unity of the Twelve required to complete his manifestation, and the “Logos” voice of the Teacher (which this gospel has nothing of by Jesus to the multitudes).
Details.
Judas is called “the 13th disciple”, twelve being the number of the strong circle through which god-spirit energy works. Jesus draws Judas aside and tells him his inclusion in the group is temporary, he will do different and difficult things, and be replaced when the unity of the circle is restored. This replacement is specifically related in Acts 1.26. This is an important textual link, lending the new discovery credence, if it is not a forged retrolink.
The number “12” has great psychological, symbolic significance, as well as linking with star maps of the heavens that lay out the 12 30- “day” (24 hour periods) division of the year into 360 degrees. It also links the number 72, which Z. Sitchin identifies with the secret number of YHWHAlso, and x 360 = 25,920, the number of years of the Great Circle marked by the Precession of the equinoxes. This is marked by a point on the horizon to which the apparent motion of the sun, due to the planet earth’s minute wobbling on its plane of inclination, returns after a Great Year duration. This is advanced objective knowledge, Hermetic (Thoth, Ningishzidda) in style and content. Marduk brought the 12-month calendar to ancient Babylon circa 2000 BC, in the transition from the Age of Taurus to Aries. Jesus identifies himself with the “Spirit” of the “god” in each of the twelve disciples; this would be the source of strength of their unity, and to that, no 13th disciple could belong. If Judas has been led by his vision to believe otherwise, “his star has led him astray.”
Judas’ Fate:
Jesus: “Come, that I (… two missing lines…., but that you will grieve much when you see the kingdom and all its generations. (Apparently, is preparing Judas for the sight he will see, which “no person of mortal birth is worthy to enter, for the place is reserved for the holy”.)
When he heard this, Judas said to hih, “What good is it that I have received it? For you have set me apart for that generation.”
Jesus answered and said, “You will become the thirteenth, and yuou will be cursed by the other generations – and you shall come to ruile over them. In the last days they will curse your ascent to the holy generation.”
*****/
If I could make this voice preach, it would cry out and say: “The Judas Generation is Now. It has crucified the body of Christ, betrayed the Spirit (in America), defiled humanity. And now it has been sent a Gospel that shows this about itself to itself. But that is what Judas’ act that led to the Crucifixion did. It showed the mob who cried “Crucify him! Crucify him!” the truth about itself, even as/by the crucifixion.
Judas represents the Mother’s claim on the only begotten Son of God, the Jewish origin of his body. Its destruction is not something a human could want. “You will exceed (the evil of those offering sacrifices to Saklas) For you will sacrifice the man that clothes me.” The blood of that body is on their hands. (Mathew 27.25) And, related to that awareness, that he has “died for them”, representing “them dying”, and put an end to the sacrifice ritual itself.
This is the Archetype of Incarnated Spirit metaphysic, sacrificing the sacrifice. That explains Jesus’ insistence on purity in use of his name. To “sacrifice in his name”, as he says the twelve priests and later human generations will do, reverses the inner meaning of name of his sacrifice. Similarly, it explains why Christians cannot share ritual blood sacrifice commemoration with others, since by hypothesis they do not participate in the difference the shedding of that blood makes. And it is no minor thing, for it follows “the generations” down through the corridors of time into the present, by its presence.
Of note: that the inner, spiritual side of his nature identified with “the Father,” the“72” unit of the luminous 12 presences (“spirits”), is categorically exclusive of the thirteenth in the way that what is wholly contained in a circle, or globe is distinct from whatever is outside it. The complex of numbers 11-12-13, extending beyond Pythagoras’ sacred tetractys, is the series of ‘less than complete// complete // beyond inclusion in the complete’ as if fluctuating inside and outside what exists a totality. What “Judas” represents is recognized as an existing part of the totality, but as its internalized incarnate spiritual negation. There cannot be a “thirteenth” if “twelve” is the totality, except as the ‘self-negating (group)’ idea in each, projected as real for all, that is, except by a kind of illusion. It is sufficient to bring out the sacrifice complex and its priests.
Next: How, Who, When and Where the 13th spirit manifests in this accursed generation.
’
\
------Now, Its Own Gospel!
A Non-scholarly commentary on The Gospel of Judas as God’s Message for Today
By Sid Thomas, Ph.D.
http://www9.nationalgeographic.com/lostgospel/document.html
(hint 1: it’s OK to betray, if you go that way)
(hint 2. but you really don’t want to)
*******
All boundaries between the sacred and profane once regarded as categorical metaphysical differences can be addressed through this question: what fate befell the one who betrayed him, as it relates to us?
*******
The mainstream media gobbled up the recent publication of “the Gospel of Judas”, as if the betrayal role it relates that Jesus assigned Judas Iscariot to carry out somehow was somewhat excused, he was part of God’s redemptive plan all along. On the whole, in today’s highly excited religious context, it’s message was received as a good thing. In as much it removes a condemnation-reflex evoked by the name itself, one linguistic well-spring of animosity toward Jews is capped, some said.
Close reading of the text, however, and application of it to the post-Vietnam war “baby-boomer” generation, shatters this picture to smithereens. In fact, it shows the appearance of The Gospel of Judas to be part and parcel of the web of self-deception this generation has spun, as it has succomed to the ministry at the alter of the twelve sacrificial priests. They are by the thirteenth spirit; Judas.
The entire thing turns on what is to be made of Sacrifice, in general, to which the pre-Christian Jews were ritually addicted. Jesus is quoted saying: “some sacrifice their own children, others their wives, praise and humiliate each other; some sleep with men; some are involved in slaughter; some commit a multitude of sins and deeds of lawlessness.” So The Gospel of Judas says the disciples And these sacrificers correspond, today, proceeding backward from the last: Iraq; Abramoff/Libby scandals;, civilian-Pentagon war planners; hatred of homosexuals politically stirred up for the 2004 election; comraderie at Duke University LaCross team, etc. (boys ‘acting out’); security moms; actual youth and children killed.
The disciples speak of “a great house …large altar …twelve men, priests … and a name, and a crowd of people is waiting at that altar until the priests receive their offerings.” Jesus said to them: “Truly I say to you all the priests who stand before that altar invoke my name. Again I say unto you, my name has been written on this (… ) of the generations of the stars (as Pisces, on the Zodiac? See below) through the human generations. And they have planted trees without fruit, in my name, in a shameful manner.”
Comment: If, as the parentheses above suggest, the missing terms link what Jesus is called to a star-object, a “luminosity”, or “spirit” represented by planets and star constellations, a startling cosmological background of the drama is brought into view. The text has two straightforward metaphysical indicators pertaining to Christology. One is this radical dualism: “But you will exceed all of them (evildoers). For you will sacrifice the man that clothes me.” Of all things to sacrifice, that would be the worst – Judas’ lot. The “me” consciousness speaking is “clothed” by the body that will suffer from his betrayal. As identical on the spirit-side with the “god” of the twelve, the metaphysical dualism extends from individual to shared group-consciousness by communication (using his ‘name’). That is one of the metaphysical indicators of what Jesus’ inner life was taken to be like.
The second consists in use of the phrase “self-Generated”, in English translation, as part of the description of “A great angel, the enlightened divine Self-Generated, emerged from a cloud. Because of him, four other angels came into being from another cloud, and they became attendants for the angelic Self-Generated.” This bears unmistakable post Aristotelian earmarks – the “Self-Generated” as “Self-Caused cause”, the Self-actualizing Form of all Forms, “thought thinking thought” – but is as undeniably interlaced with specific Sumerian-Egyptian tokens. The Johanine doctrine of “Logos” – Word made flesh – mediates these in classical Christology. The composit of Self-Generated Divine Being (which Judas is not supposed to have seen, incidentally; except that “his star has led him astray”), plus Spirit of unity of the Twelve required to complete his manifestation, and the “Logos” voice of the Teacher (which this gospel has nothing of by Jesus to the multitudes).
Details.
Judas is called “the 13th disciple”, twelve being the number of the strong circle through which god-spirit energy works. Jesus draws Judas aside and tells him his inclusion in the group is temporary, he will do different and difficult things, and be replaced when the unity of the circle is restored. This replacement is specifically related in Acts 1.26. This is an important textual link, lending the new discovery credence, if it is not a forged retrolink.
The number “12” has great psychological, symbolic significance, as well as linking with star maps of the heavens that lay out the 12 30- “day” (24 hour periods) division of the year into 360 degrees. It also links the number 72, which Z. Sitchin identifies with the secret number of YHWHAlso, and x 360 = 25,920, the number of years of the Great Circle marked by the Precession of the equinoxes. This is marked by a point on the horizon to which the apparent motion of the sun, due to the planet earth’s minute wobbling on its plane of inclination, returns after a Great Year duration. This is advanced objective knowledge, Hermetic (Thoth, Ningishzidda) in style and content. Marduk brought the 12-month calendar to ancient Babylon circa 2000 BC, in the transition from the Age of Taurus to Aries. Jesus identifies himself with the “Spirit” of the “god” in each of the twelve disciples; this would be the source of strength of their unity, and to that, no 13th disciple could belong. If Judas has been led by his vision to believe otherwise, “his star has led him astray.”
Judas’ Fate:
Jesus: “Come, that I (… two missing lines…., but that you will grieve much when you see the kingdom and all its generations. (Apparently, is preparing Judas for the sight he will see, which “no person of mortal birth is worthy to enter, for the place is reserved for the holy”.)
When he heard this, Judas said to hih, “What good is it that I have received it? For you have set me apart for that generation.”
Jesus answered and said, “You will become the thirteenth, and yuou will be cursed by the other generations – and you shall come to ruile over them. In the last days they will curse your ascent to the holy generation.”
*****/
If I could make this voice preach, it would cry out and say: “The Judas Generation is Now. It has crucified the body of Christ, betrayed the Spirit (in America), defiled humanity. And now it has been sent a Gospel that shows this about itself to itself. But that is what Judas’ act that led to the Crucifixion did. It showed the mob who cried “Crucify him! Crucify him!” the truth about itself, even as/by the crucifixion.
Judas represents the Mother’s claim on the only begotten Son of God, the Jewish origin of his body. Its destruction is not something a human could want. “You will exceed (the evil of those offering sacrifices to Saklas) For you will sacrifice the man that clothes me.” The blood of that body is on their hands. (Mathew 27.25) And, related to that awareness, that he has “died for them”, representing “them dying”, and put an end to the sacrifice ritual itself.
This is the Archetype of Incarnated Spirit metaphysic, sacrificing the sacrifice. That explains Jesus’ insistence on purity in use of his name. To “sacrifice in his name”, as he says the twelve priests and later human generations will do, reverses the inner meaning of name of his sacrifice. Similarly, it explains why Christians cannot share ritual blood sacrifice commemoration with others, since by hypothesis they do not participate in the difference the shedding of that blood makes. And it is no minor thing, for it follows “the generations” down through the corridors of time into the present, by its presence.
Of note: that the inner, spiritual side of his nature identified with “the Father,” the“72” unit of the luminous 12 presences (“spirits”), is categorically exclusive of the thirteenth in the way that what is wholly contained in a circle, or globe is distinct from whatever is outside it. The complex of numbers 11-12-13, extending beyond Pythagoras’ sacred tetractys, is the series of ‘less than complete// complete // beyond inclusion in the complete’ as if fluctuating inside and outside what exists a totality. What “Judas” represents is recognized as an existing part of the totality, but as its internalized incarnate spiritual negation. There cannot be a “thirteenth” if “twelve” is the totality, except as the ‘self-negating (group)’ idea in each, projected as real for all, that is, except by a kind of illusion. It is sufficient to bring out the sacrifice complex and its priests.
Next: How, Who, When and Where the 13th spirit manifests in this accursed generation.
’
\
posted by Sid Thomas | 10:24 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home