The Gospel of Judas

[cfabel]

This is reminiscent, roughly, of The Last Temptation of Christ? 

 

C. F. Abel

Chair

Department of Government

Stephen F. Austin State University

Nacogdoches, Texas 75962

(936) 468-3903

 

 

 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-pynchon-l at waste.org [mailto:owner-pynchon-l at waste.org] On Behalf
Of David Morris
Sent: Tuesday, April 26, 2011 3:10 PM
To: P-list
Subject: Re: The Gospel of Judas

 

http://driftglass.blogspot.com/2011/04/in-honor-of-easter.html

 

So once upon a time.

 

The Kingdom of Judea was in upheaval as is had been for years. The Romans
had conquered the region and had tried to bend in into becoming another
distant province of their empire.

 

Their success was.mixed.

 

The Occupiers were militarily superior to the locals in every way, and there
were a lot of advantages to being a client-state. And, yes, they had
effectively co-opted many of the local elected officials, but everyone knew
what the score was.

 

[...]

 

The Occupiers were almost uniformly seen an affront to their God and
despoilers of their holy places.

 

Some people just wanted to be left alone. Some thought cooperation was the
lesser of many evils; the only way to stave off something much worse. Many
were seething with rage. And a few of them took up arms against the
Occupiers and those they saw as collaborators.

 

And those who drew blood in their cause saw it as a sacred thing.

 

It was a cauldron of faith, politics, family, tribe, righteous fury,
military power and insurgency, always gurgling away at a low boil and kept
in check by compromise when possible, and massive shows of force when not.

 

And I don't think it is exaggerating the situation by a whole lot by
describing it as an on-again-off-again form of urban warfare taking place in
the context of a low-grade civil war.

 

Say, does ANY of this sound familiar?

 

[...]

 

In a city in the middle of a guerilla war, where leaders desperately rose up
again and again only to be killed, again and again.

 

And then a young warrior-priest hit on a new strategy.

 

He is well-educated in both tactics and law. He is of royal blood, and like
true royalty feels quite at home talking to people of every station in life.
The Essenes know him, as do the Zealots. Even to the worshipers of Mithras
he would not be a stranger.

 

He has developed what we would call a broad constituency, and he also has a
duty. The same duty every Jewish lead bears in his turn: to drive the Romans
out.

 

 

On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 2:58 PM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:

> http://www.blizzpub.net/forums/topic/47233/

> 

> Manuscript Indicates Jesus Urged Judas' Betrayal From Associated Press

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://waste.org/pipermail/pynchon-l/attachments/20110426/88fd8522/attachment.html>