so i've been going down a rabbit hole with apocryphal texts again. my coffee's been cold for like an hour. classic.
the gospel of judas reframes something everyone thinks they already understand which is that judas wasn't - okay so the short version is he acted on instruction. trusted with the one task nobody else could do because nobody else understood the assignment well enough. that's the whole thing really.
what i keep getting stuck on in non apocryphal texts is jesus on the cross. the last words. the asking why he was forsaken by god.
like we've all just collectively agreed to read that as beautiful and relatable and human and maybe it is. probably it is i'm not trying to be edgy about it or whatever. it's just. i don't know. it's a strange thing to sit with if you actually sit with it. it just genuinely doesn't make sense. here was a guy preaching unwavering trust in his supposed father but then this happens. why?
now, most people would say jesus is the model and judas is the cautionary tale and i guess that's the version that won.
i just think about the thirty pieces of silver sometimes. how heavy they must have been. countable. physical.
anyway this is half formed. there's a reading of all this and a theory i've formed that i've been sitting with but i'm not quite ready to write it all out yet. might come back to it, might not.
not that it matters because i don't think anyone is reading this, and it's increasingly starting to feel like i'm just talking to myself at this point.
- t