The newswires have been buzzing lately with racy headlines announcing the newly published Gospel of Judas.

Various members of the academy have chimed in. Bart Ehrman declares it to be "one of the greatest historical discoveries of the 20th century." Another noted scholar, Elaine Pagels, triumphantly declares this discovery "explodes the myth of a monolithic religion, demonstrating how diverse and fascinating the early Christian movement was."

For those who have not heard, this gospel relates a purported secret conversation between Jesus and Judas during the last three days of Passion Week. The juicy bit is actually just one line toward the end, where Jesus instructs Judas to betray him so that his eternal spirit can be freed from his mortal body.

Coming on the heels of The Da Vinci Code, the Gospel of Judas raises new questions for some: Did Jesus collude with Judas? And it presses old ones: Was Judas really the bad guy? Are the canonical gospels reliable?

I want to deal with the actual content of GJu (Gospel of Judas) to put the headlines in perspective, and then to reflect on what this document does and does not tell us.

Even though we have about 3,000 words of text, as with most ancient documents, the manuscript is fragmentary. There are places where the text simply drops out. In general outline, after an introduction that tells us this is the secret account of the revelation Jesus gave to Judas three days before his death on Passover, it recounts a conversation Jesus had with the 12 disciples. But they are obtuse, working for "the other god," and blaspheme Jesus in their hearts. Sensing Judas' special spiritual sensitivity, Jesus separates him from the others and offers an enigmatic hint of his future superiority over the other disciples. Jesus then disappears. On his return, the disciples tell him of a vision they had about the temple, which he interprets and which again reflects poorly on them. At this point, about halfway through, Jesus focuses on Judas and launches into an extended Gnostic speculation on the cosmos which continues almost to the end when he reveals his unique plan for Judas.

The Gnostics were a diverse array of Second Century AD groups with an even more bewildering variety of doctrines which makes it very difficult to isolate any definitive body of teaching. Essentially these elitist groups believed the physical world, and hence the body, were evil and only the purified spirit good. This created something of a problem given that Genesis says God called creation good.

In order to get around this, and to separate the good spirit from evil matter, the Gnostics proposed the existence a complex hierarchy of emanations - imagine the waves of a radio transmitter with the good spirit at the centre - which as they get further from the good spirit become more distorted.

Far down the emanation chain came a lesser, ignorant deity called the demiurge, whom they often associated with the God of the Old Testament and who created matter with the result that the human spirit became trapped in the prison of the body. They were elitist because they believed that only a few specially enlightened people would be saved by being freed from their bodies. Most people, including most Christians, would not gain this insight.

It is not hard to see why the early shepherds of the church were strongly opposed to them. Israel's God was not to be divorced from Jesus, nor Israel's scriptures from what God had done in him. Jesus' healing of bodies shows they are to be valued, as does Jesus' own bodily resurrection. Finally, the entire ancient world was built on a crushing elitism. But in Christ there is neither Jew nor Gentile, male nor female, slave nor free. In denying Christ's death was sufficient for all, the Gnostics were simply re-introducing the old pagan hierarchical elitism. In this particular document one finds the characteristic fantastic references to the emanations, aeons, clouds, and various angels beginning with one, then to four, then 12, 24, 72, and finally 360, etc. There is also a strong animosity toward the disciples - they blaspheme Jesus in their hearts - whereas Judas reflects on exalted things. Only toward the end does one get the line: "But you will exceed all of them. For you will sacrifice the man that clothes me." That is, you will release me from my body.

Judas then enters a luminous cloud and hears a voice (all this purportedly happening by the way during Passion Week). There's another gap in the text (about five lines) and then Judas is in the temple and accepts money in return for information on Jesus' whereabouts.

What's the point? Judas, far from being a traitor, was Jesus' closest confidant and ally. Jesus instructed Judas to betray him so that he could be released from his body. In other words, Judas alone of Jesus' followers is the truly enlightened one.

What can we say about all this? First, the reports are right in that GJu is indeed a truly ancient document. But based on established parallels, the developed nature of its cosmic speculations clearly indicates GJu belongs to the Second Century. Indeed, the hostility toward the 12 and the rehabilitation of Judas fits well with a particular sect of Gnosticism known as the Cainites who sought to turn Cain, the people of Sodom, Esau and Korah (who led the wilderness rebellion) into heroes. Irenaeus, a Second Century church father who steadfastly opposed the Gnostics, refers to it and this discovery corroborates his accuracy. So it is old but, and this is crucial, it is certainly not as old as the First Century canonical gospels.