The Gnostic version of Judas' story adds nothing to our previous knowledge of the Gnostic worldview and its heretical teachings.  We already knew that this sect attempted to merge the Greek division between soul and body with the New Testament.  It had already painted Jesus as a great teacher of enlightened wisdom, not the divine Savior who died to pay for the sins of humanity.  Its exaltation of Judas is consistent with other Gnostic treatments of Thomas and Mary Magdalene.

Unfortunately, news accounts are already beginning to confuse the issue.  We are hearing that scholars may have discovered a "lost book of the Bible."  We are reading that the New Testament picture of Jesus and Judas may need to be revised in light of this "new truth."  Undoubtedly, skeptics of biblical authority will seize upon the find as yet another reason to question the orthodox teachings regarding Jesus and his Church.

But the facts remain: Jesus was crucified under Pontius Pilate and raised from the grave on Easter Sunday.  His first followers paid with their lives for proclaiming him Lord.  If they had seen him only as a teacher of wisdom, the Roman government would have left them alone.  A million Christians would not have been martyred for their commitment to Jesus, none of them followers of a Gnostic teacher.

Pliny the Younger documented in AD 112 their worship of Jesus "as a god."  Tacitus, the great historian of ancient Rome, set down the "superstition" which venerated Jesus as Lord (cf. Annals 15.44).  Early Christians such as Cyprian of Rome professed their commitment to Christ as Lord before the first century had ended.  The fact of Jesus' resurrection has never been refuted.  And the changed lives of his disciples have never been explained.