>> judas!ow understands that he is part of a sacred mission. >> jesus wanted to be sacrificed. he asks judas to betray him. and judas says, "why me?" jesus tells him, "because you're the closest to me. i beg you to do it." >> he understands what's happening. he's helping jesus. he knows that because of what he has to do, he's going to be hated forever. >> judas is doing what jesus wants him to do. look, god sent jesus to die for the sins of mankind. someone has to betray him. someone has to fulfill this mission. jesus is saying, i have to die on the cross in order to do what i was sent here to do. >> judas was not the evil figure, this nasty traitor that we've often depicted him as in the history of christianity. >> judas, the quintessential traitor, is actually the hero? this is hugely shocking. it's stunning. >> the gospel of judas totally changes the relationship between jesus and judas. now judas is not a traitor but a trusted ally chosen by jesus to help him fulfill god's divine plan. then

judas is not really about the figure of judas. ones being criticized by the author. >> the real shock reveal of the gospel of judas is that none of the disciples are good. that probably should have been the headline. none of the disciples are that great. >> the gospel of judas is a damning portrayal not just of judas but of all the disciples at the last supper. >> what's surprising is that the gospel of judas actually depict the disciples as misguided idiots, people who don't have access to the truth. really jesus treats them as a lost cause. >> in the gospel of judas, the other disciples are praying and venerating in ways that make jesus laughs at them. >> why are you laughing at the thanksgiving? >> and they seem to be leading people astray. >> it is what is right. >> i am not laughing at you! >> nor are you doing this by your will but rather it is by this that your god will be praised. >> the gospel of judas pictures the disciples as clueless. >> this image of the disciples and of judas is the key to unlocking the true meaning

>> judas!> judas is transformed by the vision. he now understands that he is part of a sacred mission. >> jesus wanted to be sacrificed. he asks judas to betray him. and judas says, "why me?" jesus tells him, "because you're the closest to me." "i beg you to do it." >> he understands what's happening. he's helping jesus. he knows that because of what he has to do, he's going to be hated forever. >> judas is doing what jesus wants him to do. look, god sent jesus to die for the sins of mankind. someone has to betray him. someone has to fulfill this mission. jesus is saying, i have to die on the cross in order to do what i was sent here to do. >> judas was not the evil figure, this nasty traitor that we've often depicted him as in the history of christianity. >> judas, the quintessential traitor is actually the hero? this is hugely shocking. it's stunning. >> the gospel of judas totally changes the relationship between jesus and judas. now judas is not a traitor but a trusted ally chosen by jesus

what a way to identify this judas, this judas of history, this judas of the bible.e anything for christians. it reinforces the fact that there was one who was born for the purpose of betraying our christ that he would die on the cross for our sins and be raised for our justification. it enforces and reinforces -- i produced a movie titled "sunday morning rapture" to depict the second coming of christ but it starts off beginning and middle about the fact that you must accept this risen christ so that when he comes back again, we will be caught up to be with him. >> all these stories, this lost manuscript. i know these archeological findings all part of this documentary. bishop thank you so much. again, it's called "finding jesus." it airs sunday 9:00 p.m. eastern right here on cnn. >>> quickly before i let you go on this thursday let's take a quick look at the markets. the dow jones is up. here we go. look at all that green. it is up just about 260 points just shy of the closing bell. after being down really much of the week stocks rallied. fed said big banks passed

irinyas had told us that the gospel of judas spoke about judas being a hero, so we were all very muchen we first started working on this text, but as i worked through this text i found that in this text judas is portrayed as a demon and a rather evil demon at that. >> and, i mean, the bible says that judas sold jesus out for 30 silver coins. >> uh-huh. >> what do you learn about that particular exchange, if anything? >> this gospel also does mention a money exchange, but it seems to imply that judas did this because this was his destiny. so it adds that layer of complexity to the story. >> but that's so interesting because we think who knows their destiny? are they suggesting judas knew he was supposed to do it? who amongst us feels like we know what we're doing, where we're supposed to be going. >> exactly. what this gospel has is jesus telling judas what his destiny is going to be. judas in the text is uncomfortable with this destiny and he's fighting it, but jesus says to him, there's nothing that he can do about it, that it will happen. >> april deconick, so good to talk to you, t

he was -- judas was trusted with the money.els with the money with this small ban of followers of jesus. he had a position of trust and authority and went around doing miracles with the others as well. yet he wound up turning his back on him. why did he do that? because satan entered his soul? he wanted jesus to be the real king of israel and not a messiah that would go on the cross and sacrifice himself. >> i can't wait to watch it. >> so many questions. >> thank you for sharing. i appreciate it. >>> jesus and judas, the story unfolds this sunday on "finding jesus" at 9:00 p.m. eastern here on cnn. >>> it's friday. so it's time to laugh. if you can't laugh at yourself you can't laugh at anything at all. president obama proved that last night on jimmy kimmel reading mean tweets. >> how do you make obama's eyes light up. shine a flashlight in his ears. that's pretty good. somebody send obama some life hacks on how to be a good president. ha ha like i bet that would help. lol. the lol is redundant when you have the ha ha. i'm all

a certain man named judas led a rebellion against both rome and the sons of haired the great.to the city of sefhorus, breaking into the armory, stealing all of the weapons and arming his men. >> judas, the galilean, was a famous rebel against rome who insisted that the empire had no proper right to be ruling israel. >> we know that judas's revolt from josephus, who writes about it in his historical documents. >> here was a native jew who could be king over judea, a new messiah that many jews wanted to support. >> today we cannot imagine someone going up against a force such as the roman empire in that way, but in judas' time the romans have not been in israel very long, relatively speaking. >> for a while it may have looked like the rebellion would have been successful, but then the romans sent 15,000 troops down from syria into sephorous to flatten the city and squash the rebellion. >> i think it would be terrifying to face the roman army. you would know that they were there to utterly destroy you. >> judas was hopelessly outclassed in military terms by the romans. >> i have

on the night that judas will betray him, jesus invites his disciples to share a last supper. >> jesus because he can't let the authorities know where he's going to be because it's very important that he finish his last teaching and his last supper before he is seized and arrested violently. >> mary magdalene, mary the mother of jesus, they're not there at the last supper, but the reason they're not there is because jesus knows that he's about to be betrayed. this arresting, this seizing could be very violent, it could be very dangerous. >> following his betrayal by judas, jesus is arrested, tried and sentenced by pontius pilate to be scourged and crucified. >> the men had fled because the men could have been arrested with jesus for insurrection as he was. they could have been crucified as well. >> jesus called the disciples to follow him. and the one thing that they have failed to do, many of the disciples, is to follow jesus at the most crucial moment of all, which is to the cross. but mary has understood this and she's followed him to the cross. she succeeded where many of the male

he asked judas to betray him, and judas says why me?i beg you to do it. >> he understands what's happening. he's helping jesus. he knows that because of what he has to do he's going to be hated forever. >> challenging our view of judas. was he a villain or a hero. let's bring in april deconac. she is the chair of the religious studies department at rice university and the first person to seriously challenge this interpretation of judas. good morning to you. >> good morning. >> quickly tell us how is it that we have not heard of the gospel of judas? when was it discovered and translated? >> well it was discovered and translated and publicized about 2006 but it's an actual ancient christian gospel that we knew about from a bishop in the second century. he mentions this gospel of judas, but we didn't have a copy until modern times. >> you have done your own research and translation of the script. >> that's right. >> where does your research show us and how does it show us who judas was? >> well the bishop who mentioned the gospel of judas

the author of judas and the black messiah. me next. >>> when the oscars are given out next month, a lot of eyes will be on judas and the black messiah, nominated for five oscars including best picture. it hits home for a lot of americans because of its parallels to what is happening today. judas and the black messiah tells a story of fred hampton, the young leader of the black panthers in chicago who was shot dead by police in 1969. so let's talk about the movie and its impact today. with shacka king, the director and up with of the co-writers of judas and the black messiah. i'm so happy to have you here. thank you for joining us. >> thanks for having me. >> this film opens to the racial uprisings before and during dr. martin luther king's assassination in 1968. it is hard not to see how this resonates with the racial reckoning going on today. talk about the parallels between then and now if you will. >> i think they're endless. i think especially, one of the things that was striking to me editing the film during the pandemic

it's from "judas and the black messiah."tion of violence or nonviolence. it's a question of resistance to fascism or non-existence to fas fascism. you can murder a freedom fighter, but you can't murder freedom. let me hear the people. >> shaka, i mean it's amazing. in his speech, you used some of fred hampton's real words. what do you think people would take from these words today? >> i mean, you know, that was what really attracted me to the project quite frankly above all was just how, you know, profound and revolutionary but also in many ways logical, you know, the panthers' ideology was and particularly the way that jim and fred expressed that ideology. i thought it was really profound, and i think, you know, what people can take from his words today, you know, is i think, man -- >> do you think -- because he's talking about a revolution in there. do you think we need a revolution? i said we're in the middle of a racial reckoning. do you think we need a revolution? >> well, i mean i think we've been -- you know, there's

. >> jesus is betrayed by judas.disciple helps us understand a crucial piece of the passion narrative. why is the beloved disciple the only male disciple standing at the foot of the cross when all the others have fled? perhaps it's because the beloved disciple understands that the cross is not the end. the beloved disciple has already experienced resurrection. >> we're told that mary, the mother of jesus, and the beloved disciple are there together. and jesus bequeaths his own mother as a sort of last will and testament to the beloved disciple and we are told he took her into his own home. >> i think it's wrong to find value in a story only if we can trace it back to something historical. this story in particular does really important work because it tells about something really profound about love for one's friend, about the willingness to lay down your life for your friend's life. about hope in the face of despair and the transcendence of death. >> in oxford, england george cazan and tom hiam are about to put the e

to life, so i think it's less an act of showing his power and more an act of showing his love. >>> judas who betrays jesus in the most infamous act of treachery ever. >> judas is the embodiment of all wickedness, the most villainous person in human history. >> evil, demonic, the lowest of the low. >> now new evidence rewrites the story of jesus and judas: a lost book of secret knowledge

what judas betrays to the authorities is that jesus was teaching this in private.o pontius pilate. >> pontius pilate was the roman governor of judea who had power of life and death over his jewish subjects and often used it. >> pontius pilate, the very year that jesus entered into jerusalem, was in a very difficult political position. and as a consequence of that, he agreed to help caiaphas and to pin the whole blame for what had occurred within the temple, the disturbance there involving jesus, on jesus himself. ♪ >> scholars think that the most accurate part of the gospels comes here at the end. the eyewitness details of his death by crucifixion, perhaps the most gruesome form of capital punishment ever devised. >> it was a case of a state organized around the principle of terror. and you pointed this terror at anyone who was seen as posing a threat or posing a potential threat. that certainly applied in the case of jesus. >> and to many others. the romans crucified up to 10,000 people during jesus' lifetime, often people just like himself. ♪ >> it wasn't unusual

as well as james, there's joses, judas and simon alongside at least two unnamed sisters. exactly whose these offspring these other children are is still the subject of debate. >> for catholics, there is that emphasis on mary's virginity. she was not only a virgin at the time of jesus's conception and birth but also afterwards. that's why i like to think of james, the brother of jesus, as probably a child from joseph's prior marriage before he married mary. >> but not all christians are in agreement. >> protestants would say there are other children that are the biological kids of mary and joseph, in which case, jesus would be the older brother. and perhaps other siblings of jesus would have looked up to him. >> matthew 1-25 says, literally, joseph was not knowing her in the carnal sense until she gave birth to jesus. now any normal reading of that sentence implies she went on to have more children after that, and his brothers and sisters are in fact his brothers and sisters. >> the bible tells us very little about the early life of jesus. >> the gospels really fast forwar

what judas betrays to the authorities is that jesus was teaching this in private.o pontius pilate. >> pontius pilate was the roman governor of judea who had power of life and death over his jewish subjects and often used it. >> pontius pilate, the very year that jesus entered into jerusalem, was in a very difficult political position. and as a consequence of that, he agreed to help caiaphas and to pin the whole blame for what had occurred within the temple, the disturbance there involving jesus, on jesus himself. ♪ >> scholars think that the most accurate part of the gospels comes here at the end. the eyewitness details of his death by crucifixion, perhaps the most gruesome form of capital punishment ever devised. >> it was a case of a state organized around the principle of terror. and you pointed this terror at anyone who was seen as posing a threat or posing a potential threat. that certainly applied in the case of jesus. >> and to many others. the romans crucified up to 10,000 people during jesus' lifetime, often people just like himself. >> it wasn't unusual a

what judas betrays to the authorities is that jesus was teaching this in private.e to bring to pontius pilate. >> pontius pilate was the roman governor of judea who had power of life and death over his jewish subjects and often used it. >> pontius pilate, the very year that jesus entered into jerusalem, was in a very difficult political position. and as a consequence of that, he agreed to help caiaphas and to pin the whole blame for what had occurred within the temple, the disturbance there involving jesus, on jesus himself. ♪ >> scholars think that the most accurate part of the gospels comes here at the end. the eyewitness details of his death by crucifixion, perhaps the most gruesome form of capital punishment ever devised. >> it was a case of a state organized around the principle of terror. and you pointed this terror at anyone who was seen as posing a threat or posing a potential threat. that certainly applied in the case of jesus. >> and to many others. the romans crucified up to 10,000 people during jesus' lifetime, often people just like himself. >> it wasn

when we try to paint judas as if he's only evil, we don't see in him what jesus saw. >> and if we see him as a monster, i think we lose the sense of humanity. >> maybe we can't rehabilitate judas, but at least we can have some empathy for him. >> an ancient barrel ground inskriped with the name james, son of joseph, brother of jesus. a box that might actually be a connection to jesus christ himself. but who was his brother, james? >> the gospels are very clear that jesus had siblings. >> from doubter. >> can you imagine if your brother said i'm the son of god? >> to leader. >> james ran the whole show in jerusalem. >> but why has james but lost to history. >> james really is the forgotten man. >> embroiled in one of the longest forgery trials ever, could this box be the first physical evidence of jesus and his secret brother, james? ♪ >> fall, 2002. the royal ontario museum in toronto, canada, opens its doors to what may be the most significant discovery ever in biblical archaeology. a limestone burial box known as an aush ware, scientifically dated to the time of christ. on its side,