Lost Gospel an Important and Fascinating Read for All!

As a young child growing up Catholic on Long Island, New York, I was made to attend CCD at our local church and go through the rite of confirmation. The most fascinating part of those classes and that training was the betrayal of Jesus by Judas, which led to Jesus' crucifixion and death. That moment was literally the crux of the Catholic faith - the resurrection would never have happened had Judas not betrayed Jesus. Judas was castigated by the four New Testament gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. What would happen if there were a Gospel of Judas that told Judas' side of the story and actually portrayed Judas in a positive light? In the last few decades, the experts believe that they have in fact found the Gospel of Judas, which portrays Judas as Jesus' favorite disciple and the only one that He trusted to bring about his crucifixion. The Lost Gospel by Herbert Krosny and Bart Ehrman detail the exhilarating quest to recover the Gospel of Judas and the work that the professionals did to restore the only surviving copy of that religion changing work.

Krosny and Ehrman must have spent months, perhaps even years, researching this book. The details that appear in this book are beyond exhaustive; they are painstaking in taking us along each and every little step throughout the arduous search and recovery of the Lost Gospel. The book, using a simple and accessible language and format, focused mainly on the journey that the Gospel took before being recovered. It also focuses largely on the scientific and technical recovery of the Gospel and introduces us to the major players in the recovery process. The story itself is also amazing and enthralling. It reads almost like an Indiana Jones script as opposed to a real life story. So if you are looking for the actual translation of the Gospel of Judas, then this is not the place to look for it. There are some passages from the Gospel, but this book focuses on its recovery and not what the Gospel says.

There was only one complaint that I had about this otherwise fascinating book: there were a lot of players. There were so many in the cast of characters that, without a chart depicting how each person was related to each other, it would have been very easy to get confused.

All in all, I would recommend this book for anyone from those who want a good story to those of you who are religious buffs. Wonderful!