N T Wright’s new book _Judas and the Gospel of Jesus_ discusses gnosticism, the Gospel of Judas, and responds to folks like Pagels, Meyer and Ehrman…

‘Classic Christianity, in short, has a lot more life and promise than have ever been imagined by those who propose the new Myth, or by those who offer newly discovered gnostic texts as the panacea for our ills. It is a shame that churches have been so muzzled, so often self-blinded to the full dimensions of the gospel they profess, the gospel of Jesus himself. In that gospel, as opposed to that of “Judas,” we discover a Jewish message intended for the whole world: a message about a creator God who loved the world so much he called the Jewish people to be the bearer of its salvation, and at the fullness of times sent the Jewish Messiah to carry out that saving purpose; a message about this Messiah inaugurating the sovereign, wise, healing kingship of this creator God, in his actions and teaching and supremely and decisively in his death and resurrection; a message about the future completion of the new creation which began in the events concerning Jesus, a completion guaranteed by those events and the be put into operation by the power of the life-giving Spirit of this same creator God; a message which calls human beings of all sorts, not to discover a spark of divinity within, but to respond in gratitude and obedient faith to the powerful word which announces Jesus as the world’s true Lord, and to discover in following him and belonging to his sacramentally constituted family a new dimension of life in the world rather than an invitation to escape from the world; a message which compels the followers of Jesus, energized by the power of his Spirit, to go out into the world and make new creation happen, confident that as that work has already begun in Jesus’ resurrection, and will be completed when heaven and earth are united at last, so the signs of that completion can truly be brought to birth in changed lives and societies in the present time.’

NTW, Judas and the Gospel of Jesus