Kiss of Death: The True History of the Gospel of Judas [Paperback] Churton, Tobias

The Gospel of Judas — a text the Church tried to bury for seventeen centuries — upends everything you thought you knew about Christianity's most infamous betrayer. Churton, a scholar of Gnosticism and Western esotericism, traces the manuscript's explosive rediscovery in the 1970s and its turbulent journey through the black market antiquities trade. But this isn't just archaeology thriller material. He reconstructs what the text actually says: that Judas wasn't a traitor but Christ's most trusted disciple, the only one who understood the mission. Churton contextualizes the gospel within second-century Gnostic Christianity, revealing a spiritual tradition the orthodox church spent centuries stamping out. The writing is accessible without dumbing down the theology — you'll finish this understanding why this papyrus codex terrified Vatican scholars. For readers drawn to religious history's suppressed chapters, alternative Christian traditions, or anyone who suspects the winners wrote a very selective version of the story.