If you haven't had a chance to watch National Geographic's television special "The Gospel of Judas," I think you'd really enjoy it.

In a nutshell... an ancient document that's been kicking around since antiquity was recently found, translated, carbon dated, and authenticated. It tells the story of Jesus from the viewpoint of Judas - till now considered the perpetrator of the biggest betrayal in history.

This document suggests that Jesus told Judas to betray him; ostensibly, so that his destiny could be realized. The document was labeled as heresy, and discarded by the early church as early as 180 AD.

Nearly all anti-semitism in the last 2,000 years can be attributed to the belief that Judas betrayed Jesus. If he did not, and in fact rose to this incredibly difficult occasion to serve his master to extreme, what might that mean for relations between Jews and Gentiles?

Additionally, this wasn't the only Gospel that the church dismissed. There were somewhere in the vicinity of 30 Gospels, each telling a different story of Jesus. One of the more interesting was the Gospel According to Thomas. Here it was written that Jesus taught his followers that God was within every man and woman, that they need not seek Him outside themselves nor through any church.

This didn't sit well with the early church fathers. They shunned the Gnostics, Christians who knew and practiced this teaching, and their rituals were considered heresy.

Today we call such practice “being spiritual,” and I find it strangely comforting to know that "New Age" spirituality has found new roots in ancient "Christian" soil.