The Gospel According to Judas by Ray S. Anderson (1991, Hardcover)

Jeffrey Archer tells the story of Jesus from the view of the disciple who betrayed him, Judas Iscariot. This fictionalized account is supposedly written by Judas' son, Benjamin Iscariot. Biblical scholar Professor Francis J. Moloney helped Archer to provide an accurate historical context of a fist century Christian.

I found this book to be almost heretical - it disputes certain of Jesus' miracles, like turning water into wine and practically states Jesus is not the Son of God and did not resurrect. It is an unique view through Judas' eyes. In this version of the Biblical events, Judas did not believe in Jesus' divinity and acted to save Jesus from death, but was betrayed by the Scribe he conspired with to get Jesus out of Jerusalem. His son writes that he did not received 30 pieces of silver or kill himself, even though there is Biblical prophesy that says otherwise. He also asserts that Jesus could not be the Messiah because he was crucified again ignoring prophecy that he would be killed by the people he came to save and that his side would be pierced, but no bones would be broken (Romans often broke the bones of a crucified person to cause them to smother on the cross as they could not pull themselves up for a breath). It further goes on to say Judas went to Khirbet Qumran where he devoted himself to copying scrolls to preserve knowledge of the history of the Jews. Seems like he would realize that Jesus fulfilled over 109 prophecies declaring him Messiah!

Overall, this was an interesting book and caused me to actually learn some things I did not remember despite reading the Gospels many times. The concordance also had a lot of useful historical information. I did not agree with a lot of the book and would not recommend it to a non-Christian or a new Christian who is not firmly founded in the scriptures.