The Gospel of Judas book club questions

The reading plan

Meeting 1: Chapters 1 to 3

1. When Jesus challenges the prayer over bread, what might make his challenge helpful or hurtful?
2. Is facing Jesus a fair basis for receiving private teaching?
3. How does Judas Iscariot standing apart affect your expectations of him?
4. What different feelings might explain the disciples' silence after Jesus answers them?
5. How might describing a generation beyond reach shape the disciples' understanding of belonging?

Meeting 2: Chapter 4

6. Does receiving private teaching make exclusion from the holy seem less fair, or are teaching and belonging separate matters?
7. What feelings does the vast house suggest to you, and how do they shape your reading of belonging?
8. How might a vision of persecution change what someone wants from belonging?
9. How does linking belonging with rule change the questions you would ask about the holy?
10. Would troubling answers about belonging make you seek more understanding or question the value of acceptance?

Meeting 3: Chapters 5 to 6

11. What might Judas hope to gain by asking about human spirits?
12. How does placing heavenly origins beside mortal limits affect your sense of human importance?
13. Do predictions of error and destruction leave room for hope, or make hope harder to defend?
14. What effect does the shift from a luminous vision to an arrest plot have on your reading?
15. How much weight should payment carry when judging Judas' motives for betraying Jesus?

Themes to talk about

Tips for the host

1. Open each meeting with one question everyone can answer, then go deeper.
2. Anyone who fell behind can catch up with the 15-minute summary.