A recent article in the Christian Post is titled ‘Gospel’ of Judas Free of Forgeries But Still ‘Fake, Heretical,’ Says New Testament Scholar. Katherine Weber reported, “Researchers have recently revealed their methods for determining that the Gospel of Judas, a fragmented Coptic text traced to Egypt in approximately A.D. 280, is in fact free of forgeries.” Dan Wallace, a New Testament scholar emphasized the importance of distinguishing between “true” and “authentic” when it comes to the Gospel of Judas. Wallace says:
[W]hen we hear the word ‘authentic’ regarding an early sub-Christian writing it is natural to conclude that authentic [equals] true as regards the historicity of the Christian faith. . . .
This is not the case in this instance. All that is being claimed is that the manuscript really was produced in the late third century. . . .
The recent revelations by Joseph Barabe indicate a date of ‘approximately A.D. 280,’ but this seems to be more precise than the technology would suggest. . . .
Most likely, the confluence of ink analysis and radiocarbon dating have both legitimately authenticated this codex and fixed the date to the late third to early fourth century (Source)
The document is not written as historical eyewitness testimony as the Canonical Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Obviously Judas didn’t write this Gospel himself before he committed suicide or posthumously. It was written much later by Gnostics, a heretical sect. New Testament scholar Craig Blomberg defined the Gospel of Judas as, “a late second-century Gnostic document that briefly recasts portions of the passion narratives of the canonical Gospels so as to make Jesus commission Judas to betray him and promise to reward him in the afterlife for doing so.” He adds, “Although even very liberal scholars recognized that the document posed no threat to the traditional accounts of first-century history, popular novelists have still based fanciful reconstructions of Christian origins on this Judas-Gospel.”
Writing in about A.D. 180, the early Christian Irenaeus condemned the Gospel of Judas as a fictional work of heresy from the Cainite sect of the Gnostics. He wrote,
Others again declare that Cain derived his being from the Power above, and acknowledge that Esau, Korah, the Sodomites, and all such persons, are related to themselves. On this account, they add, they have been assailed by the Creator, yet no one of them has suffered injury. For Sophia was in the habit of carrying off that which belonged to her from them to herself. They declare that Judas the traitor was thoroughly acquainted with these things, and that he alone, knowing the truth as no others did, accomplished the mystery of the betrayal; by him all things, both earthly and heavenly, were thus thrown into confusion. They produce a fictitious history of this kind, which they style the Gospel of Judas. (ANF 1.31.1)
In conclusion, Dan Wallace responded on his blog to the question, “If it became a fact that the Gospel of Judas were real, how would this change the study of the New Testament?”
Most likely, the original Gospel of Judas was written in the second half of the second century. Irenaeus, writing in about AD 180, condemned a gospel by this name as a fake, and described its contents as revealing that Judas “alone, who knew the truth as no one else did, accomplished the mystery of the betrayal” of Jesus. This fits well with the contents of the codex, in which Jesus praises Judas as the one who will set his spirit free from the bonds of his physical body. This is vintage Gnosticism, which made a hard distinction between the spiritual and material world, branding the one good and the other bad. But does this mean that there is any historical truth to the Gospel of Judas, that it actually tells us the real story about the relation of Jesus to Judas? Hardly. Not a single scholar thinks that this conversation has any historical credibility. Irenaeus was right: this is a fake gospel which promotes a heretical idea about Jesus of Nazareth. The discovery and authentication of the Judas codex does nothing to disturb that assessment. (Source)
Sources:
Craig Blomberg, Historical Reliability of the Gospels (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2007), 16.