7.6 /10 1 Votes
Cover artist Brant Cowie Publication date September 1983 Originally published September 1983 Genre Novel Country Canada | 3.8/5 Goodreads Language English Pages 247 pp Publisher Macmillan of Canada OCLC 10211755 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Media type Print (Hardback & Paperback) ISBN 0-7715-9772-X (hardback edition) & ISBN 0-312-80513-6 (paperback edition) Similar The Loved and the Lost, More Joy in Heaven, That Summer in Paris: Me, Luke Baldwin's vow, Such Is My Beloved | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
A Time for Judas is a historiographic metafiction novel by Canadian author Morley Callaghan, published by Macmillan of Canada in 1983.
The novel tells the story of a man in modern times who discovers tablets written by a scribe named Philo of Crete or Philo the Greek. In the story, these tablets are from the time of Jesus and are Philo's telling of Jesus' last days and the aftermath, including his resurrection. This modern-day man writes a novel based on these tablets. The bulk of the real novel is the fictional novel, i.e. a retelling of sorts of Philo's story.
Plot introduction
The title refers to the friendship between the scribe, Philo, and Judas Iscariot, the disciple who betrayed Jesus. The premise is that Judas was actually Jesus' most trusted disciple, and chose him for the important job of "betraying" him to the authorities. In other words, Judas was following Jesus' instructions. He tells his story to Philo, who writes it all down on papyrus, seals it up in a Greek jar, and hides it until it is discovered in the 20th century. The story goes that Judas hanged himself, not because he was ashamed of betraying Jesus, but because he had not kept the secret as Jesus had made him promise to do.