Was Judas Iscariot the favoured disciple?

Isn't it amazing that precisely now that The Da Vinci Code movie is coming closer to being released, an ancient manuscript that was found which depicts Judas Iscariot as Jesus' favoured disciple, is being released to the news media!

Naturally it would be The New York Times, that great bastion of "truth and integrity", that would print this news.

Apparently, the "debate is not over whether the manuscript is genuine — on this the scholars agree. Instead, the controversy is over its relevance." I wonder who these scholars are. And, in what context is this manuscript genuine? Was it genuinely written by Judas? Is the manuscript genuinely as old as they think it is? Is it genuinely not a falsification of some sort? What do they mean? The article does say that the "26 -page Judas text is believed to be a copy in the Coptic language, made around A.D. 300, of the original Gospel of Judas, written in Greek the century before."

If this copy is simply a copy of the original from the century before, then I have news for the NYT... The real gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) were written 200-250 years before this presumed original of the Gospel of Judas.

Of course, those who do not believe the true gospel of Jesus Christ as contained in the New Testament canon as we have it today, will believe all kinds of weird stuff coming from these gnostic "gospels!"

UPDATE April 7, 2006: Al Mohler picks up on this issue.

Just thinking...