Judas Iscariot was one of the 12 chief disciples of Jesus Christ, the founder of Christianity. Judas betrayed his master, Jesus Christ, which ultimately led to Jesus’ crucifixion for heresy. Reviled in mainstream Christianity as a man of weak morals or as the incarnation of the Devil, Judas has become a synonym for a person who betrays a higher cause or a great person. The legend of Judas was historically used as a justification for the persecution of the Jewish community in Europe and the Middle East. From the beginning of Christianity to the greater part of the 20th century, he was almost always portrayed in a bad light in art, literature, drama, and other forms of popular culture. One of the most famous works of Western literature, ‘Inferno’ by Dante, depicts him as an evil character condemned to the lowest circle of Hell, along with the assassins of Julius Caesar, Brutus, and Cassius. Since the 1970s, scholarly studies and popular culture have featured more sympathetic portrayals of Judas. The discovery of the ‘Gospel of Judas’ in Egypt in the 1970s was a revelation. Its translation, published in 2006, portrayed the life of Judas Iscariot in a new way and helped in the reassessment of his image.