Lately the media have been making a big deal out of the so-called "Gospel of Judas," and even National Geographic is getting in on the action. This document, like hundreds of other false gospels, acts, letters and apocalypses penned in the centuries following the apostolic era, is heretical. Nothing new here!
The claims associated with it (other legitimate expressions of Christianity, unfortunately suppressed) -- like the claims of Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code -- are sensational because most of the public is unaware of how the Bible came together. More than that, most of the public has not studied anything about early church history. As a result, unware of the prolific efforts of heretics to trick the mainstream church into accepting the authenticity of their unorthodox theological concoctions, they are easily disturbed by the discordant voices of these competing claims to truth.
