The gospel of Judas Iscariot (the Betrayer)

Over the past several years, the "National Geographic Society" has proclaimed the "gospel of Judas Iscariot" as a viable Gnostic alternative to the accepted canonical Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
The Gnostics of the era surrounding the first century were those who believed that reality was founded in the spiritual realm and that the physical was but a heavy weight holding all men down.  In other words, the spiritual is where all good is found and the physical body, which is inherently evil, holds all men back from their true righteousness.  They did not believe in original sin and therefore there was no need for a substitutionary sacrifice by Jesus for sin.  In fact, salvation, rather, was obtained by elevated esoteric thought.
The Gnostic writings, of which "the gospel of Judas" is included, are discounted by the early church fathers.  "Irenaeus (130 - 202 AD) in his work called Refutation of All Heresies said that the gospel of Judas was a fictitious history."
A cursory reading of chapter 7 of the gospel of Judas will show some of the really strange thoughts of this pseudepigraphal (false) writing. 
Matt Slick, author and founder of CARM (Christian Apologetics & Research Ministry), wrote in 2006 a response to the National Geographic presentation of The gospel of Judas, "The Gospel of Judas apparently depicts Judas in favorable terms and commends him as doing God's work when he betrayed Christ to the Jewish religious leaders.  This, of course, contradicts what was written by the apostles in their gospels of Matthew and John as well as those gospels written by Mark and Luke who are under the direction of Peter and Paul."
He goes on to write "We can conclude that the Gospel of Judas is not authentic, is not inspired, and was properly rejected by the early church as an unreliable and inaccurate depiction of what really happened concerning Judas.  Of course, the complaint is often raised that this opinion, like that of the early church, simply rejected anything that opposed a preconceived idea.  But, this complaint falls by the wayside when we understand that the early church knew which documents were authored by the apostles and which were not.  God did not make a mistake when he led the Christian Church to recognize what is and is not inspired.  The Gospel of Judas was never recognized by the church as being inspired." CARM
It is a common practice of defense of any thought or idea that if repeated enough times there will be a concomitant result of acceptance of that thought or idea as fact.  This, in and of itself, is not wrong for Christian apologists such as the Apostle Paul have practiced this method over the centuries.  However, Paul himself commended the early Christians who searched the Scriptures to see if what he taught was in fact truth.
A cursorial look at this false writing called "The gospel of Judas" will reveal its inauthenticity.  First, having been written several centuries after Judas' betrayal of Jesus by a Gnostic writer in defense of his own heresy, this book was quickly discounted by the early church.  And second, the National Geographic Society has supported and presented some very good and interesting historical findings over its existence, however, its denial of creation theology and acceptance and promotion of the Darwinian theory of evolution as fact, would discount its ability to present an unbiased examination of the book.
Therefore, I would conclude that any acceptance of the person of Judas Iscariot as someone other than the one known as a betrayer, by his closest associates, and particularly John, and who was possessed by Satan, would be in error and not in line with true Biblical teaching.