The study that follows offers qualified denial of the interpretations of the Gospel of Judas that assert that Judas is simply doomed. It argues, rather, that the figure of Judas may be part of a tradition in which a Judas is a twin of Jesus, who ultimately unites with him in deification while their earthly shells are doomed to go through the motions of sacrifice. Judas' marginalization and even demonization made him a resource for those in liminal, stigmatized, and oppressed states.

In the second half of the thesis, Judas, his fate, and their relation to Jesus are considered through a critical reflection---especially with Agamben, Foucault, and Bataille---on the problem of individual sovereignty in a deterministic world. Judas' ambiguous doom can be thought of in terms of Agamben's homo sacer, having been called into existence as such, in a sense, by Jesus' messianic sovereignty. Judas' theosis in the midst of his doom may be read as a Gnostic assertion of individual salvation that resonates with the existentialist solution to the problem of personal sovereignty in a biopolitical age.