Lord Archer attempts to rehabilitate Judas

From the Guardian:

So where do you go after selling 125m books and spending time in jail for perjury and perverting the course of justice? It was obvious to Lord Archer. He wrote the fifth gospel and then got the Vatican to unveil it to the world.
You have to hand it to him. He aims high. And sometimes - like yesterday - he hits the bull's eye.
Sitting elbow to elbow with the Rector of the Pontifical Biblical Institute at a press conference in Rome, the irrepressible Lord Archer patted the slim brown tome he was presenting.
Overlooking for a moment other blockbuster authors such as Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, he said: "This is a gospel - and I think we're the first people to do that."
The "we" is explained in the frontispiece of his latest book, The Gospel according to Judas, which says it was written "with the assistance of Professor Francis J Moloney", an Australian and one of the world's leading Biblical scholars.
What the professor called "the fertile imagination of Jeffrey Archer" and his own renowned scholarship have yielded a volume that has already won readers in high places. And maybe very high places.
He would not actually vouchsafe that Pope Benedict had read it.
But, with the man from the publishers looking on, beaming ear to ear, the professor said he was an old friend of the pontiff and had "a suspicion that he may have read it, because I am aware that he has an interest in this whole enigma of Judas". Not exactly a papal blessing for the book cover. Not yet, anyway.

Read the whole article here.