THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JUDAS is the result of an intense collaboration between a storyteller and a scholar.The unlikely partnership of Jeffrey Archer and Francis J.Moloney was formed，after Archer had sought advice from Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini on who should guide him through this demanding project.Among his many past students of the Pontifical Biblical Institute，Cardinal Martini singled out Professor Francis J.Moloney，a graduate of that institute in 1972，who had completed his doctoral studies at Oxford University in 1975.

The project was as bold as it was simple.Archer would write a story for twenty-first-century readers，while Moloney would ensure that the result would be credible to a first-century Christian or Jew.