Gospel of Judas argued that a closer reading of the existent text, as presented in October 2006, shows Christianity in a new light. According to Elaine Pagels, for instance, Judas is portrayed as having a mission to hand Jesus over to the soldiers. She says that Bible translators have mistranslated the Greek word for "handing over" to "betrayal". Like many Gnostic works, the Gospel of Judas refers to itself as a secret account, specifically "The secret account of the revelation that Jesus spoke in conversation with Judas Iscariot..." The Gospel of Judas states that Jesus told Judas "You shall be cursed for generations"
Denial of the virgin birth of Jesus need for the pre-existence to which they objected. The Socinians in fact excommunicated from their number the translator of the first Bible in Belarusian, Symon Budny, for his denial of the virgin birth. A large scale change among Unitarians to acceptance of a human father for Jesus took place only in the time of Joseph Priestley. The young Samuel Taylor Coleridge was an example of what he called "a psilanthropist, one of those who believe our Lord to have been the real son of Joseph" but later in life Coleridge decisively rejected this idea and accepted traditional Christian belief in