Judas Iscariot

For other uses, see Judas.

Judas Iscariot lalalalalalalalalalalalalalaaaaaaaaaaalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalaalalalalalalalaaaaaaaalalalalalalalaalallaalallaaaaaaaaalalalalalalllllllaaaaaaaaaaallllllllaaaaaaaalllllllaaaaaaaalllllllaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaallalalalalalalalalallalalalalalalaalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalaaaaaaa (died April AD 29–33, Hebrew: יהודה איש־קריות Yəhûḏāh ʾΚ-qəriyyôṯ) was, according to the New Testament, one of the twelve original apostles of Jesus. Among the twelve, he was apparently designated to keep account of the fucking "money bag" (Grk. γλωσσόκομον), but he is most traditionally known for his role in Jesus' betrayal into the hands of Jewish and Roman authorities.

Etymology

In the Greek New Testament, Judas Iscariot is called Ιούδας Ισκάριωθ (Ioúdas Iskáriōth) and Ισκαριώτης (Iskariṓtēs).

"Judas" (pronounced iOUdas in ancient Greek and Latin, IPA: /'judas/) is the Greek form of the common name Judah (יהודה, Y^ehûdâh, Hebrew for "God is praised"). The same Greek spelling underlies other names in the New Testament that are traditionally rendered differently in English: Judah and Jude.

The precise significance of "Iscariot," however, is uncertain. There are two major theories on its etymology:

• The majority opinion, first credited to Jerome, derives Iscariot from Hebrew איש־קריות, Κ-Qrîyôth, that is "man of Kerioth." Some speculate that Kerioth refers to a region in Judea, but it is also the name of two known Judean towns. It is possible, then, that Judas was distinct from the other twelve apostles in that he was not of Galilean provenance.
• A second theory is that "Iscariot" should be considered a transformation by metathesis of the Latin sicarius, or "dagger." The Sicarii were a cadre of assassins among Jewish rebels intent on driving the Romans out of Judea. Under this theory, "Iscariot" would describe Judas as a part of or having come from such a group. However, many historians maintain that the sicarii only arose in the 40s or 50s of the 1st century, so Judas could not have been a member. Alternatively, Iscariot may have been a pejorative, posthumous designation. That is, while Judas may or may not have actually been a sicariote, he could plausibly have been described as the "assassin" of the son of God.

Because of Judas' role in betraying Jesus Christ, the name Judas—which was common during the time of Jesus—has almost entirely fallen out of use as a name among Christians, though its Hebrew equivalent "Yehuda" remains common among Jews, and the etymologically equivalent name "Jude" is not unknown among Christians.

Judas returns the silver coins to the priests.

Traditional Christian views

Biblical narrative

Judas is mentioned in the synoptic gospels, the Gospel of John and at the beginning of Acts of the Apostles.

Mark also states that the chief priests were looking for a "sly" way to arrest Jesus. They determine not to do so during the feast because they were afraid that the people would riot; instead, they chose the night before the feast to arrest him.

According to the account given in the gospels, he carried the disciples' money box and betrayed Jesus for a bribe of "thirty pieces of silver" by identifying him with a kiss—the "kiss of Judas"—to arresting soldiers of the High Priest Caiaphas, who then turned Jesus over to Pontius Pilate's soldiers. These "pieces of silver" were most likely intended to be understood as silver Tyrian shekels.

There are two different Canonical references to the remainder of Judas' life:

• The Gospel of Matthew says that, after Jesus' arrest by the Roman authorities (but before his execution), the guilt-ridden Judas returned the bribe to the priests and committed suicide by hanging himself. The priests could not return the money to the treasury so they used it to buy a plot of ground in order to bury strangers. [1]
• The Acts of the Apostles (1:18) says that Judas used the bribe to buy a field, but fell down, and burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed out. This field is called Akeldama or Field Of Blood. Acts 1 goes on to describe how his place among the apostles was subsequently filled by Matthias.

Yet another account was preserved by the early Christian leader, Papias: "Judas walked about in this world a sad example of impiety; for his body having swollen to such an extent that he could not pass where a chariot could pass easily, he was crushed by the chariot, so that his bowels gushed out."

Death

There are two contradictory accounts of Judas' death in the New Testament. This was one of the points that caused the apologist C. S. Lewis, for example, to reject the view "that every statement in Scripture must be historical truth".

The traditional Christian explanation is that Judas hanged himself in the field, and afterwards the rope snapped, and his body burst open on the ground. These views do not explain why the accounts differ in their details both of the death and what happened to the money afterward: the Matthew account says Judas returned it and the priests used it to buy a field called the Potter's Field as a burial ground for strangers, whereas the Acts account says Judas used it to buy the field he died in. Concerning the money and what was bought with it, there is also another view put forward by E.W. Bullinger. According to this view the accounts of Acts and Matthew speak about two different transactions and two different fields.

The consensus among scholars is that the Matthew account is a midrashic exposition that allows the author to present the event as a fulfilment of prophetic passages from the Old Testament books of Zechariah and Jeremiah. They argue that the author adds imaginative details such as the thirty pieces of silver, and the fact that Judas hangs himself, to an earlier tradition about Judas's death.

In the Gospel of Judas, it is implied that the other Apostles stoned him to death for his perceived betrayal.

Identity

Judas Iscariot 1891 by Nikolai Ge

Judas Iscariot is mentioned only a few times in the canonical gospels. The apostle whose name is generally rendered in English as Saint Jude was actually named Judas son of James, and outside the New Testament the apostle Saint Thomas is sometimes called Judas Thomas Didymus. A nickname for him some call "betrayer", or "unbeliever". Some persons have speculated that Judas Iscariot is the same as one or both of these persons, and have advanced as support for their theory the fact that some manuscripts refer to Judas son of James as Judas the Zealot, which they link with the theory that the name Iscariot refers to the Sicarii. However, the list of the Twelve in Luke 6:15,16 clearly treats Thomas, Judas son of James, and Judas Iscariot as three separate persons and the list in Acts 1 treats Thomas and Judas son of James as still alive at a time when Judas Iscariot is dead.

John 14:22 indicates that Jesus had a disciple called "Judas (not the Iscariot)," probably Judas son of James or possibly Thomas. The latter identification is less likely, since Thomas is not called Judas anywhere else in the New Testament, but it is supported by many writings in the Syriac church which refer to him by this name. The most famous writings naming "Thomas" as Judas are perhaps the Gospel of Thomas and the Acts of Thomas. Thomas itself simply means 'twin' and was thus this individual's nickname rather than his actual name.

Another New Testament Judas, Jesus' brother Judas, is referred to in Matt 13:55 and Mark 6:3. He may be the same person as Judas son of James (his different father would be explained by the Roman Catholic theory that Jesus' so-called "brothers" were really his cousins), or, in view of the statement in John 7:5 that "even his brothers did not believe" in Jesus, he may be someone else. Judas was a common name in New Testament.

Gospel of Judas

Main article: Gospel of Judas

During the 1970s, a Coptic papyrus [2] was discovered near Beni Masah, Egypt. This has been translated and appears to be a text from the 2nd century A.D. describing the story of Jesus's death from the viewpoint of Judas. The conclusion of the text refers (in Coptic) to the text as "the Gospel of Judas" (Euangelion Ioudas).

According to a 2006 translation of the manuscript of the text, it is apparently a Gnostic account of an arrangement between Jesus and Judas, who in this telling are Gnostically enlightened beings, with Jesus asking Judas to turn him in to the Romans to help Jesus finish his appointed task from God.

Criticism

Theological questions

Judas has been a figure of great interest to esoteric groups, such as many Gnostic sects, because of the apparent contradiction in the idea of "the betrayal of God". The two main questions seem to be these:

• Why did Jesus allow Judas to betray him?
  • Did Jesus fail to foresee the betrayal?
  • Was Jesus unable to prevent the betrayal?
  • Did Jesus willingly allow the betrayal to go ahead?
  • Did Jesus actively try to cause the betrayal to happen?
• Why is it that the 'villainy' of Judas becomes greater and more pronounced as one reads from Mark to John?

Irenaeus records the beliefs of one Gnostic sect, the Cainites, who believed that Judas was an instrument of the Sophia, Divine Wisdom, thus earning the hatred of the Demiurge. His betrayal of Jesus thus was a victory over the carnal world. The Cainites later split into two groups, disagreeing over the ultimate significance of Jesus in their cosmology.

Origen knew of tradition according to which the greater circle of disciples betrayed Jesus, but does not attribute this to Judas in particular, and Origen did not deem Judas as a thoroughly corrupt person (Matt., tract. xxxv).

The early anti-Christian writer Celsus deemed literal readings of the story to be philosophically absurd, especially because Jesus knew about the treason in advance, and told of it openly to all the disciples at the Passover meal, as well as singling out who the traitor would be without attempting to stop him.

The text of the Gospels suggests that Jesus both foresaw and allowed Judas' betrayal. In April 2006, a Coptic papyrus manuscript titled the Gospel of Judas (see above section) dating back to 200 AD, was translated into modern language, to add weight to the possibility that according to early Christian writings, Jesus may have asked Judas to betray him [3]. While this seems quite at odds with the Gospel of John, where Judas is portrayed as an arch villain, the Gospel of Mark is much more ambiguous and could be considered to be fairly consistent with the stance of the Gospel of Judas on this question.

Philosophical questions

Judas is also the subject of many philosophical writings, including The Problem of Natural Evil by Bertrand Russell and "Three Versions of Judas", a short story by Jorge Luis Borges. They both allege various problematic ideological contradictions with the discrepancy between Judas' actions and his eternal punishment.

• If Jesus foresees Judas' betrayal, then it may be argued that Judas has no free will, and cannot avoid betraying Jesus. If Judas cannot control his betrayal of Jesus, then he is not morally responsible for his actions. The question has been approached by Thomas Aquinas in his Summa Theologica, which differentiates between foreknowledge and predestination, and argues that the omnipotence of the divine is not sufficient grounds for eliminating the existence of free will.
• If Judas is sent to Hell for his betrayal, and his betrayal was a necessary step in the humanity-saving death of Jesus Christ, then Judas is being punished for saving humanity. This goes hand-in-hand with the "free will" argument, and Aquinas's Summa deals with the issue of free will in demons and other beings instrumental in the life of Jesus that are nevertheless damned. This becomes a moot point in some denominations that denote Hell, not as a place of everlasting torture, but as non-existent state of the dead and the common grave of mankind.
• If Jesus only suffered while dying on the cross, and then ascended into Heaven, while Judas must suffer for eternity in Hell, then Judas has suffered much more for the sins of humanity than Jesus, and his role in the Atonement is that much more significant. As Borges puts it in "Three Versions of Judas",

"The ascetic, for the greater glory of God, degrades and mortifies the flesh; Judas did the same with the spirit. He renounced honor, good, peace, the Kingdom of Heaven, as others, less heroically, renounced pleasure."

• Does Jesus' plea, "Father forgive them, they know not what they do," (Luke 23:34) not apply to Judas? Is his atonement insufficient for Judas' sins?
• It has been speculated that Judas' damnation, which seems to be possible from the Gospels' text, may not actually stem from his betrayal of Christ, but from the despair which caused him to subsequently commit suicide. This position is not without its problems, but it does avoid the paradox of Judas' predestined act setting in motion both the salvation of all mankind and his own damnation.
• What if Jesus knew he was going to die? Presumably he did. Was his purpose for coming not to cleanse the world of its sins? Perhaps Judas was all part of His master plan. Was Satan working through Judas? Since Satan failed in his temptation of Jesus in the wilderness, this may have been his second act of betrayal to God.

The damnation of Judas is not a universal conclusion. The Roman Catholic Church only proclaims individual's Eternal Salvation through the Canon of Saints. There is no 'Canon of the Damned', nor any official proclamation of the damnation of Judas.

Motivation

The Kiss of Judas, by Giotto di Bondone

Was the monetary value of 30 pieces of silver the only motivating force for Judas' actions considering that 30 pieces of silver was also the price one paid for a slave that had been gored by an ox in Old Testament Law? After seeing Jesus' popularity declining, was Judas' motivation for handing Jesus over an attempt to force the hand of God into action? Jesus often spoke of creating a kingdom and saving his people. Many times Judas saw Jesus escape capture and stonings. Judas might have been trying to spur Jesus into a war with the Romans by telling them where he was.

The last reading may be plausible if the etymology of "Iscariot" (see below) is in fact related to Sicarii, a sect of the Zealots committed to the violent overthrow of Rome. If Judas was a Sicarius (which may or may not be historically possible), then it's possible that he saw Jesus as the Messiah in the fashion expected by the Zealots: a military leader who would defeat and cast out the Romans. If this scenario was the case, then Judas may well have been trying to force Jesus into a position where he had to reveal himself as the divinely appointed warrior-king who would destroy his enemies.

In discussing these matters, it is important to distinguish the New Testament narratives about Judas from the historical figure of Judas.

Modern interpretations

Most modern Christians, whether laity, clergy, or theologians, still consider Judas a traitor. Indeed the term Judas has entered many languages as a synonym for betrayer.

However, some scholars have embraced the alternative notion that Judas was merely the negotiator in a prearranged prisoner exchange (following the money-changer riot in the Temple) that gave Jesus to the Roman authorities by mutual agreement, and that Judas' later portrayal as "traitor" was a historical distortion.

In his book The Passover Plot the British theologian Hugh J. Schonfield argued that the crucifixion of Christ was a conscious re-enactment of Biblical prophecy and Judas acted with Jesus' full knowledge and consent in "betraying" his master to the authorities. Schonfield's hypothesis recognizes the fulfilment of prophecy in Judas' recorded actions without acknowledging that the prophecies were really fulfilled in history.

A similar interpretation became well known to the general population through Martin Scorsese's controversial film The Last Temptation of Christ, based on the novel by Nikos Kazantzakis. Kazantzakis' original conception was that Judas Iscariot's only motivation in betraying Jesus to the Romans was to help him, as Jesus' closest friend, through doing what no other disciple could bring himself to do. This portrayal shows Judas obeying Jesus' covert request to help him fulfill his destiny to die on the cross, thus making Judas the catalyst for the event later interpreted as bringing about humanity's salvation. This view of Judas Iscariot is curiously reflected in the recently discovered and translated third or fourth-century text, the Gospel of Judas.

The Roman Catholic Church has never officially stated that it believes Judas is in Hell. According to one Catholic writer, if he had not committed suicide but repented of his actions it would still have been possible for him to become a great saint, just like Saint Peter who denied Christ three times.

Garry Wills, New Testament scholar, believes that Jesus rescued Judas from Hell, as part of the Harrowing of Hell.

The book The Sins of the Scripture, by John Shelby Spong, investigates the possibility that early Christians copied the Judas story from three Old Testament Jewish betrayal stories. He writes, "...the act of betrayal by a member of the twelve disciples is not found in the earliest Christian writings. Judas is first placed into the Christian story by Gospel of Mark (3:19), who wrote in the early years of the eighth decade of the Common Era". He points out that some of Gospels, after the Crucifixion, refer to the number of Disciples as "Twelve", as if Judas were still among them. He compares the three conflicting means of Judas's suicide, hanging, leaping into a pit, and disembowling, with three Old Testament betrayals followed by similar suicides.

Spong's conclusion is that early Bible authors, after the First Jewish-Roman War, sought to distance themselves from Rome's enemies. They augmented the Gospels with a story of a disciple, personified in Judas as the Jewish state, who either betrayed or handed-over Jesus to his Roman crucifiers. Spong identifies this augmentation with the origin of modern Anti-Semitism.

Theologian Aaron Saari contends in his work The Many Deaths of Judas Iscariot that Judas Iscariot was the literary invention of the Markan community. As Judas does not appear in the Epistles of Paul, nor in the Q Gospel, Saari argues that the evident anti-Twelve language indicates a split between Pauline Christians, who saw no reason for the establishment of an organized Church, given the imminence of the Parousia, and the followers of Peter. Peter leaves the Gospel of Mark--the first gospel in which Judas appears--in absolute disgrace, no longer the "Rock," but rather as Simon. Saari contends that the denigration of Judas in Matthew and Luke-Acts has a direct correlation to the elevation of Peter in these texts (see, for example, the bestowing of the keys to the kingdom upon Peter, which is special-M material). In an interesting theory, Saari argues (much as Elaine Pagels does in her work Beyond Belief) that early Christian gospels record the conflicts of communities over Christological and theological concerns. Highly provocative, Saari's theory challenges conventional notions concerning Judas Iscariot.

Representations and symbolism

Hymnography

In the Eastern Orthodox hymns of Holy Wednesday (the Wednesday before Pascha), Judas is contrasted with the woman who anointed Jesus with expensive perfume and washed his feet with her tears. (Tradition identifies her with Mary, sister of Lazarus, although some identify her as a separate person.) According to the Gospels, Judas protested at this apparent extravagance, suggesting that the money spent on it should have been given to the poor. After this, Judas went to the chief priests and offered to betray Jesus for money. The hymns of Holy Wednesday contrast these two figures, encouraging believers to avoid the example of the fallen disciple and instead to imitate the prostitute's example of repentance. Also, Wednesday is observed as a day of fasting from meat, dairy products, and olive oil throughout the year in memory of the betrayal of Judas. The prayers of preparation for receiving the Eucharist also make mention of Judas' betrayal: "I will not reveal your mysteries to your enemies, neither like Judas will I betray you with a kiss, but like the thief on the cross I will confess you."

Gospel of Barnabas

According to medieval copies of the Gospel of Barnabas, it was Judas, not Jesus, who was crucified on the cross. It is mentioned in this work that Judas' appearance was transformed to that of Jesus', when the former, out of betrayal, led the Roman soldiers to arrest Jesus who by then was ascended to the heaven. This transformation of appearance was so identical that the masses, followers of Christ, and even the Mother of Jesus, Mary, initially thought that the one arrested and crucified was Jesus himself. The Gospel then mentions that after three days since burial, Judas' body was stolen from his grave, and then the rumours spread of Jesus being risen from the dead. When Jesus was informed in the third heaven about what happened, he prayed to God to be sent back to the earth, and so he descended and gathered his mother, disciples, and followers and mentioned to them the truth of what happened, and having said this he ascended back to the heavens, and will come back at the end of times as a just king.

Anti-Semitism

Jewish scholar Hyam Maccoby suggests that in the New Testament, the name "Judas" was intended as an attack on the Judaeans or on the Judaean religious establishment held responsible for executing Christ. The English word "Jew" is derived from the Latin Judaeus, which, like the Greek Ιουδαίος (Ioudaios), could also mean "Judaean". In the Gospel of John, the original writer or a later editor may have tried to draw a parallel between Judas, Judaea, and the Judaeans (or Jews) in verses 6:70-7:1, which run like this in the King James Bible:

6:70 Jesus answered them, Have not I chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil? 6:71 He spoke of Judas Iscariot the son of Simon: for he it was that should betray him, being one of the twelve. 7:1 After these things Jesus walked in Galilee: for he would not walk in Jewry, because the Jews sought to kill him.

In Greek, the earliest extant language of the Gospels, the words Judas — Jewry — Jews run like this: Ιούδας (Ioudas) — Ιουδαία (Ioudaia) — Ιουδαίοι (Ioudaioi). In Latin, the language of the Vulgate Bible, they run Judas — Judaea — Judaei. Whatever the original intentions of the original writers or editors of the Gospel of John, however, there is little doubt that the similarity between the name "Judas" and the words for "Jew" in various European languages has contributed powerfully to anti-Semitism. In German the same words run Judas — Judäa — Juden; in Spanish Judas — Judea — judíos; and in French Judas — Judée — juifs. He has also been seen as parallel to Judah, son of Jacob, by such writers as Charles Fillmore and John Shelby Spong.

Art and literature

Cathédrale Saint-Lazare, Autun. Judas hangs himself

Judas has become the archetype of the betrayer in Western culture, with some role in virtually all literature telling the Passion story. In Dante's Inferno, he is condemned to the lowest circle of Hell, where he is one of three sinners deemed evil enough that they are doomed to be chewed for eternity in the mouths of the triple-headed Satan. (The others are Brutus and Cassius, who conspired against and assassinated Julius Caesar.)

• Judas is the subject of one of the oldest surviving English ballads, dating from the 13th century, Judas, in which the blame for the betrayal of Christ is placed on his sister.
• Edward Elgar's oratorio, The Apostles, depicts Judas as wanting to force Jesus to declare his divinity and establish the kingdom on earth. Eventually he succumbs to the sin of despair.
• In Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita, the entire story of Christ is portrayed differently. In the case of Judas, Bulgakov presents a parody of the betrayal of Christ, as though first-century Jerusalem were Moscow in the 1920s-1930s. Judas betrays Jesus and is then killed on the instructions of Pilate.
• In Paul Féval's novel, Vampire City two prominent but unseen rulers of the vampires are Baron Iscariot (implicitly Judas) and Baroness Phryne. This view of Judas as a vampire is also reflected in a series of films beginning with Dracula 2000, which depicts vampirism as a punishment for Judas's betrayal of Christ.
• In George R.R. Martin's short story "The Way of Cross and Dragon", a sect called the Order of Saint Judas Iscariot promotes a gospel of "Saint Judas" which is quite different than what is in the New Testament.
• Michael Moorcock's novel Behold the Man offers an alternative, sympathetic portrayal of Judas. In the book, Karl Glogauer, the time traveler from the 20th Century who takes on the role of Christ, asks a reluctant Judas to betray him in order to fulfill the biblical account of the crucifixion.

See also

• Burning of Judas
• John the Baptist
• Traitor
• Gospel of Judas

External links

• Judas Iscariot: Catholic Encyclopedia article published 1910
• Jewish Encyclopedia: Judas Iscariot
• What Did Judas Betray? Atheist Foundation of Australia
• Judas: The trusted disciple, An alternative interpretation of the canonical texts.
• What About Judas? Biblical Universalism: Universal Salvation as Taught in the Greek Text of the New Testament
• "Death and Retribution: Medieval Visions of the End of Judas the Traitor" - 1997 lecture by Dr Otfried Lieberknecht
• Evangelical Christian view on Judas Iscariot from Grace-Centred Magazine