JUDAS
ISCARIOT REHABILITATED
Judas Iscariot has been hated by the Christians and cursed for allegedly being the close friend and disciple of Jesus who handed him over to the Jews for arrest which led to his crucifixion.
THE TRAITOR THAT WASN’T
THE TRAITOR THAT WASN’T
The New Testament alleges that Jesus’ bursar, the apostle Judas Iscariot,
betrayed him. Judas had colluded with
Jesus’ enemies, the priests and the elders who wanted him to surreptitiously
apprehend Jesus with a view to having him executed (Matthew 26:4). For thirty pieces of silver, Judas planned to
take them to Jesus so that they could apprehend him. He left the upper room of the last supper to
inform the mob where Jesus would be after.
Later, Judas was overcome with unbearable remorse and killed himself. Jesus obviously must have told him where he would
go after the supper! And Jesus is upheld
as innocent!
All of this is as improbable as
the pope getting the Turin Shroud dry-cleaned.
The Jews did not need Judas to
lead them to Jesus. Had they no
spies? They could not have depended so
heavily on Iscariot in case he was a plant for Jesus. When they were going to lay hands on Jesus
despite the people they did not need Judas to betray him for that reason or any
other.
Nor would they have paid him
before he did the job no matter what Matthew 26:14-16 alone maintains. He could have ran off with the money and
exposed the corruption of the Jews from another country.
The Jews did not weigh thirty pieces of
silver to give to Judas for minted currency was used then. Pieces of silver had been out of circulation
since three centuries previously. If you
want to believe the pieces were really the Argurions or Staters each of which
were worth only three Roman denarii each then you are going to be disappointed. 30 Argurions or Staters were what a man would
be paid if his slave was killed by a beast, it was the slave’s value. The Jews would not have paid out so little
for a man they wanted dead so badly and Judas could have milked them for many
times that amount if they needed him as much as the New Testament would have us
believe. The story does not add up.
A more serious problem is that
Matthew regarded the thirty pieces of silver to be the fulfilment of a prophecy
that was not about Judas at all or even a prediction. It suggests that Matthew invented many of his
stories to make them fit the prophecies.
He needed Jesus to be sold for the silver to make the event fit the
prophecy. All Mark says is that Judas
schemed to betray Jesus because he was promised money and so does Luke so
Matthew was fibbing.
Christians following Matthew 27:7 say that
the Jews bought a field they named the field of blood with the money when Judas
threw the money back at them after a fit of remorse for betraying Jesus. The reason they say this is because Acts says
Judas bought the field while in Matthew we read that it was the Jews. The Bible says the Jews did that because they
could not put the money back into the treasury for it was blood money. It was money paid to get Jesus. Even though Jesus was arrested over the money
the Jews claimed they could not put him to death and there was no guarantee, according
to the gospels that Pilate would execute him.
Clearly then it was NOT blood money.
If you pay somebody to rob a bank and somebody gets killed the money you
paid was not blood money for it didn’t guarantee anything.
The Jews would not have been so scrupulous
especially when their God had said that it was a duty and a sacred thing to
murder anybody who became a heretic like they said Jesus had.
And why did they not give the money to
charity or divide it among themselves?
Buying the field and calling it the field of blood was a strange thing
to do for the Jews had nothing to be embarrassed about. The gospels say they felt they had to do what
they did to Jesus to save the nation and because he was a troublemaker and a
blasphemer. The author of Acts realised
this and that was why he thought Judas would have bought the field. His Judas obviously was not suicidal when he
did that. So when he says Judas fell in
the field and burst open we must put this down to a miracle or freak accident
because the way he relates his story tells against the view that his account
can be reconciled with the gospels that say that Judas hanged himself in
despair. Another thing that supports
this is that Luke would have told us if Judas hanged himself. You don’t say somebody fell in a field and
burst when you mean they hanged themselves and fell. Luke says Judas fell headlong which was not
very likely to happen to a hanging man who if he will fall will not fall headlong
for his head is furthest from the ground and the gospel of Luke never mentions
the suicide. Probability is against the
Christian solution to the contradiction but they don’t care about probability.
If Judas really believed that
Jesus was God’s sinless Son or God he would not have been killed by
despair. And even less so when he was
only following Jesus’ orders for John says Jesus told Judas to betray him. Jesus said that he would rise again and if he
had been a miracle-worker Judas would not have died of a broken heart. Jesus should have told him not to despair for
he would have noticed that Judas could get suicidal. Jesus as good as murdered Judas if the
gospels are true. Christianity would
never have taken off if Jesus had murdered but it seems in the gospels that he
did – the crafty way.
Did the apostles hang Judas and
make it look like he murdered himself?
The body was found mutilated and a daft explanation for that appears in
Acts. Matthew says the field of blood
got its name from being bought with blood money and Acts says it was because
Judas was found bleeding there after his belly exploded. It is hard to believe that a field would get
that name just because Judas was ripped open.
He was not that important and the Jews wanted to forget him. Matthew’s would be more believable only for
the fact that the Jews would not have given the field that name to bring shame
on themselves. Could it have been that
the body found in the field was the stolen body of Jesus from the tomb? Perhaps the apostles or somebody else then
sent Judas packing and framed him for betraying Jesus and pretended that Judas
killed himself and fell and was supernaturally mutilated and that the body was
his. Somebody was at it with a knife to
destroy any indication that it was the body of Jesus. Perhaps Judas had taken Jesus’ place on the
cross and this was a body planted to work as an alibi.
During the last supper Jesus
actually instructed Judas to hurry up and get him handed over. “Jesus said to him [Judas], What you are
going to do, do more swiftly than you seem to intend and make quick work of it”
(John 13:27). Judas was not a traitor
for he was acting under Jesus’ own instructions.
Christians explain that this
was sarcasm with a view to putting Judas off so Jesus did not mean it. He did mean it for there were more effective
things that he could have said. We would
have been told if he hadn’t meant it.
Others say that Judas was going
to do it anyway and Jesus knew that so he did no wrong in telling Judas to do
it. But he told him to do it fast which
meant he wanted him to have no chance to change his mind. Jesus could have delayed him if he
wanted.
Jesus betrayed Judas by telling
him to sin and to do what would lead him to suicide. Jesus knew him well enough.
It is suicide to get yourself
killed. Jesus betrayed himself by
getting Judas to assist him in the wackiest and sickest ever suicide
venture. Jesus would not reply to
anything Pilate asked him during his trial for his life (Matthew 27:14) which
is as good as admitting you are guilty.
Most people would say he deserved to be killed when he did that. He was asking for death. It was suicide.
The gospels say the Jews had to be
secretive about arresting and getting rid of Jesus out of the fear of the
people and used Judas to get him quietly then they were getting rid of Jesus
quietly. But the Bible says Jesus had a
public trial before Pilate and was killed in public which completely
contradicts the role of Judas in the Bible.
If the Judas story is true there was no public death and if there was a
public death there was no truth in the Judas story.
Paul stated that Jesus
manifested to the TWELVE following his resurrection (1 Corinthians 15:5). Judas was one of the twelve (Mark
14:20). Some scholars are adamant that
the original said eleven and it was later altered to twelve. There is no evidence for that so Paul wrote
twelve. Why would anybody change
it? The scriptures say that the term the
Eleven came into use even before the resurrection following the death of
Judas. Paul would have said Eleven if he
meant eleven for he was scared of confusing the zany and bewildered souls he
was writing to. He was using the
apostles as witnesses and to call them the twelve when there were only eleven
would have been dishonest in that context for it was making an extra witness
who was not there.
Others say that the twelfth man
meant was Matthias who was the replacement of Judas making twelve apostles
(page 103, In Defence of the Faith).
But the gospels themselves do not use the term the twelve after Judas
left. And Matthias was not ordained to
take the place of Judas until Pentecost which meant there was only eleven for
fifty days after the death of Jesus. And
when Paul says Jesus appeared to the twelve after he appeared to Peter he must
mean the first appearance. But the
gospels say there were only eleven apostles present.
Jesus promised Judas one of the
twelve thrones in Heaven to judge
Matthias was chosen to replace Judas but he was never intimate with
Jesus like he was. He was not
qualified. And he was chosen by a vote
and not for his intimacy. This is an
admission that Jesus had failed for he chose twelve men to be his witnesses in
a unique way and one of them failed and had to be replaced to keep the number
of twelve. Jesus should have had a spare
apostle who was to take no role in the Church if he was not needed if it had to
be strictly twelve. The Church will reply that Matthias must have been intimate
with Jesus but not as an apostle and could have been closer than any of
them. But why were we not assured of
that? The fact that a vote was cast tells
against Matthias having great intimacy for the person who could verify it the
best and who had a good reputation would have been the best candidate and would
not have needed to be voted in.
The New Testament claims that Jesus even chose
a new apostle, Paul – sometimes called the thirteenth apostle, another
admission of failure for he chose twelve for there were twelve tribes in
The author of Matthew was not
very close to the apostles when he didn’t know about the status of Matthias or
Paul.
The story of Judas was made up to
fit the alleged prophecies about betrayal that are in the Old Testament. Many early Christians positively rejected the
tradition that Judas betrayed.
THE ARREST IN THE GARDEN
According to the gospels, following the last supper, Jesus prayed in the
The gospels say that Jesus was
good. He knew the soldiers were coming
for they had torches with them and would have been noisy for there were a lot
of them. His refusing to escape or hide
up a tree makes him out to be suicidal which the Bible makes out to be a
terrible sin. He told them they were
doing wrong and he encouraged it by letting them walk all over him. If Jesus was virtuous then he was not arrested
in the Garden. He was not betrayed. He did not need to die a horrible death. The Bible says it was optional so he could
have just dropped dead in the street or died under the wheels of a
carriage.
The gospels say that the
authorities did not want to arrest Jesus at festival time for it was too
dangerous because there were too many of his supporters in town (Matthew
26:4,5; Luke 22:6). If so, the arrest is
a pack of lies. And this is proven by
them having him arrested at that very time!
If they wouldn’t and couldn’t arrest him at festival time then why did
they do just that? Why didn’t they even
try to hide the fact that they arrested him?
Why did they arrest the
disciples as well and then let them go when Jesus asked them according to the
John gospel? That makes no sense if they
didn’t want the disciples giving out bad publicity and maybe rousing a crowd to
demand the release of Jesus.
If the Jews didn’t want to arrest Jesus at
festival time both because it would insult the people to have their idol
apprehended during a feast of their religion and because
Jesus was arrested while the disciples were
allowed to get away. He was arrested on
political and religious charges. Nobody
arrests the ringleader and lets those who colluded with him go. The assistants are worse than their leader
for without them the leader is nothing.
And the gospels say the reason Jesus was taken in the Garden was to
prevent the public knowing in case there would be sedition but the disciples
would tell. Secrecy and the desire to
keep the capture low-key was the reason Judas had to betray Jesus at that particular
time (Luke 22:2,6). The disciples would
have been taken in for questioning and compelled to testify against him. They would have for Jesus had berated them
earlier for their selfish attitude concerning him and told them they would let
him down. The story is so absurd that
one gets the impression that if this story originated with the apostles that
they made it up to make it seem as if they had been there that night. But maybe it is just absurd for made up tales
often fail to manage to cohere.
It is impossible to see why the
gang had to be armed to the teeth to arrest a harmless prophet who thought he
was a king in a quiet place.
In the original Greek, the band
of men who came to take Jesus was called a cohort. Cohort was the Roman term for a group of at
least six hundred soldiers (page 76, The Messianic Legacy). This huge number contradicts the assertion
that they intended to take Jesus quietly for the large crowd would draw
attention.
If Jesus had been so popular
that secrecy was needed then they could have held a secret trial and jailed or
executed him and said nothing and they would have.
Jesus reminded the gang that they never
touched him in the
The men would have needed Judas
to show them which man was Jesus if they knew Jesus like the apostles say. Could it be that the man in the Garden was a
look-alike who had been put forward in a conspiracy to die in Jesus’
place? It looks like something was up.
So the Jews feared the
people. What about Judas? Why didn’t he fear them?
Judas had to identify Jesus to the cohort
by kissing him. But Judas could and
would have done it discreetly for if they were worried about the crowds Judas
would have been in big trouble if he were seen as Jesus’ betrayer.
Peter cut the ear off the High
Priest’s servant, Malchus. What a
strange thing for a man who panicked and ran off later to do. A man who Christians say was a coward. Peter would not have tried to take on a crowd
of men. He would not have asked for
trouble. He would have been arrested as
well for it. If he was arrested then the
story that he denied Jesus three times out of timidity is false. Why was Peter not jailed for assault? He would have been if the story were true.
There are so many incredible
stories in the New Testament that you need very strong evidence to believe
them. The Gospellers should have been
scriptwriters for Days of Our Lives or
When the arrest is fraught with
problems and impossibilities, why should we believe that Judas really betrayed
Jesus?
THE ABSURD TRIAL
The gospel of John is totally ridiculous with its Pilate testifying that
Jesus was the king of the Jews and asking them if they want him to crucify
their king. And John’s tale of Pilate
wanting to free Jesus when and because Jesus told him he had no power over him
for it was God that allowed Pilate to detain Jesus is total madness. We read Pilate openly sympathised with
him. If Pilate believed him how could he
sympathise with him? How you sympathise
for a prisoner who has the key to let himself out of prison? How could Pilate let his sympathy be so
easily known?
Jesus refused even to testify for
himself at his trials and told the High Priest not to ask him what he taught
but ask his hearers in other words - the accused has no right to speak for
himself and should get others to defend him!
Morally speaking, the accused should say his piece and then the
witnesses should be brought in to work the truth out of what he says. Jesus denied that for he told the guard
standing there that he had said nothing wrong in telling the High Priest to ask
his hearers. The Law of Moses does not
say that its blasphemy to claim to be the Son of God and Jesus was not the only
one who had made that claim in those days.
But we read in John that the Jews told Pilate Jesus had to be put to
death for saying that he was the Son of God.
And why does John having Pilate permitting the Jews to crucify Jesus
themselves while claiming that he wanted to save Jesus? The Christian guess is that Pilate was being
sarcastic for Jews didn’t crucify. But
the context says he was afraid of them so sarcasm is unlikely. John was saying Pilate was letting the Jews
kill Jesus themselves.
The lies make it so hard to
believe that Judas really did what the gospels accused him of. The trial is more important than the betrayal
of Jesus. If the trial story is
suspicious then we can be more suspicious of the betrayal.
WORKS CONSULTED
Alleged Discrepancies of the Bible, John W Haley,
Evidence that Demands a Verdict, Vol 1, Josh McDowell, Alpha Scripture
Press Foundation, Bucks, 1995
Handbook of
Christian Apologetics, Peter Kreeft and Ronald Tacelli, Monarch,
In Defence of the Faith, Dave Hunt, Harvest House,
In Search of Certainty, John Guest Regal Books,
Jesus and the Four Gospels, John Drane, Lion Books, Herts, 1984
Jesus Lived in
Jesus the Evidence, Ian Wilson Pan,
The Bible Fact or Fantasy? John Drane, Lion Books,
The Encyclopaedia of Bible Difficulties, Gleason W Archer, Zondervan,
The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh &
Henry Lincoln, Corgi,
The Jesus Conspiracy, Holger Kersten and Elmar R Gruber, Element,
The Messianic Legacy, Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh & Henry Lincoln,
Corgi,
The Metaphor of God Incarnate, John Hick, SCM Press Ltd,
The Passover Plot, Hugh Schonfield, Element Books,
The Resurrection Factor, Josh McDowell, Alpha Scripture Press Foundation,
Bucks, 1993
The Resurrection of Jesus, Pinchas Lapide, SPCK,
The Truth of Christianity, WH Turton, Wells Gardner, Darton & Co Ltd,
The Turin Shroud is Genuine, Rodney Hoare, Souvenir Press,
The Unauthorised Version, Robin Lane Fox, Penguin, Middlesex, 1992
The Vatican Papers, Nino Lo
The Virginal
Conception and Bodily Resurrection of Jesus Raymond E Brown Paulist Press,
The Womb and the Tomb, Hugh Montefiore, Fount – HarperCollins,
Verdict on the Empty Tomb, Val Grieve, Falcon,
Who Moved the Stone? Frank Morison, OM Publishing
Why People believe Weird Things, Michael Shermer,