If there was one individual who gave the Christians a
bit of a headache, it was Judas Iscariot. The Bible story tells how Judas
betrayed Jesus with a kiss, leading eventually to the crucifixion. Judas was
paid thirty pieces of silver to betray Jesus but he returned this fee and, full
of remorse, he went off and hanged himself.
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| Caravaggio - The Taking of Jesus |
Why is this a headache? Well, in
the first place, why did anyone need to identify Jesus? Surely he was well
known enough in Jerusalem at the time. He’d ridden into town on a donkey and
the crowds had turned out in their numbers and waved their palm fronds at him.
He’d preached to and taught these people, at an earlier stage he’d even fed
five thousand of them, he’d gone into the Temple and thrown out the
moneylenders. He was hardly acting inconspicuously. So why on earth did it need
Judas to point him out?
Some will argue that it was because he was betrayed to
the Romans, and they weren’t as familiar with the assorted Jewish messiahs who
were doing the rounds at the time (there were quite a few about the place), so
they needed someone to point out precisely which one it was that they wanted.
That’s fair enough if you imagine that the Romans were merely a bunch of
armour-wearing, knuckle-headed thugs who thought that all those Jews looked the
same to them, but I think they were just a little bit more sophisticated than
that.
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| Giotto - Judas Betrays Jesus - Scrovegni Chapel |
Other people will say that it was to satisfy an earlier prophecy, that
the messiah would be betrayed with a kiss and be sold for thirty pieces of
silver. Which is fair enough, if you believe in prophecies and in being able to
tell the future, which smacks a little bit of special pleading to me. If
something is foretold, then it’s going to happen, no matter what. Which
interferes somewhat with the notion of free will. And that’s where another
headache arises. If Judas’s future was already planned out for him, then he had
no choice in the matter. He couldn’t have done any differently, even if he had
wanted to. Which is a bit rough on Judas and his immortal soul. He was damned
before he was even born, which doesn’t really sit well with the idea of
personal responsibility and divine mercy.
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| Judas and the Sanhedrin |
On the other hand, if Judas had the
option of not betraying Jesus, that knocks the prophecy business into a
cocked-hat. It’s a headache. Either everything is planned out by God in
advance, in which case what’s the point of trying to live a good life, since
you’re damned whatever you do. Or, it’s up to you - if you don’t tear around
the place doing whatever you feel like, if you don’t commit any sins, then you
won’t have done anything wrong and it would be a massive injustice if God
starts condemning the innocent.
Some of the later Protestant theologians
thought they had an answer to this. No, they said, what matters is believing in
God and his Word, if you accept God into your heart, then you’re saved, but if
you don’t, then get ready for the eternal torments and so forth. But that, they
seem to have missed, also involves a choice. You’ve either got the option of
believing or you haven’t. Is it free will or is it predestined? You can’t have
it both ways. You can nit-pick, hair-split and special plead all you want, but
either Judas had a choice or he didn’t.
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| The Life and Death of Judas Iscariot |
Then, there’s another problem. In Matthew’s
gospel (27:5), Judas takes himself off and hangs himself. In the Acts of the
Apostles (1:18), Judas falls headlong into a field, bursts open and his
intestines spill out. You can’t have it both ways. Which one is it? No, no, say
the Christians (Augustine, I’m looking at you), you’ve misunderstood. Judas
went off and hanged himself but the rope broke and he fell down, which is when
the splitting open happened.
Right, sure, whatever you say. It’s me that’s got
it wrong. Surprising that. I’ve got it wrong when I take Matthew’s word for it
that Judas went back to the Jewish elders with his thirty pieces of silver and
threw them into the temple. As in,
“So Judas threw the money into the temple and left. [Matt. 27:5]”
So, St Peter isn’t fibbing in the Acts,
when he says,
“With the payment he received for his wickedness, Judas bought a field. [Acts 1:18]”
You can’t have it both ways. Which one is it?
Did he throw the money away or did he buy a field with it? No, no, is the
reply. You’ve got it wrong (again?). The Priests picked the money up and bought
the field on Judas’s behalf, because technically it was still his money, you
see. Well no, technically, I don’t see. It sounds to me like you’re cobbling
bits together that suit your argument and twisting them around until all the
kinks and wrinkles fall out. (How about this for a bit of wriggling? Judas
acted with Jesus’s knowledge and consent and he wouldn’t have been damned at
all if he hadn’t gone and committed suicide – that was the sin that did for
him).
You can either have a Bible that is the infallible word of God or you can
have a book that has got some mistakes and inconsistencies in it. And if that
sounds simplistic, it’s because it is that simple. It’s one thing or the
other. No ifs or buts, No becauses or howevers. No ‘it’s you don’t
understands’ or ‘you’re misinterpreting thats’. And it’s not the
only time it happens. The Bible is packed with mistakes and inconsistencies.
This is just a minor example. And it was just the same sort of examples like
this that made people start to sit up and say, “Wait a minute, this bit here
doesn’t match with what it says there.” And this in turn started the
headaches for some people and their vested interests.
Oh Judas, what have you
started? Or didn’t you get a say in the matter, after all?
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