In a previous post i claimed that the word πρηνής in Acts 1:18 was mistranslated as ‘headlong’ instead of ‘prone’. To dispute that claim please visit the thread called Did Judas Fall Headfirst Or Face Down?
In this thread i’d like to explore the story of Judas’ death more broadly and see whether the accounts in Matthew 27:5 and Acts 1:18 can be reconciled or are contradictory.
I do not have an opinion as of yet and therefore i do not claim one way or another on this issue.
First the two passages (NASB).
Account A—Matthew 27:3-10
3 Then when Judas, who had betrayed Him, saw that He had been condemned, he felt remorse and returned the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, 4 saying, “I have sinned by betraying innocent blood.” But they said, “What is that to us? You shall see to it yourself!” 5 And he threw the pieces of silver into the temple sanctuary and left; and he went away and hanged himself. 6 The chief priests took the pieces of silver and said, “It is not lawful to put them in the temple treasury, since it is money paid for blood.” 7 And they conferred together and with the money bought the Potter’s Field as a burial place for strangers. 8 For this reason that field has been called the Field of Blood [Ἀγρὸς Αἵματος] to this day. 9 Then that which was spoken through Jeremiah the prophet was fulfilled: “And [c]they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of the One whose price had been set by the sons of Israel; 10 and [d]they gave them for the Potter’s Field, just as the Lord directed me.”
Account B—-Acts 1:18-19
18 (Now this man acquired a field with the price of his wickedness, and falling headlong [πρηνὴς γενόμενος], he burst open in the middle and all his intestines gushed out. 19 And it became known to all the residents of Jerusalem; as a result that field was called Hakeldama in their own language, that is, Field of Blood [Χωρίον Αἵματος].) 20 “For it is written in the book of Psalms:
‘May his residence be made desolate,
And may there be none living in it’;
and,
‘May another take his [t]office.’
SOME DEFINITIONS
Two accounts are contradictory if they contradict each other within a proposed story. This means that, if one account is true, then the other cannot be true. They are not contradictory, if a story can be proposed that explains all the points in both accounts.
Occam’s Razor is also something i like to follow (even though not a necessary condition). It means that the simplest, most common sense story that explains all the elements of the two accounts wins. In other words, if two competing stories are proposed that both explain all elements in the two accounts, and one is very complex and improbable whereas the other is simple and straightforward, the second story wins.
Please keep in mind that sometimes the proposed underlying story framework is complex, but it is plausible and it does explain all the elements in the two accounts. In that case we cannot claim the two accounts to be contradictory. There is a story that explains them, albeit complex, but not so convoluted that it’s really highly unlikely to have happened.
RESPONSES
Each response should have the following:
1. Your position, are the two accounts contradictory or not?
1a. If contradictory, what are the contradicting elements in both accounts (lements that if true in one account cannot be true in the other account)?
1b. If not contradictory, please provide (2).
2. Story that explains all elements in both accounts.
The simplest story that explains all elements in both accounts wins (Occam’s Razor)!
DATA POINTS
Account A
A1 Judas throws money in temple sanctuary and leaves
A2 He hangs himself
A3 Chief priests took money and bought Potter’s Field as a burial place for strangers
A4 The field has been called the Field of Blood [Ἀγρὸς Αἵματος]
A5 A prophesy was fullfilled
Account B
B1 Judas acquirs a field with unjust money from John 12:6 (stealing from the treasury)
B2 Judas, after decomposing on the noose, falls face down, his intestines gush out
B3 That field was called Hakeldama, Field of Blood [Χωρίον Αἵματος]
B4 A prophesy was fullfilled
EXAMPLE
This is an example, because like i said, i haven’t studied the issue enough to make a claim. Of course, you can make a claim and then change your mind as more evidence are discussed.
Example Position: The two accounts are not contradictory.
Example Story:
B1 Judas acquirs a field with unjust money from John 12:6 (stealing from the treasury)
Judas betrays Jesus
A1 Judas throws money in temple sanctuary and leaves
A2 He hangs himself
A3 Chief priests took money and bought Potter’s Field as a burial place for strangers
A4 The field has been called the Field of Blood [Ἀγρὸς Αἵματος]
B2 Judas, after decomposing on the noose, falls face down, his intestines gush out
B3 That field was called Hakeldama, Field of Blood [Χωρίον Αἵματος] (this is another piece of land from A4)
The idea for the above post came from what Prof. Ehrman has his undergraduates do: list two accounts and compare them. So here’s a hypothetical story that hits all the points in the two accounts above.
If i missed any points in the accounts above, let me know and i will edit the original post to reflect any changes.
HYPOTHETICAL STORY
It is ca. 30 CE and Jesus is starting his ministry. He calls the disciples, Judas being one of them. Judas becomes the treasurer of the “Jesus team”, steals money (John 12:4-6), and uses this stolen money to buy a field (χωρίον) (B1).
One day, Jesus was visiting a house in Bethany (Matthew 26:6). A woman came with a very expensive perfume and just poured it over Jesus’ head (Matthew 26:7). That was the expensive stuff. The disciples considered it such a waist (Matthew 26:8-9), but Jesus defended the woman (Matthew 26:10). Judas was there. He saw how Jesus was spending potential treasury money, and he was the treasurer, and he was helping himself to the moneybag! Judas saw an opportunity: If he betrayed Jesus he could make money out of the betrayal itself and also get Jesus (the big treasury spender) out of the way, in one fell swoop. He heads straight to the chief priests and negotiates the betrayal price–30 silver coins (Matthew 26:14-15).
OK, so now Judas has a plan: get handsomely paid to get Jesus out of the way, which will open the door for him to help himself freely to the treasury moneybag. From now on he was looking for an opportunity to betray Jesus (Matthew 26:16). And finally betrays him (Matthew 26:49).
But wait … if you kill the team lead who makes all the money (the crowd healer and gatherer), isn’t that like killing the golden goose?! Oooops! Plus now, the other disciples would hate him for what he did and … well, no Jesus team, no moneybag, no…profits! Ugh, Judas struck out, the plan backfired! Not only he sold the golden goose, it seems that the rest of these guys don’t like him anymore, and he’d lose the treasury moneybag too. What a mess he got himself into! He is thinking to himself “i had a good deal going, stealing enough from the moneybag to stay under the radar, enough to buy a nice little field! Why did i have to be so greedy and mess everything up?! Let me see if i can salvage this thing now…”
So in an attempt to save whatever he could, he tries to return the money (Matthew 27:3). The chief priests are not impressed with his remorse performance, they don’t even want to touch the money so they won’t become ritually unclean. He throws the money on the floor (A1) and goes and hangs himself (A2) in the field (χωρίον) he bought himself a couple of years earlier (B1). No one saw the hanging, he was alone. Days later his body decomposed and fell below the noose, face down, his guts spilt out (B2). Finally, some people found his body like that (πρηνής, face down, that’s why the other post was important, because, who falls from a noose and stays head down, feet up?) and named that χωρίον (field) ‘Χωρίον Αἵματος’, i.e., Field of Blood (B3). A prophesy is now fulfilled (B4).
There’s loose end. Matthew 27:6-8 says that the chief priests used the 30 silver coins to buy another field, at the time of purchased known as the Potter’s Field (Ἀγρὸς τοῦ Κεραμέως) (A3). It later became known as the Field of Blood (this time called Ἀγρὸς Αἵματος, not Χωρίον Αἵματος) (A4). A prophesy was fulfilled (A5).
Your comments/corrections welcome, as well as your own stories. The main things i’m looking for are:
— Does the story hit all the points? If not, then it’s not a satisfactory story to begin with. I believe mine does.
— Does it make sense? Is it simple enough to not feel that i’m forcing my own conceptions and perceptions and expectations onto the facts?
We don’t want just the simplest story that explains all the data (Occam’s Razor), it has to make sense too.
I also understand that there are people who say ‘let each author speak for himself’. I get that, and for certain situations i think it makes more sense to not put together the two accounts. But my aim here is, if we go the route of putting them together, does it make sense? Does it explain all the data comfortably? So again, i am sure i’m going to get a lot of advice about why i shouldn’t be doing this exercise. I’m not saying that this is the exercise to solve all problems! I’m saying it will at least get to the point that we can say if the two accounts are contradictory or not.
I also understand that there are two prophesies to be fulfilled at the end of each account, that’s why i have them there! They are not functional elements in the story (i could very well remove them), but maybe the authors of the two accounts are just making stuff up to fit the prophesy that came up in their heads when they were writing their account. I’m not dismissing that either. Just saying, because i can see people pointing that out.
In logic, a contradiction means asserting ‘p’ and ‘not p’. And if it is to be a true (rather than merely verbal) contradiction, you have to show that the two statements are speaking of the same thing, in the same respect, at the same time; so you have to rule the possibility of equivocation, or metaphorical language, or just talking about the same thing at different times.
If one account said, “Judas died by hanging himself,” and the other said “Judas did not die by hanging himself” that would be a verbal contradiction, and to show it is a real contradiction, one would have to show that they really were talking about the same thing–they were talking about the same individual named Judas, they meant the same thing when they spoke of “dying by hanging oneself”. To run with the example given, a harmonizer could argue that what really happened was that Judas attempted to hang himself, but botched it and died from hitting the ground, rather than from snapping his neck in the noose or strangling himself with it. Thus the testimony that says he died by hanging himself is right, in that he did put a noose around his neck and jump, and that series of actions (which we might naturally call, “hanging himself”) was what immediately caused his death–even if not quite the way he meant it to; but in a technical sense the other account is also right, in that the hanging was botched and it wasn’t the noose that killed him. The point is that even a true verbal contradiction can be resolved with some clever interpretation (and as Williams pointed out in the video, Bart verbally contradicted himself in the course of a few minutes, but it was merely verbal, Bart had qualifications in mind that, if expressed, would have resolved the contradiction, he just didn’t voice them.).
There few such cases in the Bible, and the death of Judas is not among them.
When people say there are contradictions in the Gospels, they usually mean there are accounts given that cannot be *realistically* reconciled so that both could be true (like you say, “it has to make sense too.”). The ‘realistic’ criterion is actually twofold. First, it constrains the interpretation; the interpretation of the text given by any proposed harmonization has to be a plausible meaning intended by the author. Second, the proposal has to suggest a plausible series of events that broadly reflects the way the world is known to work and that reflect the way people are apt to behave.
These last criteria are necessarily vague and debatable, and that is why these conversations usually come to an impasse–the skeptic says that interpretation of the text is totally implausible and does violence to the text; the one proposing the harmonization says, well, that’s what you think. The skeptic says, the series of events you propose makes no sense; and the harmonizer retorts, but implausible doesn’t mean impossible.
So, the number of ways of reconciling these two accounts is virtually unlimited, but the question is whether any is plausible–both as an interpretation of the texts and as a series of events.
But here is the rub, at least for me: If we look at individual cases where they seem to tell different stories, we might be able to argue about how plausible the individual reconciliations of those different stories are singulatim–like I said, plausibility isn’t a clear an incontrovertible standard. Maybe a harmonization is borderline plausible–maybe that the harmonized account is what happened, but it doesn’t seem very likely, but then again, now and then something unlikely happens, so maybe that is what is going on here: maybe–maybe!–Matthew knew that Judas was found decomposed under a noose (and recorded that he hanged himself) and Luke heard that his corpse was found chest down and split open, and recorded something to that effect). But if you look at all the ways their accounts diverge over all their writings, you start to see a pattern–starting with their totally different infancy narratives and extending through their resurrection accounts; you also see how they made use of their common source, Mark, recycling what they got from him, while also changing the facts he recounts freely when it suits their apparent theological agenda. This is where Occam’s razor comes in: The simplest and by far most elegant explanation is that they are just making stuff up.
Thank you for your response, Robert.
Robert said:
I think the great majority of critical exegetes would consider it very unlikely that Matthew and Luke are talking about two separate, yet so similarly referenced fields in Greek.
I’m not afraid to go a bit off the beaten path here. Maybe the similarity between the two fields is a pun. Judas bought one ἀγρός with unjust, stolen money, the priests bought a χωρίον after he unceremoniously hanged himself. Moral: Don’t steal, it won’t pan out good for you!
We can debate this back and forth, and at the end of the day it will be just conjecture or opinions. I understand what you are saying though.
However, above i offered a story that reconciles two different or even seemingly contradictory accounts. I actually believe that not only the story is possible, it might be a literal construct to make a point, like the pun above.
I’m not examining here if it’s true or not. My personal opinion (not that it matters) is that is more likely that the authors tweaked their accounts to fit a prophesy (Matthew is big on everything being a fulfillment). But i’m not arguing personal positions here. I’m arguing that we need to have an open mind to both cases. I’m not a fundamentalist (far from it), but i will not become a militant atheist either, to go as far as to totally dismiss the two accounts because they don’t verbatim copy one another. There may be other reasons we don’t think of that justify both accounts.
Case in point: i offered a story that hits all the points of the two accounts and makes perfect sense to me (i’m asking you guys to tell me if it doesn’t make sense to you, so i can correct my view on this) and is also not at all unlikely (your input is appreciated here too, how likely is it to you?). If you guys cannot come up with reasons why this story is not convincing, then we cannot claim the two accounts contradictory.
The story is there! It explains both accounts, it flows naturally, it fits the broader nature of Judas’ character, it’s not anachronistic… It’s at least one possibility of the true event (nobody knows the actual, historical truth). I’m looking forward to your poking holes into my theory!
Thank you for your response, Porphyry.
I don’t disagree with what you are saying. But many of these discussions can go really tangential and subjective. I’m trying to put some governance around the criteria so we have something more concrete to debate.
Porphyry said:
But here is the rub, at least for me: If we look at individual cases where they seem to tell different stories, we might be able to argue about how plausible the individual reconciliations of those different stories are singulatim–like I said, plausibility isn’t a clear an incontrovertible standard.
It could be, if there are criteria like a story that hits all points of two accounts. Let me give you an example of plausibility being disproven: Imagine in my story i said that Judas bought the field he hanged himself in after he died! That’s not plausible, it contradicts plausibility. Of course you can reconcile anything! One could claim something supernatural like he appeared after death and bought a field to fulfill a prophesy, i don’t know. But in my story i’m not doing anything crazy like that. If you can point to an instance like this in my story, then i will concede that i made a mistake, revise and resubmit (or maybe it will be impossible for me to come up with a fix and stop there).
I’m not examining if my story really, truly, historically happened. I don’t think we have a video recording of it anywhere! I wasn’t there, and even if i was, my brain may be tricking me into thinking what i want to think happened.
I’m examining if the story fits the two accounts. It does, in my humble opinion (please disprove it, i’m very curious to see where i went wrong!). It hits each and every point of the two accounts (see bold letters). In a previous post i was examining the effect of a mistranslation of a specific word, and elements of the two accounts kept creeping in (i wanted to just look at the linguistics there). I mean, people started talking about Judas’ retaining the services of a downtown Chicago attorney for his will on who will inherit the property! (i’m joking, but i’m not far!). No νομικός (lawyer) needed in my story…it explains both accounts too. So, why could it not have happened in reality?
If you can not point to concrete evidence of why this particular story explains both accounts, then we cannot call the two accounts contradictory. There is a (fictitious) story that makes them both compatible.
Just off hand, something that immediately struck me as utterly implausible in the proposed reconstruction is this:
But wait … if you kill the team lead who makes all the money (the crowd healer and gatherer), isn’t that like killing the golden goose?! Oooops! Plus now, the other disciples would hate him for what he did and … well, no Jesus team, no moneybag, no…profits! Ugh, Judas struck out, the plan backfired! Not only he sold the golden goose, it seems that the rest of these guys don’t like him anymore, and he’d lose the treasury moneybag too. What a mess he got himself into! He is thinking to himself “i had a good deal going, stealing enough from the moneybag to stay under the radar, enough to buy a nice little field! Why did i have to be so greedy and mess everything up?! Let me see if i can salvage this thing now…”
So in an attempt to save whatever he could, he tries to return the money
How stupid would Judas need to be not to realize that in killing Jesus he was killing the golden goose? How could he not have anticipated that the rest of the group would hate him for having their leader crucified? This isn’t some minor faux pas that one might commit in a moment of thoughtlessness: we are talking about handing someone over to be tortured to death. I’m pretty pessimistic about the intelligence of humanity, but I find that suggestion simply incredible.
Something of a tangent, but from my view, Judas’s betray is one of the critical starting points in digging the historical Jesus out of the Gospels. That one of Jesus’ intimates would turn on him and hand him over for crucifixion is deeply embarrassing to Christianity–it’s not the sort of thing they would be apt to make up, but it is the sort of thing they might try to explain away; If the gospel accounts of Jesus are true, who in his right mind–having seen and heard all the things Judas would have seen and heard as one of the twelve–would betray him in that way? I wouldn’t wish crucifixion on my worst enemy; even if we dismiss all the supernatural stuff in the Gospels as unhistorical it still takes something pretty serious to flip a guy from leaving everything to follow someone to then handing that person over to be brutally tortured to death.
What I personally think is the most likely explanation of why Judas would have betrayed Jesus is that he realized that, as a member of Jesus’ inner circle, his own life was in serious danger. I think over his months or years of accompanying Jesus, he must have come to have at least very serious doubts about Jesus’s status as a miracle-worker and a messiah. But then they go to Jerusalem and Jesus started doing things that would be (and were actually, according to the Gospels) understood by the authorities as seditious (the triumphal entry, the cleansing of the temple). Assuming Judas had, for some reason, lost his faith in Jesus as a divinely appointed messiah, he might very well have felt that the only way he could escape being crucified himself was to turn on Jesus; he may have found that he was in too deep and things had escalated too far for him to just walk away and carry on with his life: he had to pick sides. There may also have been some amount of selflessness as well: if he had become convinced that Jesus was a false messiah (a la Simon bar Kokhba), he may have seen himself as saving not only his own skin but many innocent lives besides. I find it interesting that, even in Mark, Judas turns sides immediately following the anointing at Bethany: an act that could very well have carried regal overtones.
Robert said:
One of the biggest difference between the two stories is the acquisition of the field and the origin of the field’s name. Claiming that the authors are talking about two completely different fields without any basis other than an attempt to avoid this very difference, is simply not a credible approach in my opinion.
Well, what basis is there for believing both authors are talking about the same field? One is an ἀγρός (a field able to bare crops or fruit), the other is just a plot of land, a lot (χωρίον). They’re both related to blood, hence translated as ‘Field of Blood’ in both cases, but not the same field, two different names in the original. That is the basis for claiming they are two different fields…I mean if i claim that i have two friends, one called Joanne and the other Calvin, isn’t the fact they have two different names basis to claim they are two different people? Maybe their last name is the same (Blood), but still, two names.
Robert said:
But don’t take my word for it, run your idea by professional scholars, see if you get any takers. Write it up as a thesis, defend it publicly, publish it as a peer-reviewed article.
Thank you, i think that’s a very good idea. Maybe publishing in peer-reviewed journals in this field is a bit outside the scope, this is a hobby to me, but who knows, why not?
Actually, i was thinking to use the feedback in this forum before i bring this to Prof. Ehrman’s attention. What would be the best way to ask him to take a look at the thread in here and offer an opinion?
Porphyry said:
How stupid would Judas need to be not to realize that in killing Jesus he was killing the golden goose? How could he not have anticipated that the rest of the group would hate him for having their leader crucified? This isn’t some minor faux pas that one might commit in a moment of thoughtlessness: we are talking about handing someone over to be tortured to death. I’m pretty pessimistic about the intelligence of humanity, but I find that suggestion simply incredible.
Indeed, that’s a good point. I have to think more about this. Come to think of it thought, why would a disciple betray Jesus. I know the traditional view is for money. But … really? Isn’t that, like you said, extreme? To give someone you personally know to be crucified? Of course the other view is that this was always part of the divine plan.
But anyhow, he did betray him and he did repent and threw the money on the temple’s floor. The whys, i don’t know.
By the way, i’m not at all proposing this is what really happened. It may be implausible, i start to see that now. But remember, the point of creating a story like this is to fit all the elements of the two accounts as comfortably as possible. Not to claim it has happened or it’s a usual, typical story. I mean, what story in the NT is your typical, run of the mill story anyhow?
Porphyry said:
That one of Jesus’ intimates would turn on him and hand him over for crucifixion is deeply embarrassing to Christianity–it’s not the sort of thing they would be apt to make up, but it is the sort of thing they might try to explain away;
That’s why i think it’s historical. What Christian would make something like that up?
Porphyry said:
What I personally think is the most likely explanation of why Judas would have betrayed Jesus is that he realized that, as a member of Jesus’ inner circle, his own life was in serious danger.
That’s a very interesting thought, that i never thought about. He saw the writing on the wall. I need to think about this more…
Thank you for your response, Robert, i really appreciate it.
tsiappoutas said:
Well, what basis is there for believing both authors are talking about the same field?Robert said:
Both are related to Judas and his demise, both fields were purchased with Judas’ money, and each is called a field of blood. That’s quite a coincidence if both authors are not referring to the same field.
Of course both fields are related to Judas and his demise, the whole contradiction we’re examining is about Judas. Yes, they were purchased with Judas’ money, even though one of them not by him, but by the money he returned (rather threw on the floor), so maybe after he threw them, technically not his money, but returned money. But i don’t see how that as a coincidence, it’s just the story… Each field is called field of blood maybe as a pun: one field out of his greed, another field cause his greed led him to suicide. Again, thank you for offering your view on this, but i just don’t see how events that are naturally related because of the story itself, make the story an unlikely coincidence.
tsiappoutas said:
One is an ἀγρός (a field able to bare crops or fruit), the other is just a plot of land, a lot (χωρίον).Robert said:
Are these terms really so different?
I don’t know how different they are, but they are different. That’s a fact. Now, how different? This is a toponym. Any difference counts, it’s not about it’s meaning, it’s about giving a place a name so you differentiate it from another place. It’s like two names that sound the same, but refer to different people. It’s not about the deeper meaning of one field baring fruit or not.
tsiappoutas said:
… not the same field, two different names in the original. …Robert said:
You only know how two different writers refer to the field in Greek; you do not know that two fields had two different names in the original language. Only Luke tells us the field was called חֲקַל דְּמָא in Aramaic.
That’s an interesting point, thank you. If in their dialect the place was called Ἁκελδαμάχ, which means Χωρίον Αἵματος, how would Ἀγρός Αἵματος be in Aramaic? I’m interested to see if the difference is translatable into Aramaic. But still, Greek was spoken by many in Jerusalem at this time and i don’t think the toponym in Greek doesn’t count because it was a translation of the original. In other words, i think many people in Jerusalem at the time of Christ they would refer to the two places with their Greek names (if they were indeed two places, and not one!).
Robert said:
The best way to ask Bart a question is to post it on one of his daily blog posts. Doesn’t have to be on topic.
Thanks for the info, i might do that, once i have something more concrete to share with him.
Hi Robert,
Robert said:
So, we’ve already imagined two other possibilities that I think are at least as likely. … Why do you consider your view very probable or more likely? How are you measuring probabilities here?
I don’t! That’s what i said from the first post and repeatedly after that, because somehow i had a hunch this thread will be reduced to “my story is better than yours!” That’s not what i care about.
What i care about is if we can call the differences in the two accounts a contradiction or not. If you have other stories that we can examine under this proposed framework for weeding out the best stories, please do provide them. That’s what i was hoping for…
Remember, that was the whole point of this exercise, to see if the two accounts in Mt and Ac contradict each other or not.
I’m not familiar with the other two possibilities that you mentioned earlier. Can you please remind me where i can find them? I’m very curious to see if (1) they hit all the points in both accounts and (2) if the story itself makes good sense. I believe that mine does both of these things.
Robert said:
Maybe Luke could not find such a prophecy in the writings of Jeremiah, because Jeremiah never said this. Maybe Luke was aware that Zechariah (the priest), contrary to Matthew’s account, does describe his taking of 30 pieces of silver and casting them into the House of the Lord, ie, the Temple:
Absolutely, i agree. Here’s what i said in my second post:
tsiappoutas said:
I also understand that there are two prophesies to be fulfilled at the end of each account, that’s why i have them there! They are not functional elements in the story (i could very well remove them), but maybe the authors of the two accounts are just making stuff up to fit the prophesy that came up in their heads when they were writing their account. I’m not dismissing that either. Just saying, because i can see people pointing that out.
I was hoping this thread will not be reduced to “why is your probability better than ours”. My intent was to provide a framework whereby we examine and conclude, based on reasonable criteria, which story is satisfactory and most likely.
Robert said:
So, we’ve already imagined two other possibilities that I think are at least as likely. … Why do you consider your view very probable or more likely? How are you measuring probabilities here?tsiappoutas said:
I don’t!Robert said:
But you did.
If i said that my view is more probable or more likely that other views, it’s my mistake and i apologize. But i don’t remember. When did i say that?
What I find interesting is the difference between the bare-bone Judas we find in Mark (went to the chief priests, promised money, betrayed Jesus) and what we find in the other Gospels (thief, thirty pieces of silver, Satan entering him, the field, and the way he died.).
The latter authors seem to be trying to make sense of the betrayal.
BJH1960 said:
What I find interesting is the difference between the bare-bone Judas we find in Mark (went to the chief priests, promised money, betrayed Jesus) and what we find in the other Gospels (thief, thirty pieces of silver, Satan entering him, the field, and the way he died.).The latter authors seem to be trying to make sense of the betrayal.
Hi BJH1960, thanks for the note.
This is beyond the thread topic, but an interesting one. Yes, the accounts seem to pick up more information as years go by. Probably the authors themselves made things up to make sense of situations, or the proto-christians started creating myths that were then passed to the authors, who knows.
For this particular Judas situation, however, i’m having a hard time explaining why early christians would come up with certain details. In the sense of ‘how would that help?’
I can understand labeling him a thief. Judas was the hated disciple for the christians. The treasurer of the movement so he could steal, money hungry. Selling Christ himself for money. That i can understand too. Satan entering him, even that i can understand. The way he died makes sense too, an undignified way fit for a trader.
But why the repentance and returning the money? And why buying a field that is later known with a specific name? I’m sure we can come up with some explanations, but none i could come up with really fits how the proto-christians must have felt about Judas and how they would want to portray him.
BDEhrman
FreedomBen
evgendob
Robert