I get asked about Judas Iscariot far more than any of the other disciples, even the ones who are completely central to Jesus’ life and ministry (Peter, James, and John). I guess that’s because he is seen as, ultimately, more crucial to the story of Jesus. The betrayer. Without him, no arrest, trial, and crucifixion. Or at least, a completely different scenario for the death of the Son of God.
This week, when scrounging around looking for something else, I came across this paper I delivered at a conference years ago. I thought it might be of interest to blog members. This will take three posts. (The paper was written for scholars, so I’ll put any necessary explanatory notes in italics)
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In recent years, more has been written and less known about Judas Iscariot than about any of Jesus’ followers, with the outstanding exception of his wife and lover, the founder of the Merovingian Dynasty. (That was a little joke about people who take Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code seriously about what he says about Mary Magadalen) Interest in Judas has intensified, to put it mildly, with the discovery, publication, and various idiosyncratic interpretations of the Gospel of Judas. But even before these recent events (I was writing this in 2008), Judas has been the subject of intense inquiry and speculation.
In this paper I will not be dealing at length with the sundry legendary portrayals of Judas per se. My interest is in the historical Judas, what we can say about who he really was, what he stood for, and what he did. As is true for all figures of the past, it is important for us to distinguish between what we can almost certainly know, what we can probably know, what we may not actually know, and what we can’t know at all. And as is always the case with historical figures, these questions of epistemology depend directly on the state and nature of our sources of historical information.
For Judas Iscariot, our sources are sparse and for the most part unreliable. The most interesting sources are the ones that cannot be trusted to give us anything like a historical picture. This includes not only the recently discovered Gospel of Judas, but a range of other accounts from the early centuries of the church. These include the following:
- The reports of Papias who indicates, first, that Judas the betrayer had the gall and arrogance to question Jesus’ claim that in days to come “vines will come forth each with ten thousand boughs; and on a single bough will be ten thousand branches. And indeed on a single branch will be ten thousand shoots and on every shoot ten thousand clusters; and in every cluster will be ten thousand grapes, and every grape when pressed, will yield twenty-five measures of wine. And when any of the saints grabs hold of a cluster, another will cry out, “I am better, take me!” The unfaithful Judas found it hard to believe such a thing; go figure..
- Papias’s second report about Judas is even more telling, if equally apocryphal: “Judas became so bloated in the flesh that he could not pass through a place that was easily wide enough for a wagon — not even his swollen head could fit. They say that his eyelids swelled to such an extent that he could not see the light at all; and a doctor could not see his eyes even with an optical device, so deeply sunken they were in the surrounding flesh. And his genitals became more disgusting and larger than anyone’s; simply by relieving himself, to his wanton shame, he emitted pus and worms that flowed through his entire body.”This is the kind of report we might wish were true, either because we think Judas was such an awful figure that he deserved it, or because we simply would love history to be really interesting. But alas, often it is not.
- The much less well known account of Judas prior to his death reported in just one obscure fifteenth century manuscript of the co-called Gospel of Nicodemus, otherwise known as the Acta Pilati:
In this account, after he sees that Jesus is condemned, Judas goes to the chief priests, scribes and Pharisees in the temple and confesses that he has sinned by turning over innocent blood. He tries to give the money back, but they won’t take it, so he casts it in their midst and returns home in order find some rope to hang himself.
When he arrives at home he finds his wife cooking a chicken on a spit over a charcoal fire. He tells her to prepare a rope for him to hang himself with. Obviously perplexed, she asks him why. He tells her that he has handed his teacher Jesus over to evil doers to be killed, but that he will rise on the third day, to their woe. His wife tells him to speak and think no such thing: Jesus can no more rise from the grave than can this chicken begin again to speak. As soon as she says this, of course, the chicken rises up, stretches out its wings, and crows three times. This is more than enough to convince Judas, who takes the rope and hangs himself.
- The reports of the same event — Judas’s death – in Matthew and the book of Acts, which stand directly at odds with each other at key well-known points and cannot be accepted, either one of them, as historically reliable, although there may be some kind of historical tradition lying behind them common to them both.
But my interest in this paper is less with the death of Judas than with his life, particularly in relationship to Jesus. My assumptions in the following sketch of what I think we can know historically are first, that our best sources are the earliest ones available, which happen in this case to be the Gospels narratives in the canon, second, that as a rule the Synoptics preserve more historical information than the Gospel of John, and third, that the only way to distinguish between what is historical and what is fictional in these sources is to apply rigorously the standard criteria that one uses for all the Jesus traditions, such as multiple attestation and dissimilarity. So far so good; nothing too outlandish yet.
Among the pieces of information that we can learn about Judas from the Gospel narratives are some that – despite our longing to have as full a picture about the man as possible – simply don’t give us anything, or much of anything, to go on. This includes the firm historical datum that he came to be known – whether during his lifetime or afterwards – precisely as Judas Iscariot. His name, of course, was Judas or Jude, and the epithet connected with his name was meant to differentiate this Judas or Jude from others who bore the same name, including one of Jesus’ brothers and another one of his disciples, much as the Mary’s of the New Testament are differentiated according to whether they are Mary of Bethany, Mary of Magdala, Mary the mother of Jesus, Mary the mother of Jesus’ children, and so on.
For nearly as long as we have had scholarly discussions of who Judas was we have had speculation concerning what the epithet Iscariot is meant to signify. Starting in antiquity there have been a mind-numbing number of creative solutions: that Iscariot indicates that he died by strangling, that he made money out of friendship, that he came from Issachar, that he was a member of the Sicarii. That he was a liar, that he was a red head; that he came from a town called Kerioth. Probably the majority of scholars prefer this final solution, but it actually doesn’t tell us anything, since we don’t have any reliable record of where this town was or what its citizens tended to be like.
Mary the mother of Jesus’s children? Is that another Dan Brown reference? 🙂
Yup. To sly by half I suppose.
I swallowed deeply, paused, and then laughed at that reference as I read it.
I’m curious about Papias’s report that “They say that… a doctor could not see his eyes even with an optical device.” Did healers have optical instruments in antiquity? What was the Greek that Papias wrote and what is a more accurate translation of it?
I hope it’s an accurate translation, since it’s mine. And yes, doctors did have instruments; if you got to a museum that houses antiquities, you’ll see all sorts of them. And you’ll be very glad you’re living 2000 years later.
Did Papias make up that Jesus quote business about the amazingly productive grape vines that Judas supposedly disbelieved? If not, what non-canonical source is that found in?
It’s very similar to a description in a Jewish apocalyptic writing, 2 Baruch. The exact saying isn’t found in any other Christian source. It may have simply been the kind of thing a Jewish or Christian apocalypticist would say about the glorious kingdom to come.
Professor Ehrman, I do not know if the rules of your blog allow posting links. Here is a wonderful article I saw last week about you and your blog from Religion News Service.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/his-popular-blog-debunks-christian-myths-with-the-profits-he-does-the-christian-thing/ar-AA17lKFE?cvid=7f951d1eaf0b42c0b49baacc65d6dd0b
Thanks! Yup, I was very pleased to see it!
So that’s 100 million trillion absolutely ginormous grapes per vine. No wonder Eusebius said Papias was “very limited in his comprehension.” Sounds like he was also a bit of a glutton.
Yup, that’s why Eusebius didn’t like him. Too carnal in his interests.
It’s a terrific article!
“Without him, no arrest, trial, and crucifixion.”
I do not think Judas was necessary for these events to happen. Once Jesus started shouting his message in the temple area, I’m sure the Roman soldiers would be quick to arrest him and send him away for crucifixion. No need for a kiss from Judas!
How is Judas needed for an arrest to occur?
That’s my question too. It doesn’t make a lot of sense. I’ll be dealing with it in a post in a couple of days.
The meaning “man of Kerioth” is derived from Hebrew, but the Gospels were written in Greek. I feel the Gospel writers are telling their Greek speaking audience something about Judas son of Simon and wanted to portray him in a negative light. I doubt many of their audience would know Hebrew and understand the “man of Kerioth” meaning which is derived from Hebrew or even know where the obscure town of Kerioth was. Since many Romans and Jews in the First Century at the time the Gospels were written would know who the Sicarii were and view them as terrorists, I feel the epithet Iscariot (Iskariotis in Greek) would be recognized as one who was a Sicarii (Sikarioi in Greek). The Gospel authors’ message was – just like the despicable Jewish Sicarii who killed their fellow Jews, Judas “Iscariot” killed his fellow Jewish companion Jesus.
Judas protests the oil waste that could feed the poor.He had assimilated Jesus’ message and was compassionate.He’s also genuinely stricken by Jesus’ death and profoundly remorseful,an elusive quality in Humanity.
Jesus announced his death and resurrection way before Judas went to the priests.Jesus and Judas genuinely believed God would intervene,glorify Jesus and defeat the Romans.But Jesus wasn’t “starting *it*”. Maybe he needed a “push”?
(The beautiful film Mary Magdalene” follows this understanding).
Judas didn’t “betray”Jesus so that Jesus would die , but so that Jesus would resurrect and save Israel from the cruel Roman occupation.
Jesus’ behavior was conducive to his capture.He could have avoided his fate many times over.When Judas went out to “betray” him,Jesus could have taken his disciples away from Getsemani and/or defended himself,given ample opportunity by the priests and Pilate.
Who could seriously state that it was *not* God’s intention that Jesus should die and resurrect,or that God did *not*approve of anyone,including the Romans, bringing this about?Or that Judas could foresee the ultimate tragedy?
Judas must have hanged himself three days or more after the Crucifixion,after understanding that there would be no resurrection.
Is Jude equivalent to Judas?There are St Jude Thaddeus, Jude Thomas and many other Judes in the world.
Yes, Jude and Judas are both renditions of the same Greek name. When I was working for the NRSV BIble translation committee, I was a bit aghast that they were going to be titling the Epistle of Jude the Epistle of Judas. I told the chair of the committee, my mentor Bruce Metzger, that I thought that was a VERY bad idea. Luckily they changed it.
Yes, Jude and Judas are both renditions of the same Greek name. When I was working for the NRSV BIble translation committee, I was a bit aghast that they were going to be titling the Epistle of Jude the Epistle of Judas. I told the chair of the committee, my mentor Bruce Metzger, that I thought that was a VERY bad idea. Luckily they changed it.
Perhaps I should wait for the following posts, but I am still skeptical that the betrayer of Jesus happened to be named “Judas,” synonymous with “Judah” or “the Jews,” given the anti-Jewish bias of the Gospels. Isn’t it possible nobody knew who betrayed Jesus, if anybody did, but the name Judas was chosen specifically to further implicate the Jews? With the obscure title “Iscariot” which no one could trace, kind of like Joseph of mysterious Arimathea? Joseph of A was invented to bury Jesus, why not Judas Iscariot invented to betray Jesus?
Ah, in this case there’s pretty good evidence, IMHO.
This is perhaps figurative language by Papias? Similar to when people say so-and-so blows nothing but sh** out of his mouth, or when people describe a repulsive person as having diseased / STD-infected genitals, or when someone says his head is so big/swollen he cant get through the door / see reality… When i was 18 and heard about a legendary firefighter (my first job), even then i did not literally believe he had “b*lls the size of an ox.”
A serious case of gonorrhea can literally drip pus from the urethra, and intestinal worms exit into the toilet when an infected person relieves themself… but even so, when an animated personality is describing their nemesis, it is usually hyperbole and figurative language, no one usually believes it literally.
Perhaps Papias was an animated fellow who created figurative visuals for how repulsive a person could be?
I do wish his 5 books would turn up somewhere, that would be exciting!
Judas accused of “betraying” Jesus,with no rational explanation for this claim,if we ” try” the case based on the Gospels themselves,is the same phenomenon as blaming the Jews for “killing” Jesus,and/or the Jews even being accused of “moral responsibility”,whatever that means,as without Jesus’ death-making resurrection possible at all-there would have been no Salvation for anyone.God wanted his Son crucified.
Rather than the culprits being “the priests”wanting Jesus gone -for their own justified reasons,fearing massive slaughter by the Romans,as was demonstrated a few decades later- the gruesome blame was,for 1900 years,for the entire Jewish people,forever, until blessed John Paul II”s “Nostra Aetate”.
Worse than exonerating Pilate and the Romans,an injustice already,is the unjustified blame and hatred for the Jews,symbolised by Judas,
names so easily interchangeable,rather than symbolised by Jesus.God must have had a naughty sense of humor,back then when he existed.
It is the same viciousness that was and is applied to Judas and ferocious scapegoatism.The Jews pay for the Romans,who were politically important to Christians.It was going to be one or the other.Moreover,rather than someone being “forgiven”,someone had to be criminally blamed and eternally punished.
It is this assignment of “blame” for both Judas and (all) the Jews that I find deeply disturbing.
I think the Christian community historically blamed the Jews because the Jews overwhelming didn’t accept Jesus as their Messiah.
“Mary the mother of Jesus’ children” Where do we encounter this Mary?
Dan Brown, The Da Vinci Code. It was a joke…
Hi, Dr. Ehrman! This is so timely — I was just reading an old-school (1969) evangelical commentary on Matthew by H. L. Ellison. Discussing Matthew 17:24-27 (Jesus and the temple tax) Ellison states, “it is hard to resist the conclusion that he [Peter] was the only member of the Twelve over twenty.” Ellison also cites Matthew 20:20 (the pushy mom of James and John) in support of this view.
Do you think it is likely that most of the Twelve were teenagers? Could poor Judas Iscariot have been a teenage boy? Thanks!
I’d say it’s unlikey. In the Gospels it’s presupposed that Peter is married and that the others have also left wives and families. Men almost never married young; they waited till they were established and could afford it (early 30s or so?). Women were married off (in arranged marriages) as soon as they were (physically) able to bear children, so 13-14 or so….
Good evening, Bart. Very interesting last few posts about Jewish-Christian relations. You made the comment that the Romans crucified Jesus but Christians did not go on an anti Italian rant. But it was the Jewish religious leaders who started the process. I wonder, would the Romans have gone after Jesus if the Jewish leaders had not said anything about him? Also, Paul was a Jew who did go after Christians. At his conversion he heard a voice asking why he persecuted Jesus. This was not a very good beginning for the two groups.
Good question. I’m not sure we know if they would have been alerted to Jesus if the Jewish leaders had not mentioned him — no way to say. Scholars have actually disputed the point. If he was seen by Roman soldiers to have caused a public disturbance, that may habve been enought. But turning someone into the ruling authorities (as the Jewish leaders are said to have done) isn’t the same as executing him. In the Gospels it’s clear that the Romans were the ones who “killed Jesus.” Also, I’d say Paul had *very* different reasons for “going after” Christians. (The Christians he went after, btw, were Jews! But he was against them because they were declaring Jesus the crucified messiah. That obviously wasn’t Jesus’ own message.
This is a little off topic, but whatever. I’ve often heard skeptics asking why the Romans would need someone to betray a famous preacher when he was well known anyway. My Response:
When Max Euwe 1935 became the world chess champion, he obviously became a national hero in Netherlands. A story goes, that one day traveling in a train he sat next to a man who had a chess set. Euwe asked if they could play, and the man agreed, but he said he is a strong master and will win easily. After the first game he apologized having played a casual game so carelessly. After the fourth loss he was basically stunned and said: “You are really strong. And they call me Euwe in my club!”
I’d love to get a validation to that story, you know how legends evolve. But if it’s possible that during era of photography in newspapers a chess player wont recognize the world champion, then it’s pretty clear that a group of Roman soldiers would need someone to identify Jesus. The betrayal makes sense to me.
Some concrete questions:
Iscariot:
It seems that deriving “Ish” from
“Is”,a needed step to determine that Judas’ surname starts with Ish (man of) Kariot(unknown place)is mistaken.
” Is” does not stand for “Ish”.
Other Biblical names beginning with Ish become”Is” in their Greek transliterations, such as Ismael. In a case such as Issachar, ” Iss” does not become ” Ish”.In Greek, Ismael is not pronounced Ishmael (as it is in Hebrew).Issachar does not become Ishachar.Can you confirm this?
Once such point is elucidated,it appears that Iscari(ot)(otes)derives from Sicarii, zealot,from ” sica”,blade.In modern Hebrew ” sica” is still a penetrating or prickly instrument,but nowadays it’s just a “pin”.There was another Apostle,Simon, who was named ” Zealot”( or Canaanite?).
I wonder how “Zealot”sounds in Greek.In Aramaic/Hebrew it would have sounded exactly like Judas’ alleged Sicarii.
How would either Judas or Simon survive under Rome with surnames like Sicarii?
Another question:
is there nothing we can take as possibly historical from the Gospel of Judas?If the Gospels and Acts are practically all we have to determine events in Jesus’ life, leaving much to (educated) conjecture, why would a non-canonical text be eliminated? Its being non-canonical – or other such similar texts-can be arbitrary, and does not translate into being unreliable.
The idea is that “ish” cannot be represented in Greek (no “h”! and no Shin. And, well, you can’t spell it in Greek). So Is is taken to represent Ish. I imagine their are philogical analogies in Greek but I hven’t looked at that for a long time. Zelot in Greek would be pronouced something like ZAI-LO-TAIS (long “AI” as in “air” and “O” as in Ocean; accent on the LO). SICARII would have sounded like SI-CAR-EE-EE (with the “i” as in “it”) (accent on the CAR). the words didn’t sounce alike. As to the Gopsle of Judas, there would be historical features only in the broadest sense: Jesus had disciples, one was named Judas, he stood out from the others, he viewed Jesus differently from the others, he sometimes spoke to Jesus, and he betrayed him in the end.
Unrelated to this post but related to today’s broadcast on Misquoting Jesus podcast
How did Revelation make it into the cannon? Did you address this question in your new book? Is there any literature on this you can recommend? Has anyone compiled the surviving works of 1st to 5th Century Christians discussing what should be canonized?
I’m presuming Revelation:
Was near universally accepted as being canonical by the end of the 5th Century. Please, correct me if I am wrong.
A Fifth Century Greco-Roman Christians would have been aware of what “seven hills” meant as much as a John of Patmos would have. Right? By “Greco-Roman Christian” I mean Christians living within the Roman Empire.
Fifth Century Greco-Roman Christian would have known 616 and 666 meant Nero as much of John of Patmos would have. Right?
It also seems to me a learned Fifth Century Greco-Roman should have known the prophecies in Revelation did not come to be…. Maybe I answered my own question. Maybe Revelation became canonical after the fall of Rome?
Yes, I discuss it in my book, both why it had problems “getting into” the canon and why in the end it as accepted. And yup, by th eend of hte 4th c. most accepted it. The seven hills allusion would have been recognized by Xns from the very beginning, and our earliest commentator (in 280 CE) identified 666 as Nero. It was precisely in the 5th century that Revelation came to accepted more widely, because it was re-interpreted by Augustine NOT to be predicting a literal end of the world but to be a metaphorical descriptoin of the millennium that hand been inaugurated by Christ and manifest in the on-going life of the church, a view tha theld sway almost everywhere down to the Reformatoin.
A little off topic (ok, a lot), but what do you think of the “He Gets Us” ad campaign? Asking for a friend or two… 😉
ps: that article cited was the very thing that got me to subscribe for the next year. Thank you for sharing your insights with us.
Well, I thought they were among the best Superbowl commercials this year, a year of, in my opinion, very dire superbowl commercials. Most were truly pathetic, I thought. Usually I love them. If I were still a Christian, that’s the kind of commercial I would push for. That said, there is a lot of criticism among those who didn’t appreciate them and find the forms of Christianity behind the commercials just the opposite of what they are advertising, that this kind of Christianity does NOT “get us” (LGBTQ community; Black Lives Matter; etc)
Thanks for the reply. You got another small “shout out” today in this article:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/book-of-revelation-s-vision-of-the-apocalypse-inspired-by-pagan-curses-researcher-claims/ar-AA17CHLL?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=3de332064a864730dd1393fc118ecd49
Thanks!