Judas Significance Across the Gospels

JUDAS IS A significant biblical figure: the archetypal and infamous traitor, with whom no-one wants to be associated (although many would gladly associate their enemies with him!). But how significant is he? Today is a statistical response to that question. First, let us propose a methodology: count the number of words per Judas narrative, count the number of words in the books holding those narratives and divide the former by the latter to arrive at a percentage. That percentage is the amount of space given specifically to Judas by the gospel writer relative to their total. Since part of Luke's Judas narrative occurs in Acts 1, I have added Acts chapter 1 to Luke's total words.

So we arrive at the somewhat surprising following pie chart:

Because I have been studying the Judas narratives for a while, I was not too surprised to see how dominant John was when I crunched the numbers. The reason for a bigger focus for John can be accounted for in two ways, each connected to the other (and some folks aren't going to like the second one particularly).

Firstly, John ascribes the complaints at the scene of Jesus' anointing directly to Judas (and no-one else), which adds a bulky extra sub-chapter to his narrative. Secondly, since it is widely agreed that John is the latest of the gospels to be written, it is possible (and in my view very likely) that the villainy of Judas grew over time (see here for links to how the story developed by the early second century in Papias' time), requiring more gory details to fill out just how evil a character he was. John's Judas emphasis is the clear "winner" despite having no suicide scene - why might that be? Precisely because for Judas to "regret what he had done" (see Matthew 27:3) might decrease his villainy ratings. In the above hyper-linked post to Papias' account of Judas' death, I did not emphasise that strongly enough: Like John, Papias does not have a change of heart (Satan is in him, right?), and it his evil that slowly destructs his body until he disgustingly explodes! Even Papias accounts, however, require careful textual criticism to try to account for significant variations on the Judas narrative cited.

What is most surprising is Luke, who not only does include a suicide scene but still manages to emerge a distinct fourth, even behind the commonly-presumed brief Mark. Why might that be? First of all, remember this data representation is a significance comparison per author. Luke is a lengthy writer and my tally of English words (based on the NET version) for Luke plus Acts chapter 1 is 25570. Luke actually gives the same number of words to his Judas narrative as Mark does - 210 to Mark's 220. He simply has many other things to tell us about, especially about Jesus! I believe that had he had access to Matthew or John, he may well have opted to include more details.

I suppose I can also confess advance surprise by Matthew. Not on the basis of this particular comparison, but because I do not see from the Judas narrative comparison I am doing a clear awareness of Luke's account by Matthew, which I used to assume based on my meta-view of the gospel composition process. That is in part because of my understanding of how the trifold baptismal formula arose in Mat 28, as a response to a misconstrued Jesus baptism evidenced in Luke-Acts. So it is fascinating to see how these different studies tie in together, as looking in detail here helps me adjust my larger overall perspective. Two examples in Matthew then that are surprising to me: if Matthew were aware of Luke then why would he allow for regret on Judas' part and why would he omit Luke and John's insistence that Judas had become Satan's operative?

Mark's Judas

Mark 3:19 (Jesus appointed twelve...) and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him.

Mark 14:10-21 Then Judas Iscariot, one of the twelve, went to the chief priests to betray Jesus into their hands. When they heard this, they were delighted and promised to give him money. So Judas began looking for an opportunity to betray him...

While they were at the table eating, Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, one of you eating with me will betray me.”  They were distressed, and one by one said to him, “Surely not I?” He said to them, “It is one of the twelve, one who dips his hand with me into the bowl.  For the Son of Man will go as it is written about him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would be better for him if he had never been born.”

Mar 14:42-45 Get up, let us go. Look! My betrayer is approaching! Right away, while Jesus was still speaking, Judas, one of the twelve, arrived. With him came a crowd armed with swords and clubs, sent by the chief priests and experts in the law and elders. (Now the betrayer had given them a sign, saying, "The one I kiss is the man. Arrest him and lead him away under guard." When Judas arrived, he went up to Jesus immediately and said, "Rabbi!" and kissed him.

END

Spoiler alert:

If you are committed to an error-free Bible (or “biblical inerrancy”), then this series of posts on Judas might be offensive to you. Sorry about that, although it does kinda depend on what you mean by error and if you see it as is truly antithetical to truth. As time goes on, my commitment to truth and authentic faith just makes me keep pushing. However, where contradictions in the Judas narratives occur (and I guarantee you that they will), because I am not in a drive to point out the historical accuracy of each biblical account, I am also free to ask other deeper questions. Here’s a good one that I have encountered already on the blog: why would you change a story when your resurrected leader insists on righteous and loving living before God?

As I have noted before, it is Bart Ehrman’s early work that provides us a good answer. When Ehrman was probing the reasons as to why Christian scribes would occasionally make changes to the texts they were copying, he realised that there was not malicious intent involved, but rather a deep desire to preserve and safeguard the truth against misconstrual. I'm just going to go ahead and say that word again: MISCONSTRUAL.

This is such a keyword, very much like “misunderstanding”, but better. Essentially, the way I see it, if deeper-level misconstrual is at stake, less significant compromises on historical accuracy can and should be made, especially if a sense of divine commissioning undergirds the text.

My proposal on how to read the gospel writers on Judas is one that invites each up to the stand “in turn” – one after the other – and invite them to share what they consider to be relevant to our knowledge of Judas and the scene of Jesus’ anointing. As we do so, we can reflect upon what the author may be seeking to achieve with the details he includes or leaves out, and when contradictions do occur, what the likelier historical precedent might have been. Since Mark is the obvious first author to invite to the stand, there is nothing yet to contradict, this will be more evident later on.

Mark’s Judas

Surprisingly, perhaps, this earliest account we have of Judas does not really have much to say about him. One thing that that is quite intriguing is the statement “Judas, one of the twelve” is actually repeated in Mark. In all, it occurs seven times between the four canonical authors, twice in each synoptic and once in John. We can speculate that perhaps there was discussion early on about who Jesus’ betrayer was and perhaps some disbelief that the betrayer of the leader of the movement could really have come from within the inmost circle – surely not!

Mark also has an insistence on “Iscariot” – which is a helpful identifier in a context where Judas was a popular Jewish name (note also the tribe of Judah). It may, of course, have been tricky if you were in the Iscariot family in the first century…. UNLESS the Iscariots were actually anti-Christian Jews and thus not favourable among the Christians. So perhaps this deeply Jewish family rejected the Christian sect and actively contributed to their exclusion from the synagogues (see Luke 21:12 and John 16:2). Given how we will see story-telling around Judas commenced even within the Christian canon, I would say that although speculative, this is not an unlikely scenario.

On the theme of Jesus betrayals, Mark goes into just as much detail on Peter’s own denial of his master, their Rabbi, before the second crowing of the cock. Actually, the Peter betrayal stands in a sort of strange juxtaposition against the Judas betrayal and Mark never revisits Judas or concludes what happened to him, he simply seems to set up that although betrayal maybe terrible, it is redeemable. Judas's betrayal is done through some kind of public acknowledgement of Jesus being Judas’ rabbi, while Peter denied it. From now on, the focus moves entirely to Jesus.

So what about the anointing? Where is Judas in that story, isn't he supposed to be hypocritical about the value of the wasted expensive anointing oil so lavishly splashed around Jesus's feet? Nope, not yet:

Mark’s anointing (14:3-9)

In Mark’s anointing, we read: Some of those present were saying indignantly to one another, "Why this waste of perfume? It could have been sold for more than a year's wages and the money given to the poor." And they rebuked her harshly. "Leave her alone," said Jesus. "Why are you bothering her? She has done a beautiful thing to me. The poor you will always have with you, and you can help them any time you want. But you will not always have me.

Yes, in case you were wondering if the plural discussion of those criticising the anointing act were treated in the plural also by Jesus in his response, Mark’s account has Jesus addressing them in the plural. At this stage of his story, neither Judas nor any of the other disciples have any notable role in the discussion. The story seems nonetheless rooted in history and is located in the house of “Simon the leaper”, a geographic anchor later repeated by Matthew (but not by Luke or John, who change the location).

From Yahweh to Judas Iscariot

NO, YOU ARE quite right, there is probably nothing directly connecting these two, but you know me, always trying to think of catchy titles... By it, I am simply wanting to whet some appetites for those who find Divine Names and Titles a little tedious and enjoy zooming in some more juicy Bible character details. Indeed, examining important characters in their context and according to the believing community's memory, I see as important in developing my theological understanding. That is why my mini-series on John the Baptist was so illuminating to me, especially when I began to see his largely unrecognised contribution to the successful spread of Christianity and even to Trinity development.

Judas is, of course, practically synonymous with the word "traitor" and is an intriguing character even without speaking of his demise. However, when we read that despite his apparent evilness and demon-possessed-ness he still must have felt wretched enough to commit suicide, the story just seems to be begging investigation. The upcoming series is prompted also by a Youtube debate I recently watched between New Testament scholars Bart Ehrman and Craig Evans. It's a few years old now, but their agreement that "horizontal reading" of the gospels is an important practice in establishing the reliability and meaning of the accounts' history (or histories) and I am sure will help me with some unresolved questions for me on Judas Iscariot, son of Simon Iscariot (John 6:71). I have briefly discussed Judas' death on this blog here back in December 2015.

For those who are interested in my research into Adonai and Yahweh translation into the Greek, the good news is I'm far from over with that too and am almost ready to post some results on Yahweh translation for the whole Pentateuch (yep, that's another 2000 Yahweh occurrences categorised and put into Greek cases for you, free of charge!) For you folks, you'll know what I mean but maybe you'll be surprised to hear if I say it's even more anarthrous than we expected.

Back soon!

Judas' death and evangelical concerns on inaccurate details

There have been a couple of posts concerning Ehrman's take on Paul's knowledge of Judas. It was quite striking for me to discover that this key villain to the gospel-writers is just totally absent everywhere else - how strange that no comparisons or warnings were ever levelled in any of the epistles or imagery taken for Revelation from that act of betrayal. It really is something of a head-scratcher.

But today let us just think for a moment about Judas' death. Some people like to use this as an example of where the Bible contradicts itself - Matthew has him hanging himself in a field that was later purchased with the money Judas had returned to the priests and elders, while Luke has him bursting open and his gut falling out.

Matt Slick of carm.org claims that the two accounts can be reconciled. I am not comfortable with smashing dissimilar stories together like he does here. Yes, what Slick describes the event with: "the rope or branch of the tree probably broke due to the weight, and his body fell down, and his bowels spilled out", not only do I not find that the most "probable" outcome (both writers selecting different details from an identical story), but it also does not really deal with who bought the field.

What is important to this story is that Judas came to a sticky end as Jesus had predicted in the synoptics (it is interesting to note that John makes no mention of Judas after Jesus is handed over, and is also silent on the "woe" warnings Jesus had previously given). So I think the church have basically gone about this the right way - not worrying exactly who purchased the field or when or the exact mode of death (Papias, early church Father, has a third version, you can read more about this here [see also the comments at the bottom] - it may be an attempt at reconciling these two versions, whereby the hanging was actually unsuccessful). Most people understand that Judas felt the worst kind of guilt possible and killed himself, fulfilling what Jesus had said when he said "woe".

Slick's approach could even be harmful to Christianity's historical credibility - what do you think? I'd be interested to see your comments.