JUDAS IN THE CANONICAL GOSPELS AND ACTS
From this survey of the canonical Gospels and the book of Acts, one can see how each handles the figure of Judas, both in the sense that they are the genesis of the horrible image of Judas down through the centuries, and the sense that upon inspection they do not present that image as being as horrible as we have usually assumed.
To be sure, they do not in any sense of the word vindicate him, much less make him into the hero, as apparently The Gospel of Judas would try to do. Modern efforts point out that he is not (with the one exception of Luke 6:16) actually said to betray Jesus as a “traitor,” and that he is only carrying out his role as prophesied in the Hebrew scriptures, predicted by Jesus, even ordered by Jesus. But the canonical texts also pronounce a woe on him for his evil deed, and present him in such remorse that he kills himself. This is not what one normally does in fulfilling the Hebrew scriptures or obeying Jesus! But a presentation in which Judas is to be praised, not blamed, calls for a rather complete reversal of values, such as we await in The Gospel of Judas.
TWO
The Historical Judas
THE NAME JUDAS ISCARIOT
Judas is the Greek spelling of the Hebrew name Judah, meaning “praised.” Judah is about as popular a name as one can find in all of Judaism. Indeed, Judaism itself is named after Judah! Judah is, after all, the origin of the word Jew. Paul points out that he grew up “in Judaism” (Gal. 1:13– 14), though he was of the tribe of Benjamin (Phil. 3:5).
Judah was the fourth son of Jacob and Leah, and Judah was the name of one of the twelve tribes of Israel. When the Israelites entered the Promised Land, the tribe of Judah was awarded the southern part. After the reign of Solomon, the Israelite kingdom that David had created was divided into two kingdoms: Judah was the southern kingdom and Israel the northern kingdom. The northern kingdom was overrun by the Assyrians and disappeared from the pages of history. But after the Babylonian captivity of the southern kingdom, Judah was repopulated by those who returned from captivity. The Roman emperor Augustus named it Judaea, and so its inhabitants became “Judeans” (John 7:1). In our day, Judea is the name used by the modern state of Israel to designate its southern part, though the United Nations, the United States, and hence the media, usually refer to much of it as part of the “occupied West Bank.”
Understandably enough, Judas, as the Greek spelling of the Hebrew word Judah, was a very popular Jewish name indeed. The Maccabean revolt against Syrian armies was led by Judas Maccabee (167–160 BCE), and of course the name was especially popular among the Maccabeans. The Jewish historian Josephus reports that the terrorists of his day, the Zealots, whom Josephus calls Sicarii, often used the name Judas for their leaders. In the New Testament, six people named Judas are mentioned.
Actually, Jesus had a brother named Judas. This has been somewhat hidden from view by the fact that the translators of the King James Bible wanted, at all costs, to keep the two persons named Judas separate. So the King James Bible entitled the Epistle ascribed to Jesus’s brother as “Jude.” The Epistle begins: “Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James.” James is of course another brother of Jesus, as the list in Matthew 13:55 indicates:
Is not this the carpenter’s son? Is not his mother called Mary? And are not his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas?
Furthermore, in Luke’s list of the twelve apostles, two are named Judas (Luke 6:16):
…and Judas the son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor.
Of course, after the crucifixion when Luke lists only eleven apostles, there is only one Judas (Acts 1:13):
…and Judas the son of James.
Because of the number of persons named Judas, and especially because there are two named Judas in Luke’s list of the Twelve, not to speak of Jesus’s brother Judas, it was obviously necessary to distinguish one Judas from the other. One may compare the various lists of the Twelve: most apostles are given only one name. But when there are more than one with the same name, for example Simon Peter and Simon the Cananaean, or James the brother of Andrew and James the son of Alphaeus, these clarifications are appended to their names to distinguish between them. So it is with Judas the son of James and Judas Iscariot.
What then does Iscariot mean? There are various theories, so many in fact that none can be counted on as definitive.
Perhaps it means “man (Ish-) from Karioth,” if that really is the name of a town of southern Judea mentioned in Joshua 15:25. But what is written there could just mean “town,” as suggested by the rather free New Revised Standard Version translation, “Kerioth-hezron (that is, Hazor).” The New Revised Standard Version also lists, in a note to “Judas son of Simon Iscariot” (John 6:71), a second choice: “Judas son of Simon from Karyot (Kerioth).” There is a Tel Qirrioth on the current map in the Negev. And there is an Askaroth or Askar near Shechem. Another suggestion has been that it just meant a person from the “city,” i.e. Jerusalem, as attested in later Jewish sources. Any of these derivations would make Judas the only one of the twelve apostles from Judea, and would help explain how it was that he was known to the Jerusalem authorities.
Or Iscariot may mean one of the Sicarii, the name Josephus used for the Zealots of his day. And there are still other explanations for Iscariot. In sum, there is so much uncertainty about the derivation of the term that nothing can be made of it, other than that it was used to distinguish this Judas both from the other Judas listed among the Twelve and from Jesus’s brother Judas.
The Gospel of John also lists the name of Judas’s father. For it was customary then, just as it is now, to use a father’s name (or ancestor’s name) as the “second” name of a person. My own name has two such “patronymics.” Of course “–son” is the most common English way to produce a patronymic. Robinson goes back to the Scottish nickname for Robert, Robin. But even my middle name, McConkey, uses the Gaelic patronymic, Mc or Mac. In Greek, the patronymic is put in the genitive, meaning “X (the son) of Y.” So the Gospel of John refers to “Judas (son of) Simon Iscariot” (John 6:71; 13:2, 26). But since this Simon is unknown, that bit of information does not help us further.
JUDAS IN THE INNER CIRCLE
There is of course discussion as to whether Judas was one of “the Twelve.” It has seemed to many that it would be unreasonable for Jesus to admit such a person into that inner circle. Yet the Gospel of John, which is the Gospel that is most critical of Judas, explicitly scores the point that Jesus did choose him (John 6:70):
Jesus answered them, “Did I not choose you, the twelve? Yet one of you is a devil.” He was speaking of Judas son of Simon Iscariot.
But John’s having to score the point that Jesus really did choose him assumes Judas to have been a notorious scoundrel, which is precisely what one would like to question.
Celsus, a Jewish critic of Christianity in the second century, used Jesus’s betrayal by a disciple as a reason to discredit Jesus:1
How could we have accepted as God one who, as was reported, did not carry out any of the works he announced, and when we had evidence against him and denounced him and wanted to punish him he hid himself and tried to escape; who was captured in a disgraceful manner and even was betrayed by one whom he called his disciple? Surely if he was God he would not have needed to flee, or been taken away bound, and least of all to be left in the lurch and deserted by his companions, who shared everything with him personally, considered him their teacher.
Nonetheless, Judas is after all listed in each list of the Twelve in the Gospels (Matt. 10:4; Mark 3:19; Luke 6:16). His credentials are solid!
The question of his being in the Twelve has less to do with Judas than with whether Jesus ever really created an inner circle of disciples consisting of precisely twelve persons. The number twelve used of the inner circle seems to have come from the twelve tribes of Israel. One can detect the beginnings of such an idea at the conclusion of the Sayings Gospel Q (Q 22:28, 30):
You who have followed
me will sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel.
Then Matthew edited this conclusion of Q to suggest that, since a disciple of Jesus was judging each of the twelve tribes, there would surely be twelve judgment seats (Matt. 20:28):
…you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.
Here the idea of judging the twelve tribes of Israel clearly preceded the idea of there being twelve thrones, which in turn would engender the idea of twelve members of the inner circle. So one may assume that they arrived at the number twelve not by counting those in the inner circle, but by counting tribes. In fact, Paul can simply refer to the Twelve, on an occasion when in fact no more than eleven could have been involved. For example, in the list of resurrection appearances, Paul lists (1 Cor. 15:5):
…he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.
But at the time of the resurrection appearances, Judas was no longer a member of the Twelve. At most, Jesus appeared to eleven. But Paul’s point is only that Jesus appeared to the inner circle of disciples, which was named the Twelve. In fact, some of the persons named in the Twelve are names only—their names never crop up in specific stories. Names that usually crop up together in stories of the inner circle are Peter, James, and John.
A Jewish-Christian Gospel that did not gain admission into the New Testament, the Gospel of the Ebionites, listed only nine disciples, including Judas, but in the calling of Matthew it referred to there being “twelve apostles as a witness to Israel.” Here again the association with the twelve tribes of Israel is implied.
Irrespective of whether the Twelve was an actual number of members in the inner circle during Jesus’s public ministry, it seems clear that Judas was a member of that inner circle. His name would hardly have been inserted into the list later, after he had given Jesus over and committed suicide. But what can we know about him?
WHAT DID JUDAS ACTUALLY DO?
The Gospel of John presents Judas as the treasurer of the Jesus movement, as a way to discredit him in the story of Mary and Martha (John 12:4–6):
But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to give him over), said, “Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?” (He said this not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief; he kept the common purse and used to steal what was put into it.)
There is then a flashback to this story at the Last Supper (John 13:27–29):
Jesus said to him, “Do quickly what you are going to do.” Now no one at the table knew why he said this to him. Some thought that, because Judas had the common purse, Jesus was telling him, “Buy what we need for the festival”; or, that he should give something to the poor.
But since this report of Judas having the common purse is only in John, and is used there just to discredit Judas, it is hard to determine whether there is any truth to this detail. Indeed, it is more probable as a creation of John than as a historical fact.
Mark had explained that the Jewish authorities wanted to find a way to arrest Jesus privately, for fear of the enthusiastic crowds at the festival (Mark 14:1–2). Jesus then alludes to this in the Garden of Gethsemane (Mark 14:49):
Day after day I was with you in the temple teaching, and you did not seize me. But let the scripture be fulfilled.
But the historical Jesus of course did not know about their comment (Mark 14:2):
Not during the festival, or there may be a riot among the people.
And which scripture would Jesus have had in mind? Did he really know as much scripture as modern scripture scholars ascribe to him? Certainly not!
Mark had presented Jesus predicting at the Last Supper that Judas would give him over (Mark 14:18, 21):
When they had taken their places and were eating, Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, one of you will give me over, one who is eating with me…. For the Son of Man goes as it is written of him, but woe to the one by whom the Son of Man is given over! It would have been better for that one not to have been born.”
Here Jesus is presented as fulfilling a prophecy from the Old Testament (Ps. 41:9):
Even my bosom friend in whom I trusted, who ate of my bread, has lifted the heel against me.
This then is a really odd situation: the Hebrew scriptures predict what Judas will do, and Jesus knows this scriptural passage quite well, but does nothing to prevent it, since it obviously is the prophesied will of God. So why does he proceed to pronounce a woe on the one who fulfills the prophecy? Would it really have been better for Judas never to have been born? Perhaps better for Judas, but not better for carrying out Jesus’s God-willed destiny to die!
Matthew emphasizes this role of Judas (Matt. 26:25):
Judas, who turned him in, said, “Is it I, Master?” He said to him, “You have said so.”
The Gospel of John describes the scene in much more detail (John 13:22, 25–27, 30):
The disciples looked at one another, uncertain of whom he was speaking…. Jesus answered, “It is the one to whom I give this piece of bread when I have dipped it in the dish.” So when he had dipped the piece of bread, he gave it to Judas son of Simon Iscariot. After he received the piece of bread, Satan entered into him. Jesus said to him, “Do quickly what you are going to do.”… So, after receiving the piece of bread, he immediately went out. And it was night.
What then is so terribly wrong with what Judas left the upper room to do, namely to give Jesus over to the Jewish authorities? After all, he was even fulfilling the prophecy of the Hebrew scriptures! And he was just obeying orders: “Do quickly what you are going to do.”
All of this sounds much more like what the learned Evangelists could compose, with the help of the Hebrew scriptures in front of them (in Greek translation), than like an actual dialogue in the upper room at the Last Supper, where literacy was at a much lower level!
DID JUDAS ISCARIOT “BETRAY” JESUS?
The Gospel of Mark presents in graphic detail the scene in the Garden of Gethsemane, where Judas plays the central role (Mark 14:43–45):
And immediately, while he was still speaking, Judas came, one of the twelve, and with him a crowd with swords and clubs, from the chief priests and the scribes and the elders. Now the one who turned him over had given them a sign, saying, “The one I shall kiss is the man; seize him and lead him away under guard.” And when he came, he went up to him at once, and said, “Master!” And he kissed him. And they laid hands on him and seized him.
What is actually going on here in the case of Judas? Several recent books about Judas have turned a sympathetic ear to him, sensing that what he is reported to have done was not all that wrong, after all. The more fictional presentation of Ray Anderson presents a dialogue between Jesus and Judas in which Jesus forgives Judas—and his book already bore the title The Gospel according to Judas!2 Hans-Josef Klauck, a German professor who has recently joined the faculty of the University of Chicago’s Divinity School, laid out a very balanced assessment of Judas as “a disciple of the Lord,” in a work that unfortunately is available only in German.3 William Klassen’s book Judas: Betrayer or Friend of Jesus?4 defends the thesis that Judas was indeed more friend than betrayer. And Kim Paffenroth, who specializes in the area of religion and film, has a very sympathetic though half-fictional presentation in Judas: Images of the Lost Disciple.5
The thesis of Klassen’s book is that Judas did not betray Jesus, but only gave him over to the appropriate Jewish authorities to evaluate his claims, a quite appropriate and understandable transaction within the Judaism of that day. Hence we are wrong to understand Judas as a traitor, as if what the Gospels present him doing is a betrayal. Klassen points out:6
Not one ancient classical Greek text… has the connotation of treachery. Any lexicon that suggests otherwise is guilty of theologizing rather than assisting us to find the meaning of Greek words through usage.
Hence, the Greek word in the Gospels that is translated as “betray” (paradid
omi) does not actually have that basically negative meaning that we associate with betrayal in English.
In the standard Greek-English dictionary of the New Testament that all scholars use,7 the first meaning is listed neutrally as “hand over, turn over, give up” a person. But it has also the decidedly positive meaning “give over, commend, commit,” for example, to commend a person “to the grace of God” (Acts 14:26; 15:40). It often means “hand down, pass on, transmit, relate, teach” the oral or written tradition. It is in fact most familiar to us in the liturgy of the Lord’s Supper, “For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you” (1 Cor. 11:23), and in the way Paul introduced a list of resurrection appearances: “For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received” (1 Cor. 15:3). It is consistent with this double meaning of the verb that the noun means a handing over or a handing down both in the sense of an arrest and in the sense of the transmission of tradition. It is clear from the use of this verb that Judas handed Jesus over. The etymology of the Greek word is neutrally give over, which I hence use in what follows. But what that giving over actually meant is the question at issue.
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