ABSOLUTELY NOT. He knew full well that he was deliberately betraying Jesus. There is absolutely no indication that Judas and Jesus had worked this out in advance as a collaborative effort; indeed, Judas’ suicide would suggest otherwise. Nor is there any indication whatsoever of some noble purpose behind his actions. It was a craven betrayal, and Judas recognized it as such.
It takes tremendous mental gyrations to suggest that Judas was merely some innocent – and even greater gyrations to paint him as a loyal follower who was trying to serve his Lord and Master.
I’m merely disagreeing with that particular cite of yours. Feeling remorse afterwards does not preclude having good intentions beforehand. I have no dog in this fight for Judas being actually a good guy. I do have a dog in the fight of general misinterpretation, and since I know myself of times i’ve acted in what I believe is good faith only to change my mind after seeing the results, I’m pretty sure you cannot cite that Bible quote and use it as evidence he had only bad intentions throughout.
If you have other cites, or other beliefs, that’s fine. This* particular * cite does not say what you believe it to.
No, the account in Acts doesn’t say that Judas acted with noble intentions. Peter explicitly identifies his actions as “wickedness”. But there is also no mention that Judas’ death was suicide, either, which I thought was the sign that he was remorseful over having committed what he thought was a wicked act.
But you are correct that there is no hint anywhere in the Bible that Judas was acting out of noble motives. That idea, in fact, is contradicted by all the passages in the Gospels where Jesus talks about His death and resurrection and the disciples don’t know what He is talking about.
Right, and I don’t mean to suggest that it explicitly painted his death as a suicide. I don’t think it’s difficult to see that this account can plausibly describe a suicide though. Hence, far from refuting the notion that Judas acted dishonorably, it tends to support that notion – albeit less explicitly than the Gospels do.
BTW, note that I say that it plausibly describes a suicide. In contrast, these attempts to explain away the vile actions of Judas are implausible in the extreme. It is utterly implausible to suggest that Judas acted in collusion with Jesus, especially in light of his suicide and remorse. Oh, I’m sure that you can concoct some scenario in which that might be so, just as someone could concoct a scenario wherein OJ was the innocent victim in an elaborate frame-up. That doesn’t make the notion plausible, though.
Do you know what is extremely plausible? That Judas thought that forcing Jesus to act against his captors with great thunder and fury would show everyone that without a doubt that he was the Messiah. When it didn’t pan out as expected, he was extremely remorseful, of course.
Nope, not “extremely plausible” in the least. The public had already seen him perform some dramatic miracles, yet that did not win his captors over. Quite the contrary; the Pharisees had seen Jesus perform some mighty miracles indeed, yet they responded by plotting to kill him.
Moreover, if Judas had listened at all to his master’s teachings, he would have known that Jesus would not respond with “great thunder and fury.” Remember, this is the man who urged believers to “love thy enemy” and “turn the other cheek.”
Again, with sufficient mental gymnastics, one could concoct such a scenario – but it is both highly implausible AND completely unevidenced by the text.
If somebody is going to suggest that Judas acted with the very best of intentions, and that his plans merely went awry, then you’re going to have to paint some sort of plausible scenario. None of these attempts to explain his actions away hold water.
This part is true - Peter comes right out and says that Judas was acting dishonorably in the account in Acts. So both accounts say explicitly that what Judas did was wrong.
Although I don’t necessarily agree that the Acts account suggests suicide, that account cannot be used to establish any collusion between Jesus and Judas either. The way Peter tells the story seems to me to suggest that Judas’ “falling headlong” and bursting open were a punishment for his sin in betraying Jesus.
It is interesting that you mention OJ. Did you ever read OJ’s letter before the infamous Bronco chase? Vincent Bugliosi (sic? the guy who wrote Helter Skelter) makes the point that OJ never suggested in that letter that he was being framed. If OJ were innocent, he would have to know he was being framed. But he never mentions it.
Similarly, in the account where Judas repents and tries to give back the thirty pieces of silver, his confession has nothing to do with a failed attempt to force Jesus’ hand. He says he was wrong to “betray innocent blood”. It wasn’t that Judas’ betrayal didn’t work; it just worked against an innocent man. Which argues that Judas knew Jesus would die as a result of the betrayal all along.
The one and ONLY incident of his generating any “thunder”… and even in that case, the grievance was not against himself, but against his Father. Jesus was no pacifist, but he also showed remarkable patience and tolerance toward those who wronged him. He could level harsh words against them, but he reserved his wrath for the final judgment.
I doubt it myself as well. It seems to me that the compilers of the Bible — well, storytellers in general — were fond of closure. They wanted to reassure the faithful that Judas got what was coming to him.
“Anybody ever hear what happened to that guy?”
“Mmm. I hear he fell off a cliff.”
“Where’d you hear that? I thought he married and had two kids and is living in Abyssinia.”
“Meh. Go with the cliff. That story’ll never sell.”
Or something less cynical — but the point being, I find it unlikely that Judas’s suicide by cliff was a) observed, and b) reported with journalistic rigor.
[imagines clean-shaven Jesus slapping on aftershave in the mirror and going :eek: ]
Nothing in the history of man before then and little since and not much today has ever been “reported with journalistic rigor,” and we should have to drop all pretense of any historical knowledge whatsoever if we adopted this particular stance.
But more importantly, it’s quite likely people found him pretty fast thereafter or even witnessed it. Jerusalem was a large city, surrounded by farms. He was unlikely not to be found soon after.
I’m not suggesting that we should drop the pretense of historical knowledge altogether. I find it suspicious that in this case, the villain of a popular tale is widely known to have suffered a horrible death well suited to his crimes, but nobody can quite agree how it happened: he variously hanged himself, got fat and was crushed by a chariot, fell down and burst asunder, was stoned to death, or some combination of the above. As a morality tale, the meaning is clear: don’t betray your God.
As history, the varying stories suggest to me that the common knowledge may not be so. When accounts vary so widely, and have such a nice morality tale woven in, we might take them with a grain of salt.
After all, it was once common knowledge that a hippie put a baby in the microwave, or that a man woke up in a bathtub full of ice with his kidneys stolen, but nobody can agree on when and where these things happened, or to whom. If the story of Judas’s suicide came out today we would be debunking it as an urban legend.
I have read the Bible through a good 24 times in my life time and that is why I do not believe it is the word of God, If Judas did commit suicide then Jesus could have saved him by letting the people who came for him the first time, and according to the writers Jesus thanked the father that all were save except one(The son of perdition). So Jesus intended to cause Judas the loss of his soul if the writers are correct. Jesus then didn’t mean to save Judas.