So, was Judas swiftboated by the Christians or what?

[kurth]

Did God WANT Judas to go away and hang himself?

He did a pretty good job obeying God, and got smeared for it.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

1. He was a patsy

but he had to be. I hope he's being treated well wherever he is.

[China_cat]

4. If you buy the story at all

then Judas is actually MORE important than Jesus. Without the 'betrayal' there wouldn't have been an arrest, trial or crucifixion. Without those there couldn't have been a resurrection.

So, I guess you could say the true founder of christianity is Judas.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

7. Everything in life is connected

You could also say that Mary is the true founder. Without her agreement, nothing would have happened. Nothing stands alone.

[China_cat]

14. Not really if you consider that women didn't count

for anything at that time.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

16. Or so they liked to believe

but we've always been the sun to their moon!

[ThoughtCriminal]

2. More accurate to say Jesus

got swiftboated by the Pharisees.

[tocqueville]

3. Judas story = antisemitism

Judas and Anti-Semitism
Some scholars of the New Testament suggest that the name "Judas" was intended as an attack on the Judaeans or on the Judaean religious establishment held responsible for executing Christ. The English word "Jew" is derived from the Latin Judaeus, which, like the Greek Ιουδαίος (Ioudaios), could also mean "Judaean". In the Gospel of John, the original writer or a later editor may have tried to draw a parallel between Judas, Judaea, and the Judaeans (or Jews) in verses 6-70-7:1, which run like this in the King James Bible:

6-70 Jesus answered them, Have not I chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil? 6-71 He spoke of Judas Iscariot the son of Simon: for he it was that should betray him, being one of the twelve. 7:1 After these things Jesus walked in Galilee: for he would not walk in Jewry, because the Jews sought to kill him.
In Greek, the earliest extant language of the Gospels, the words Judas -- Jewry -- Jews run like this: Ιούδας (Ioudas) -- Ιουδαία (Ioudaia) -- Ιουδαίοι (Ioudaioi). In Latin, the language of the Catholic Vulgate Bible, they run Judas -- Judaea -- Judaei. Whatever the original intentions of the original writers or editors of the Gospel of John, however, there is little doubt that the similarity between the name "Judas" and the words for "Jew" in various European languages has contributed powerfully to anti-Semitism. In German the same words run Judas -- Judäa -- Juden; in Spanish Judas -- Judea -- judíos; and in French Judas -- Judée -- juifs.

Over time Judas came to be seen as the archetypal Jew. He was said to have red hair, which was proverbially called "Judas-colored", and the ancient stereotype of Jews was that they had red hair too: in Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice the Jewish money-lender Shylock is said to have been portrayed with red hair on the Elizabethan stage. Judas's betrayal of Christ for money was also seen as a typical piece of Jewish venality and avarice.

A few modern critics of European culture assert that in paintings and art of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, while the other apostles are portrayed as powerfully built Northern Europeans, Judas was given stereotypically Jewish characteristics. Specific examples of such portrayals in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, however, are hard to come by.

A more modern example, however, can be found in John Fiester's monument clock, the Apostolic Clock. Judas is half the height of the other eleven apostles, hunched over, and possesses an exaggerated nose. The notes provided at the Hershey Museum, where it is on display, claims the artist made Judas shorter because he considered him to be less of a man than the other apostles, not because of anti-Semitism.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judas_Iscariot

[TallahasseeGrannie]

8. Interesting stuff

but I never get the anti-semitism part because the Romans executed Him and also, He was Jewish, himself.

I heard that a lot about Passion of the Christ, and when I went to see the film, I didn't see that angle at all.

Kind of like blaming Timothy McVeigh's execution on Americans. (not likening McV. to Christ!)

[hedgehog]

5. No

and I think some of the replies discussing Judas's name are forgetting the other apostle St. Jude, patron of impossible causes.

There was always choice thoughout the narrative, even if Jesus could see events coming. Think for yourself. Knowing Judas, would it take a genius to guess that he would be in contact with the priests and getting ready to hand Jesus over? Jesus doesn't say"Go and do what you have to do" because God has chosen you for this task. Jesus says"Go and do what you have to do" because you've decided to abandon a sinking ship and join the winning side while you still can. Jesus is not ordering Judas to leave the table, but dismissing him in final resignation and regret that he has lost this man.

If Judas had his regrets later, and accused others of tricking him, isn't that something we have seen elsewhere? (She made me do it? I was only following orders?)

I was always taught that Judas's greatest sin wasn't that he betrayed Jesus, but that he refused forgiveness by hanging himself.

[PATRICK]

6. The few verses

accorded to Judas indicate more embarrassment behind short condemnation. Hints he had his hand in the till are the one real smear that seems petty in comparison to the betrayal. As usual when truth is someone not so simple these too brief brush offs suggest something else one can only guess at.

The Gnostic Gospel has nothing new to add to this obliterated history except to seize upon the oddity the "exceptional ism" of Judas for their own cult purposes. Which is why more and fuller truth at the beginning is always better than covering up. And there are bigger cover ups in the Gospels than Judas' motivation. But this is the titillating media event of the day, one misrepresented by the ignorant media as per usual and as badly played to by bewildered theologians and archaeologists.

Most of the apostles had a unique failure of communication about the whole agenda. Peter's betrayal is boldly open in parallel to Judas. Both personages were deeply crushed. Both misunderstood and rebelled, apparently against what Jesus wanted. Peter chose to have his story told forever and even then was prone to making big blunders. Judas had to feel greater remorse and perhaps was too much about himself in all judgments, something clearly warned about by Jesus.

There is not enough to lift the charge of venal greed by someone chosen by Jesus but to make the charge stick one has to imagine the possibly extenuating motivation that would obliterate it as a simple act. So it stands as a horror and embarrassment and seems to show some of the understandable anger of the surviving apostles in the way the story is represented.

But is this about Judas or another wedge to feed the desire of doubt, another critique of the old establishment? Certainly this cult text adds nothing to anything but secret desires and public ignorance. Mark had stunned the Church long ago by trashing the Twelve and obliterating the glory resurrection appearances(the qualification for being one of the elite) and that was made humbly mainstream. And that was the first Gospel written as a whole, the first critical redaction with a bone to grind. Mark ends with no resurrection or appearances, a missing body and then a later writer adds on a more typical ending.

Rev Theodore Weeden a Baptist had a brilliant theory that it was not this odd "Messianic Secret" which best explained Mark. I asked him that it still felt odd to see such bitter treatment of apostles not long after Peter's death in Rome and explanations about local concerns still seemed to fall short, but clearly hew was onto something which since has been pretty well adopted into scriptural theory everywhere including Catholics. Looking at the "theos aner" cult demi-god worship of pagan figures like Hercules and what went into their legends and stories and worship, it does lead to an understanding about what Mark is correcting in the young Christian traditions. Mark's concern is born out by just this kind of garbage being perpetuated by Gnostics and their many fringe Gospels. That history and Mark's Gospel has blown the others away is not solely because of Constantine's clout or orthodox bishops.

[roguevalley]

9. The apostles were cowards all the way through. Judas was perhaps

the only one Jesus could count on. Judas and the women in his life. Who put themselves forward and never flinched once? The women. Who went to see him and first say him after the resurrection? The women. Who gets SCREWED TO DEATH by organized religion? The women. Who got tarred and feathered by religion? Judas.
The living write the history books. God bless Judas and the women.

Men are bastards in this story.

[PATRICK]

11. Whoa

This is what I mean. Your emotions are shared somewhat by Mark but try to understand really what he is saying. The women saw an angel then told no one anything. They fell short too and have no better favored standing in Mark's eyes. Evidently he is a writer opposed to the the whole starry-eyed, eyes to the leadership approach and found much in the original Jesus to put the Church in its place. He over-emphazied misunderstandings for a timely purpose that to us today seems insensitive since by then most of them had been slaughtered for spreading the Gospel and revered by swelling ranks of Christians. And some of wehat Mark was about has been misunderstood and is still somewhat of a mystery. I was taught by one such scholar who represented Mark as rebelling against the cultural ocean of cultic hero worship and gnosticism rampant in the entire region AND the failures of the Judaeo-Christian faction and leadership- which thankfully was obliterated by persecution and the fall of Jerusalem(without the world coming to an end). He re-shifted dramatically the focus of Christianity on those things and sayings to do with the Cross, the real sad story of Church life, not starry-eyed peachy keen glory enthusiasm.

We are dealing not with incisive accurate historical portraits but communal loyalties to a message and personalities. They were under no pretensions or illusions concerning factual historical reporting. Your opinion echoes Mark's somewhat but the men chosen by Jesus and the faithful women can't be colored so easily after all this time. The Jewish women showed a lot of courage, but then they were ignored too, though not by Jesus(except in certain cultural structures). The apostles took great chances after, and no guilt or nuttiness accounts for that if you look to many other examples of human behavior since. And if the meager institutional power they won by their preaching calcified in Jerusalem went to their heads it did not last. By the time the Romans took the city, the leadership at least was gone.

[roguevalley]

13. we can parse infinities forever but the truth is, the men were under the

bed or denying, the women were there in plain sight standing by their loved one. the fact that men have stood on the necks of women for 2k years is a gross injustice when you consider the moment when courage and loyalty was most needed, it was the women who showed it. must have pissed off a few church men over the centuries that this is so or they would have written it out of history like they did everything else that offended their superiority buttons. It is what it is.

[rurallib]

10. Parallel to today?

Libby sells out Bush. Did Bush want to be outed as the leaker so he could be crucified (figuratively) and become a major religious leader?
Waiting for the gospels of the W regime to come out.

[standup]

15. Looks like the Apocalypse is coming before the gospels of the W regime

[Skarbrowe]

12. Article about this in today's Sun-Sentinel.

I just posted this on another thread and I saw this post and thought it would fit here too.

A Whole New Chapter On Judas

By FRANCES GRANDY TAYLOR
Courant Staff Writer
Posted April 7 2006


When Judas betrayed Jesus, did he do it for 30 pieces of silver, or was it for the fulfillment of a higher purpose?

Thursday the National Geographic Society made public for the first time the fragile pages of the "Gospel of Judas," a second-century text that had been lost for 1,700 years. Restored fragments of the 26-page papyrus manuscript written in Coptic and bound in leather describe a pivotal event in the last days of Jesus Christ - the betrayal by disciple Judas Iscariot.

<<snip>>

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/nationworld/hc-judas.artapr07,0,738483.story?coll=sfla-newsnation-front