Violet, why or how did Judas betray Jesus?

[Guest guest]

Dear Violet and all,

 

i cannot seem to get the facts as to why or how Judas betrayed Jesus.

After checking around this seems to be the best asnwer:

 

" In the Gospels that we have, Judas was one of Jesus's twelve

disciples but envied him (or was possibly disillusioned because Jesus

seemed to be uninterested in earthly revolution.) In exchange for

thirty pieces of silver (a very large sum) he agreed to identify his

leader in public, so that the Roman officers would know who to

arrest. He did this by kissing him ( " Judas kiss " was a common

expression at one time.) Jesus was arrested and later crucified. He

had foreseen that this would happen; he had also known that his most

loyal follower, Peter, would deny friendship with him to save his own

skin (this also happened.) Judas later hanged himself in remorse. In

some countries, such as Greece, he is still burnt in effigy every

Easter.

 

Quite recently a document known as the Gospel of Judas has been

found, which claims that Judas was in fact a loyal supporter and

the " betrayal " happened very differently. There is still a debate

going on about this document. " (end)

 

The best answer is that Judas " agreed to identify his leader in

public, so that the Roman officers would know who to arrest. " This

does not make much sense to me. Can you give me what you know i.e.,

Judas betrayed Jesus by kissing him so that i) ..... ii) ..... iii)..

 

reagrds to all,

 

jagbir

[Guest guest]

, " adishakti_org "

<adishakti_org wrote:

>

> Dear Violet and all,

>

> i cannot seem to get the facts as to why or how Judas betrayed

> Jesus. After checking around this seems to be the best answer:

>

> " In the Gospels that we have, Judas was one of Jesus's twelve

> disciples but envied him (or was possibly disillusioned because

> Jesus seemed to be uninterested in earthly revolution.) In exchange

> for thirty pieces of silver (a very large sum) he agreed to

> identify his leader in public, so that the Roman officers would

> know who to arrest. He did this by kissing him ( " Judas kiss " was a

> common expression at one time.) Jesus was arrested and later

> crucified. He had foreseen that this would happen; he had also

> known that his most loyal follower, Peter, would deny friendship

> with him to save his own skin (this also happened.) Judas later

> hanged himself in remorse. In some countries, such as Greece, he is

> still burnt in effigy every Easter.

>

> Quite recently a document known as the Gospel of Judas has been

> found, which claims that Judas was in fact a loyal supporter and

> the " betrayal " happened very differently. There is still a debate

> going on about this document. " (end)

>

> The best answer is that Judas " agreed to identify his leader in

> public, so that the Roman officers would know who to arrest. " This

> does not make much sense to me. Can you give me what you know i.e.,

> Judas betrayed Jesus by kissing him so that i) ..... ii) .....

> iii)..

>

> regards to all,

>

> jagbir

>

 

 

Dear Jagbir and all,

 

Like most modern-day Christians, i was taught that Judas betrayed Jesus to the

Roman officers for thirty pieces of silver, and then he hanged himself in

remorse. You say that " after checking around this seems to be the best answer,

as to how or why Judas betrayed Jesus " :

 

> " In the Gospels that we have, Judas was one of Jesus's twelve

> disciples but envied him (or was possibly disillusioned because

> Jesus seemed to be uninterested in earthly revolution.) In exchange

> for thirty pieces of silver (a very large sum) he agreed to

> identify his leader in public, so that the Roman officers would

> know who to arrest. He did this by kissing him ( " Judas kiss " was a

> common expression at one time.) Jesus was arrested and later

> crucified. He had foreseen that this would happen; he had also

> known that his most loyal follower, Peter, would deny friendship

> with him to save his own skin (this also happened.) Judas later

> hanged himself in remorse. In some countries, such as Greece, he is

> still burnt in effigy every Easter.

 

You also say that:

 

> Quite recently a document known as the Gospel of Judas has been

> found, which claims that Judas was in fact a loyal supporter and

> the " betrayal " happened very differently. There is still a debate

> going on about this document. " (end)

 

It is true that there is still a debate going on about this document. As i do

not know the answer/s to your question, perhaps for now we have to defer to the

scholarship of Elaine Pagels and Karen L. King, who say that initially the

author of the 'Gospel of Judas' (who is not Judas), struck them " as an angry man

with an offensive, even hateful, message, for he portrays Jesus repeatedly

mocking his disciples and charging them with committing all kinds of sins and

impurities in his name " . ('Reading Judas', Excerpt, Introduction, p.xii).

 

Pagels and King, however say, that when they moved past their first impressions,

they found much in the 'Gospel of Judas' filled with Jesus's brilliant teaching:

 

" But once we moved past this initial impression, we found that not all is angry.

Much of the 'Gospel of Judas' is filled with Jesus's brilliant teaching about

the spiritual life. Why, then, the author's rage? What matters so deeply? And

most important, what hope does the author offer to redeem his anger? The answers

to these questions lead deep into the agonizing controversies and exultant

visions of God that would ultimately come to shape Christianity and capture the

hearts and souls of people for millennia to come. " ('Reading Judas', Excerpt,

Introduction, p.xii).

 

Pagels and King say that like some other newly recovered works, the 'Gospel of

Judas' understands human nature to be essentially spiritual:

 

" Like some of these other newly recovered works, the 'Gospel of Judas'

understands human nature to be essentially spiritual, believing that the

physical body decomposes at death while the spirit-filled soul lives forever

with God in a heavenly world above. It, too, sees Jesus as the divine revealer

sent by God to teach about his kingdom to an ignorant and unrighteous--or

self-righteous--humanity. " ('Reading Judas', Excerpt, Introduction, p.XV).

 

So, Pagels and King ask:

 

" Did Judas really write this gospel? Can we learn anything new here about the

historical Judas, Jesus, or his disciples? Because the 'Gospel of Judas' was

written sometime around 150 C.E., about a century after Judas would have lived,

it is impossible that he wrote it; the real author remains anonymous. Neither do

we learn anything historically reliable about Judas or Jesus beyond what we

already know from other early Christian literature. " ('Reading Judas', Excerpt,

Introduction, p. xiii).

 

In answer, Pagels and Kings say that:

 

" The author of the 'Gospel of Judas' could not reconcile his belief in a deeply

loving, good God with a particular idea other Christians held at the time: that

God desired the bloody sacrificial death of Jesus and his followers. In this

author's view, Christian leaders who called on their fellow Christians to

" glorify " themselves that way were murderers. They had totally misunderstood

Jesus's teaching and were worshipping a false god. Judas alone among the

disciples understood Jesus's teaching and that was why he handed him over to be

killed... " ('Reading Judas', Excerpt, Introduction, p.xvi).

 

This brings me to the point, Jagbir, that instead of Christianity being

'together' in its early stages, it was split into many groups or factions - with

some Christians believing Judas to be a traitor, and other Christians believing

Judas to be the one who understood Jesus's teachings the best. That early

Christianity was not a uniform organized group, but had to be deliberately made

so, by hereticizing certain writings, is revealed by this quote of Irenaeus,

from his own book he wrote, called 'Against Heresies', where he denounces the

Christian group that believed Judas to understand Jesus's teachings the best.

Here is what Irenaeus wrote - against the Christian group who asserted that

Judas was the person who best understood Jesus's teachings:

 

" They declare that Judas the traitor was thoroughly acquainted with these

things, and that he alone, knowing the truth as no others did, accomplished the

mystery of the betrayal; by him all things, both earthly and heavenly, were thus

thrown into confusion. They produced a fictitious history of this kind, which

they style the Gospel of Judas. " [2] ('Reading Judas', Excerpt, Introduction,

p.xii).

 

Pagels and King write that:

 

" Irenaeus was the first, so far as we know, to insist that the church has " only

'four' gospels, not more and not fewer. " Why not? Irenaeus offers a cosmological

explanation. Just as " there are four corners of the universe, and four universal

winds, " so, he says, " it is fitting that she should have four pillars " that hold

up God's truth. And why 'these four'? The 'Gospels' of 'Matthew', and 'John',

Irenaeus declared, were written by actual apostles, and 'Mark' and 'Luke' by

disciples of these apostles. These gospels were reliable, he argued, because

they alone could be traced back to eyewitness accounts written by Jesus's most

trusted followers. " ('Reading Judas', Excerpt, Chapter One, " Judas: Betrayer or

Favored Disciple? " , p.6).

 

Pagels and King say that few New Testament scholars would agree with Irenaeus's

reasoning, today:

 

" Few New Testament scholars today would agree with Irenaeus's reasoning, much

less with what he says about who wrote these gospels. For while the New

Testament gospels contain traditions--sayings of Jesus, parables, and

anecdotes--that go back to early times, even the earliest of the gospels, the

'Gospel of Mark', was written about forty years after Jesus's death, and the

rest about ten to thirty years later. It is highly unlikely that any of them

were written by disciples who personally knew Jesus, but we do not know who

actually wrote them. Furthermore, many of the gospels that Irenaeus dismisses as

illegitimate, like the 'Gospel of Thomas' and the 'Gospel of Philip', also claim

to be written by members of the same inner circle of disciples; but we have no

independent evidence to verify who actually wrote any of them, either. "

('Reading Judas', Excerpt, Chapter One, " Judas: Betrayer or Favored Disciple? " ,

p.6-7).

 

Pagels and King summarize the above, saying that:

 

The claims to apostolic authorship--whether by Irenaeus or those he

opposed--belong to second-century battles over whose views would dominate the

nascent Christian religion. Certainly, those who wrote and circulated the

gospels Irenaeus denounced did not think of themselves as heretics but as

Christians. Now that we possess not only Irenaeus's refutation but copies of

some of the works he wrote against--including the 'Gospel of Judas'--we can see

how one-sided his presentation is. And for the first time, we can hear the other

sides of the debate. If we were now to put Irenaeus in conversation with the

author of the 'Gospel of Judas', the debate might sound something like this:

 

Irenaeus: You heretics reject the God and creator of the world who sent Jesus to

die for our sins. And contrary to the clear evidence of Scripture, you deny the

goodness of the Creator and his creation. You may practice a strict ethics, but

only as evidence that you hate the flesh. By denying that Jesus had a physical

body and that believers will rise from the dead even as Jesus did, you undermine

salvation and make meaningless the church's eucharist of bread and wine (as

Jesus's body and blood). You think that you are saved because of your spiritual

nature and heavenly origins, so you don't need faith in Christ. Instead you

claim to have special knowledge revealed to you alone. This elitist attitude is

not only arrogant, it's completely in error and you will be condemned forever.

[5]

 

The 'Gospel of Judas's' author: Irenaeus, you and Christians like you have

grossly mistaken the world Creator--whom Scripture itself clearly shows to be

jealous, violent, and vengeful--for the true God and father of the Savior Jesus.

It is you who deny the divine goodness of the true God and Creator of all, who

is purely goodness, light, and truth, by falsely attributing to God all manner

of evil and all the ills of the world: suffering, death, unjust rule, violence,

lust for the blood of sacrifice, and their like. By insisting that the physical

body is your true nature, you have forgotten that the flesh is manifestly

perishable, while God is imperishable. While the body can indeed worship God in

righteousness, it is not immortal even though it has been stamped with the

divine image of the heavenly Adam and Eve. You are like those who condemn

everyone who disagrees with you to eternal punishment, arrogantly believing that

you alone possess the truth. It is you who will perish forever. ('Reading

Judas', Excerpt, Chapter One, " Judas: Betrayer or Favored Disciple? " , p.7-8).

 

Pagels and King say that:

 

" Irenaeus is trying to win this argument by claiming his version of Christianity

comes directly from Jesus's most trusted disciples--but the 'Gospel of Judas' is

making the same claim, in an extreme form: that only Judas truly understood

Jesus's teaching, because Jesus revealed to him alone the true " mysteries of the

kingdom. " ('Reading Judas', Excerpt, Chapter One, " Judas: Betrayer or Favored

Disciple?, p.8).

 

Pagels and King describe how the church fathers organised loosely-knit

Christians to follow them, in the form of an orthodoxic hierarchy. (All this,

rather than just following Jesus's teachings, Jagbir):

 

" Arguments like these were going on at a time when the church had no defined

creed, no canon of authoritative texts, and no hierarchical leadership that

could settle disagreements. Indeed, it was Irenaeus and his fellow bishops who

decided that the marks of the " true Church " were to be creed, clergy, and canon.

Irenaeus was among the first to insist that all true Christians must confess the

same things, [6] joining together to say a common creed that states what all

believe. He also divided the churches between bishops and priests, and " the

laity " (the Greek term means " the people " ), arguing that the latter must " obey

the priests that are in the church, " [7] and receive baptism and eucharist only

at the hands of bishops and priests he called " orthodox. " He warned that

dissenters, even if they were priests, placed themselves in mortal danger, since

" outside the church there is no salvation. " Finally, Irenaeus planted the seeds

of what would become the Christian New Testament by arguing that " orthodox "

believers must read during worship only books that he and the other bishops

approved; others, which he called " secret, illegitimate " books, [8] were to be

rejected like poison--for heresy, he admonished, can draw people away from the

truth. Historians have noted, too, that the teachings Irenaeus labeled as

" orthodox " tend to be those that helped him and other bishops consolidate

scattered groups of Jesus's followers into what he and certain other bishops

envisioned as a single, united organization they called " the catholic

('universal') church. " The diverse range of Christian teachings that they

denounced as " heresy " could be antithetical to the consolidation of the church

under the bishops' authority. Such writings as the 'Gospel of Thomas' and the

'Gospel of Mary', for example, encourage believers to seek God within

themselves, with no mention of churches, much less of clergy. Some writings

discovered among such discarded " heretical " texts like the 'Apocalypse of

Peter', directly challenge " those who name themselves bishops...as if they have

received their authority from God.... Those people are dry canals! " [9] Not

surprisingly, leaders concerned about establishing and strengthening developing

institutional structures dismissed such charges as the rants of

" heretics " --exactly as Irenaeus condemned the 'Gospel of Judas' as a piece of

fiction intended merely to confuse people. " ('Reading Judas', Excerpt, Chapter

One, " Judas: Betrayer or Favored Disciple " , p.9-10)

 

In conclusion, Jagbir, in Chapter Two: " Judas and the Twelve " , Pagels and King,

after going through the biblical New Testament accounts, state that:

 

" ONCE WE SEE that all the New Testament gospels treat Judas's betrayal as God's

will, it seems less strange to think that Judas might have been seen as

following Jesus's instructions in handing him over, as the 'Gospel of Judas'

says. More surprising is the way the 'Gospel of Judas' turns upside down what we

know about the other disciples--or what we thought we knew. This gospel does

more than champion the disciple that all the rest regard as the villain; it also

sharply condemns " the twelve. " For when they come to Jesus, disturbed by a dream

they had of priests at the altar who are sacrificing their own wives and

children and committing all kinds of sins and injustices--and doing so in

Jesus's name--his reply shocks and angers them: " 'You' are the ones you saw

receiving offerings at the altar....And the domestic animals you saw being

brought for sacrifice are the multitude you are leading astray upon that

al[t]ar " ('Judas' 5:1;4). Here the very disciples revered by many Christians as

leaders and founders of the movement appear as if it is they--not Judas--who are

betraying Jesus. ('Reading Judas', Excerpt, Chapter Two: " Judas and the Twelve " ,

p.33)

 

So, Jagbir, it seems to be left to the individual to decide whether Judas is a

betrayer of Jesus or a favored disciple of Jesus. The 'Gospel of Judas' depicts

Judas as a favored disciple of Jesus. For my part, i find the 'Gospel of Judas'

truthful spiritually, though it is a bit harsh in places, but then the truth can

be harsh, sometimes, as we know. Especially when the truth in the 'Gospel of

Judas' seems to be about what people have done with Jesus Christ's message--how

they have interpreted it, most often wrongly, because they did not understand

Jesus's teachings. But, Judas was taken aside by Jesus, to give Judas more

teaching, because of what Judas already did understand, it would seem, from the

'Gospel of Judas' account.

 

Because of Jesus's trust in Judas, i find it hard to believe that Judas really

betrayed Jesus. i think there was some other explanation that is not so clear. i

think Jesus wanted Judas to play a certain role, but it is a role that as human

beings, we find hard to understand. But, sometimes divine incarnations do

inscrutable things. In other words, they do things, sometimes, that are hard for

us to understand.

 

i don't know if that helps, but that is all i can, unfortunately, come up with.

 

regards to all,

 

violet

 

 

 

[All Quotes From]:

 

Reading Judas - The Gospel of Judas and the Shaping of Christianity,

Elaine Pagels and Karen L. King

Penguin Group - London, England

ISBN 978-0-713-99984-6

 

Notes:

 

[2] Irenaeus, 'Against Heresies' 1.31.1. All references to 'Against Heresies'

are from the critical edition of Adelin Rousseau and Louis Doutreleau, 'Irenee

de Lyon, Contre les heresies', 5 vols. (Paris: Les Editions de Cerf, 1979);

English translation (sometimes modified) from A. Cleveland Coxe, 'The Apostolic

Fathers with Justin Martyr and Irenaeus, vol. 1' of 'The Ante-Nicene Fathers'

(Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1885 [reprint 1979]). Available online at

www.earlychristianwritings.com.

 

The 'Gospel of Judas' is also mentioned by Epiphanius in his 'Panarion' 38.1.5,

but his report is probably based upon Irenaeus. See the discussion of the

'Gospel of Judas' in Wilhelm Schneemelcher, editor, 'New Testament Apocrypha.

Vol. 1: Gospels and Related Writings,' Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox

Press, 1991, pp. 386-387. Gregor Wurst makes the convincing argument that the

newly discovered 'Gospel of Judas' is a Coptic translation of the Greek original

mentioned by Irenaeus (see " Irenaeus of Lyon and the Gospel of Judas " in 'The

Gospel of Judas,' Rodolphe Kasser, Marvin Meyer, and Gregor Wurst, editors,

Washington, DC: National Geographic, 2006, pp. 121-135).

 

[5] For further discussion of such views of Christian polemicists, see Karen L.

King, 'What is Gnosticism'? (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2003), pp.22-38.

 

[6] 'Against Heresies' 1.10.

 

[7] 'Against Heresies' 4.26.2-5. For discussion, see Elaine Pagels, 'The Gnostic

Gospels' (New York: Random House, 1979), pp. 103-151. For a more recent

discussion of Irenaeus's view of " canon of truth " and baptism, see Elaine

Pagels, " Irenaeus, the 'Canon of Truth', and the Gospel of John: 'Making a

Difference' through Hermeneutics and Ritual, " in 'Vigiliae Christianae' Vol. 56,

Number 4, 2002, pp. 339-371.

 

[8] 'Against Heresies' 1.20.1; praef. 1-3.

 

[9] 'Apocalypse of Peter' 70.22-31.