Judas Iscariot

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John2
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Re: Judas Iscariot

Post by John2 »

So, looking at 2 Sam. 15-17 (where Ahithophel is first mentioned), I see right off the bat that 15:2 says something that could be relevant to the "man of Kerioth" idea (though in regard to Absalom):
Whenever anyone came with a complaint to be placed before the king for a decision, Absalom would call out to him, “What town are you from?”
And 15:5 says (also in regard to Absalom, but still):
Also, whenever anyone approached him to bow down before him, Absalom would reach out his hand, take hold of him and kiss him.
And Ahithophel comes into the picture by 15:31:
Now David had been told, “Ahithophel is among the conspirators with Absalom.” So David prayed, “Lord, turn Ahithophel’s counsel into foolishness.”
But this part seems curious, in 16:23:
Now in those days the advice Ahithophel gave was like that of one who inquires of God. That was how both David and Absalom regarded all of Ahithophel’s advice.
But 17:1-4 seems key:
Ahithophel said to Absalom, “I would a choose twelve thousand men and set out tonight in pursuit of David. I would attack him while he is weary and weak. I would strike him with terror, and then all the people with him will flee. I would strike down only the king and bring all the people back to you. The death of the man you seek will mean the return of all; all the people will be unharmed.” This plan seemed good to Absalom and to all the elders of Israel.
And so does 17:23:
When Ahithophel saw that his advice had not been followed, he saddled his donkey and set out for his house in his hometown. He put his house in order and then hanged himself. So he died and was buried in his father’s tomb.
Wow! I'm liking this.
Last edited by John2 on Wed Nov 07, 2018 6:28 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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John2
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Re: Judas Iscariot

Post by John2 »

It seems to all fit.

Mk. 14:33-36:
... and he [Jesus] began to be deeply distressed and troubled. “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death,” he said to them. “Stay here and keep watch.”

Going a little farther, he fell to the ground and prayed that if possible the hour might pass from him. “Abba, Father,” he said, “everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.”
(2 Sam. 17:2: "I would attack him while he is weary and weak.")

Mk. 14:44-45:
Now the betrayer had arranged a signal with them: “The one I kiss is the man; arrest him and lead him away under guard.” Going at once to Jesus, Judas said, “Rabbi!” and kissed him.
(2 Sam. 15:3: "Absalom would reach out his hand, take hold of him and kiss him.")

Mk. 14:50:
Then everyone deserted him and fled.
(2 Sam. 17:2: "I would attack him while he is weary and weak. I would strike him with terror, and then all the people with him will flee.")

Mk. 14:43:
Just as he was speaking, Judas, one of the Twelve, appeared. With him was a crowd armed with swords and clubs, sent from the chief priests, the teachers of the law, and the elders.
(2 Sam. 17:2: "I would strike him with terror ...")

Wow!
Last edited by John2 on Wed Nov 07, 2018 5:06 pm, edited 4 times in total.
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John2
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Re: Judas Iscariot

Post by John2 »

But Mark doesn't say that Judas hanged himself (or anything about how he died). That's in Mt. 27:5 (and Acts 1:18):
So Judas threw the money into the temple and left. Then he went away and hanged himself.
Did Matthew (and Acts) pick up on the Ahithophel theme? Or did Mark originally say something about it (and Matthew saw it) but it was removed from the Short Ending version of Mark?

Hm.
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Charles Wilson
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Re: Judas Iscariot

Post by Charles Wilson »

John2 --

Please accept this alternative for consideration. "Judas" => the General "Cestius". Start with somewhere around

Josephus, War..., 2, 19, 1:

"But when Cestius had marched from Antipatris to Lydda, he found the city empty of its men, for the whole multitude (28) were gone up to Jerusalem to the feast of tabernacles; yet did he destroy fifty of those that showed themselves, and burnt the city, and so marched forwards; and ascending by Betboron, he pitched his camp at a certain place called Gabao, fifty furlongs distant from Jerusalem..."

Acts 1: 16 - 20 (RSV):

[16] "Brethren, the scripture had to be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit spoke beforehand by the mouth of David, concerning Judas who was guide to those who arrested Jesus.
[17] For he was numbered among us, and was allotted his share in this ministry.
[18] (Now this man bought a field with the reward of his wickedness; and falling headlong he burst open in the middle and all his bowels gushed out.
[19] And it became known to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that the field was called in their language Akel'dama, that is, Field of Blood.)
[20] For it is written in the book of Psalms, `Let his habitation become desolate,
and let there be no one to live in it';
and `His office let another take.'

Play "Match 'em up" for awhile here. Cestius torches Lydda, which is empty ("Let his habitation become desolate,
and let there be no one to live in it"). The inhabitants are in Jerusalem. Those who are left are murdered. Cestius will be replaced since he totally allowed the destruction the 12th Legion by not following the Marching Rules for a Legion.

He "lost his guts" because the Roman Rules demanded that the Baggage was carried in the middle of the Legion with appropriate "Shells" of protection surrounding this.

"...And this was the reason why the Romans suffered greatly, without being able to revenge themselves upon their enemies; so they were galled all the way, and their ranks were put into disorder, and those that were thus put out of their ranks were slain; among whom were Priscus, the commander of the sixth legion, and Longinus, the tribune, and Emilius Secundus, the commander of a troop of horsemen. So it was not without difficulty that they got to Gabao, their former camp, and that not without the loss of a great part of their baggage

One of the main Themes of Acts is the story of the 12th Legion. See also Tacitus, Annals, and what happened to the 12th.

Acts 9: 33 (RSV):

[33] There he found a man named Aene'as, who had been bedridden for eight years and was paralyzed.

What happened eight years prior to the Destruction of the Temple and Jerusalem? Mithridates humiliates the 12th and Corbulo cannot even pick up the pieces. The 12th was paralyzed, unable to even bring themselves to leave their tents.

"Judas" => "Cestius". Acts is a History of the 12th Legion and the Syrian Procurator Mucianus. The above is merely the first few bits of relata that prove it.

CW

PS: There is no contradiction in the 2 different descriptions of Judas. He did "hang himself" and did have his "guts spill out". Beyond this, there is now a Tie between Matthew and Acts since both show awareness of the Symbolism involved.
Last edited by Charles Wilson on Wed Nov 07, 2018 5:59 pm, edited 2 times in total.
John2
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Re: Judas Iscariot

Post by John2 »

But ... what about Paul? Is he not evidence that Jesus was "betrayed" (or "handed over," which I suppose amounts to the same thing)? So was Jesus betrayed/handed over by someone (or multiple people) at least?

1 Cor. 11:23:
For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread ...


Now, did Paul "receive from the Lord" the part about Jesus being betrayed at night, or only the part about the eucharist? My wild guess would be that it pertains only to the eucharist part. In other words, is "on the night he was betrayed" parenthetical? If so, then the idea (or possibly even the fact) that Jesus was betrayed (and at night, at that) was already known to other Christians and Mark could have (also) learned it from them.

So let's say there's something to the idea that Jesus was betrayed. Then we could have our cake and eat it too, even if the account of Judas in Mark is based on Ahithophel. It wouldn't necessarily mean that Mark was making up his betrayal story as much as he was thinking that it was foreshadowed in the OT, which is pretty much the MO of Christianity. As Paul says in 1 Cor. 2:7:
No, we declare God's wisdom, a mystery that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began.
And 1 Cor. 4:1:
This, then, is how you ought to regard us: as servants of Christ and as those entrusted with the mysteries God has revealed.
And in Rom. 16:25-26 (if it's not an interpolation), he says that these hidden "mysteries" were "made known through the prophetic writings":
Now to him who is able to establish you in accordance with my gospel, the message I proclaim about Jesus Christ, in keeping with the revelation of the mystery hidden for long ages past, but now revealed and made known through the prophetic writings by the command of the eternal God.


So I can see Mark taking up the betrayal idea (or fact) -whether he got it from Paul or other Christians- and writing what the OT "says" about it (in this case 2 Samuel).
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John2
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Re: Judas Iscariot

Post by John2 »

And maybe we can have both cakes and eat them too. Maybe Iscariot could mean "man from Kerioth" and be a play on sicarii (who would have been fresh on Mark's mind if he was writing c. 70 CE, regardless of the chronological problem it created, which Mark may not have even been aware of); and the name (or selection of) Judas could be a swipe at the archetypal radical Judas the Galilean. Why not?
Last edited by John2 on Wed Nov 07, 2018 7:36 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Ben C. Smith
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Re: Judas Iscariot

Post by Ben C. Smith »

John2 wrote: Wed Nov 07, 2018 4:18 pm
Ben C. Smith wrote: Wed Nov 07, 2018 3:58 pm
John2 wrote: Wed Nov 07, 2018 10:33 amThe "ish Kerioth" (or "man from Kerioth") idea doesn't seem to explain why Judas betrayed Jesus.
The influence may go in the other direction: a northern (Galilean) tradition about the betrayer of Jesus, noticing (as many commentators do) that Judas is based upon Ahithophel, betrayer of David, and also that Ahithophel hailed from the north (from Giloh, in the hill country), made sure to make Judas hail from possibly the southernmost town in Judea (refer to Joshua 15.25, for example) instead. It is worth pointing out that early Christians knew that Iscariot meant "man from Kerioth," as preserved in the manuscripts:

John 6.71: 71 Now He meant Judas the son of Simon Iscariot [א: Ἰούδαν Σίμωνος ἀπὸ Καρυώτου; A: nonextant; B, W: τὸν Ἰούδαν Σίμωνος Ἰσκαριώτου; D: Ἰούδαν Σίμωνος σκαριώθ; Byzantine: τὸν Ἰούδαν Σίμωνος Ἰσκαριώτην], for he, one of the twelve, was going to betray Him.

John 12.4: 4 But Judas Iscariot [א, B, W: Ἰούδας ὁ Ἰσκαριώτης; A, Byzantine: Ιούδας Σίμωνος Ἰσκαριώτης; D: Ἰούδας ἀπὸ Καρυώτου], one of His disciples, who was intending to betray Him, said....

John 13.26: 26 Jesus therefore answered, "That is the one for whom I shall dip the morsel and give it to him." So when He had dipped the morsel, He took and gave it to Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot [א, B: Ἰούδᾳ Σίμωνος Ἰσκαριώτου; A, W, Byzantine: Ἰούδᾳ Σίμωνος Ἰσκαριώτῃ; D: Ἰούδᾳ Σίμωνος ἀπὸ Καρυώτου].

John 14.22: 22 Judas, not Iscariot [א, A, B, W, Byzantine: Ἰούδας, οὐχ ὁ Ἰσκαριώτης; D: Ἰούδας, οὐχ ὁ ἀπὸ Καρυώτου], said to Him, "Lord, what then has happened that You are going to disclose Yourself to us, and not to the world?"

I didn't know any of that! That sounds very interesting. Geez, that would make a lot of sense too. Then I wouldn't have to deal with the "problematic" timing issue. And is this your preferred idea?
Yes, it is. At least right now. I am fairly certain of the connections between Ahithophel and Judas; those connections have been remarked upon by commentators of all stripes for a rather long time. I am less certain that the choice of Kerioth would be a way to make Judas definitively southern; that is just a plausible idea (which I get directly from Roger David Aus).

I do not think that Mark is the fountainhead of the passion traditions, including those surrounding Judas. I think, for example, that Mark's timing of the crucifixion, the way it is written, presupposes a more Johannine chronology which has been reworked so as to turn the Last Supper into the Passover meal (which it decidedly is not in John). We see one story about Judas' death in Matthew, quite another in Acts, and yet another in Papias and his intellectual successors. I do not think that this development is linear; it was a matrix from which all of the evangelists drew at will, and Mark either drew Judas' death from it only in a lost ending or he did not draw that part of it at all. I am quite convinced that trying to force all developments of these different trajectories into a strict Mark-Matthew-Luke order is a mistake; something like Mark preceded something like Matthew, I am pretty sure, but that does not mean that every detail in Mark preceded every detail in Matthew.
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Re: Judas Iscariot

Post by perseusomega9 »

John2 wrote: Wed Nov 07, 2018 5:55 pm But ... what about Paul? Is he not evidence that Jesus was "betrayed" (or "handed over," which I suppose amounts to the same thing)? So was Jesus betrayed/handed over by someone (or multiple people) at least?

1 Cor. 11:23:
For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread ...


Now, did Paul "receive from the Lord" the part about Jesus being betrayed at night, or only the part about the eucharist? My wild guess would be that it pertains only to the eucharist part. In other words, is "on the night he was betrayed" parenthetical? If so, then the idea (or possibly even the fact) that Jesus was betrayed (and at night, at that) was already known to other Christians and Mark could have (also) learned it from them.

If its parenthetical, that it could be a scribal interpolation inserting later gospel tradition into Paul.
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John2
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Re: Judas Iscariot

Post by John2 »

I was taking another look at MacDonald's Two Shipwrecked Gospels on Google books and I noticed that he discusses the resemblance between 2 Sam. 15-17 and Judas' betrayal.

https://books.google.com/books?id=SbpVq ... el&f=false

How did I miss that? I guess some things stick and some things don't. And I wasn't very interested in Judas when I first looked at the book.

And now I'm wondering about what Papias says about Judas, which MacDonald also discusses. He writes on page 31:
Papias explicitly attributed his version [of Judas' death] to oral informants, most likely auditors of the elders John and Aristion. One must choose between two assessments of the genesis of this vivid tale: (1) it was originally independent of the Gospel of Matthew, or (2) it was a polemical response to it prior to Papias.
And on page 34:
If Matthew created the suicide of Judas, odds are good for taking Papias's version of Judas' death as a polemical response to it.
And I found an old thread by Ben called "Apollinaris of Laodicea, Papias, and the death of Judas" that looks helpful.

viewtopic.php?t=1786

Ben wrote:
Two trajectories are thus possible:

1. Papias wrote the shorter version, with both the figurative chariot and the literal one, and Apollinarius elaborated on this story in sickening detail; at some point, these extra details were treated as if Papias himself had written them, got integrated into the story, and shoved out the death by chariot.

2. Papias wrote the longer version, with only a figurative chariot, and somebody at some point thought that, since a chariot was mentioned, a chariot must have done the deed (along the lines of what Bernard proposed above: to explain how someone can have their bowels spill out just from being fat); once the chariot was introduced, that was naturally interpreted as the end of the story, and the rest of the details became a separate commentary by Apollinarius.

I personally think that the second option makes more sense. For one thing, as I have mentioned, the figurative chariot turning into a literal chariot in the shorter version seems pretty strained, and unlikely to have been devised by a single author. For another, I think the whole point of the grotesquerie is that Judas died of his own sin and shame; his own body turned on him and disintegrated into a pile of pus and maggots. To turn his fatness into the mere cause of his getting run over by a chariot takes away some of the punch of the anecdote.

(Why did Papias want Judas to die such a horrible death? Because he played the traitor to Jesus, of course, but there is probably more. I owe the following to Dennis R. MacDonald in Two Shipwrecked Gospels: Papias may have wanted to contradict the Matthean account in which Judas repented before his death. Matthew had to hold out repentance for Judas because of a saying that he and only he had included at 19.28 to the effect that the twelve disciples with Jesus would rule Israel on twelve thrones. How can this happen if Judas is no longer one of the twelve? Well, Judas has to repent. Not everyone would be happy with this solution, though, and both Papias and Acts repudiate it by denying Judas both his repentance and his suicide.)
Hm. I'm already suspecting that Judas may have seen the resurrected Jesus (whether he had repented or not) in (an original version of) Mark, since it says in 14:27, “You will all fall away,” Jesus told them," and then in 14:28, "But after I have risen, I will go ahead of you into Galilee,” which I take to be the same "you's" and which might have something to do with why there is a Short Ending of Mark.

However things may be, Papias is very interesting, since MacDonald persuades me that he stands somewhere between Mark and Mathew on one hand and Luke/Acts and John on the other. And is there an earlier gospel commentator than Papias? In any event, Ben's thread is giving me the impression that the citation of Papias by Apollinaris is complicated and I need to give it some more thought.
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Ben C. Smith
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Re: Judas Iscariot

Post by Ben C. Smith »

John2 wrote: Thu Nov 08, 2018 11:27 amIn any event, Ben's thread is giving me the impression that the citation of Papias by Apollinaris is complicated and I need to give it some more thought.
Very much so. From that same thread:
Ben C. Smith wrote: Mon Aug 31, 2015 7:53 amI am going to put the issue of the death of Judas on hold for now while I reevaluate the attestation for the passage in Papias. There are some scholarly writings on the subject which I would like to consult. The whole issue hangs both on reconstructing what Apollinaris said and then on reconstructing how much of that came from Papias. I knew that the Apollinaris quotes one finds in lists of the Papias fragments were reconstructions, but until I actually tracked a few of them down I was not fully aware of just how complicated the sources are which go into those reconstructions.
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