Was Judas Really That Bad?

[Purple Knight]

Question for debate: Was Judas Iscariot really that bad?

I don't hate Judas. Nothing about his (admittedly not fleshed-out) character bothers me. I could have been his friend even after the betrayal. That doesn't mean I agree with anyone betraying anyone, and perhaps this is me being messed-up, but nothing Judas did really bothers me to the point I'd cut ties if I knew him.

First I ask myself why he was stealing from Jesus's group. There are basically two unforgivably horrible things you can do in that time where you'd need large sums of money: Drinking, and gambling. I don't think Judas probably did either. Signs point to him being a bit of a fatty so maybe he overindulged in food, but coming from my perspective (I see welfare recipients whip out an EBT card for grocery carts full of what I consider indulgences like $10 tiny little bottles of pomegranate juice and snobby cheeses) that's not really that bad. Reverse two thousand years and maybe the guy just wanted to have meat every day. Maybe the disciples ate mostly grass or often went hungry. Morally right? No. Understandable? To me, definitely. I can't condemn someone for stealing if it's for food.

And what did he do with the blood money he got? He bought a field. He didn't drink or gamble away that money (those would be dealbreakers for me). He bought something that he could invest in that would be useful later. Add some seeds and a couple servants or slaves to a field and you've got a farm. A farm is not a bad thing to want. That's the kind of greed I don't have a problem with. Yes, it was paid for by a life, but lives were routinely bought and sold in those times to pay for whatever you wanted; there was legalised slavery.

No matter how I look at this, I can't really get my mind round to a perspective that paints Judas as a terrible person. And not that this excuses it, but let's be honest, if Jesus was really a wanted man but went about to populated areas to teach, he was going to be caught eventually anyway. From the perspective of Judas, he's probably thinking, it'll happen sooner or later so I might as well have the silver. He might have even been uncomfortable with being a disciple at that point, and wanting it to be over. Or he might have been legitimately scared to be following around a wanted criminal all day, and acting primarily from that. Perhaps he was unsure. If we're unsure, we do tend to default to the law.

[Miles]

I'm no Roman legal scholar, but I suspect that chasing everyone out of the Temple square with a whip broke some sort of law.

No it did not.

So, you are a Roman legal scholar? You sound pretty sure of yourself.

No I am not. But I know that the temple of Jesus day was under Jewish jurisdiction* and he broke no Jewish law by evicting the traders. There was no law against turning over tables or scattering animals.

No law against disturbing the peace, or abusing personal property? And where did Jesus get the right to attack and evict anyone? Was it his temple? Obviously the Temple establishment allowed the animal vendors and money changers to use the temple or they wouldn't have been able to set up shop in the first place. Then along comes Jesus who doesn't see it their way and throws a hissy fit. Think you'd like it if some outside Christian came into your Kingdom Hall and started throwing furniture around and kicking people out the door because he didn't like the way you and your congregation were using its place of worship?



.

[Difflugia]

But I know that the temple of Jesus day was under Jewish jurisdiction* and he broke no Jewish law by evicting the traders.

* short of inciting a riot the Romans would have left temple oversite to the Jewish authorities

Do you have a source for this? I think you are (or your source is) confused about what being "under Jewish jurisdiction" means. I decided to call your, well, maybe not bluff, but I'm calling your hand, anyway. I checked the library to see what I could find about Roman Imperial law with regard to the provinces. It seems that there were broadly two spheres of law in the Roman Republic, which then carried over to the Roman Empire: "public" and "private." Public law comprises the laws that affect the public at large, which means the state. Political offences like bribery and sedition were public affairs. Private law encompasses what we now typically call torts, but in the time of the Republic was much broader and included many things that we would now call public crimes. Personal violence, for example, was a private affair and a physically injured party could sue for economic loss. In the provinces, it was the private law that sometimes didn't apply, or more often, applied in a sort of combined form. From New Frontiers: Law and Society in the Roman World edited by Paul J. du Plessis, p. 88:

Those who went to the trouble and expense of litigating a dispute through a Roman court (or courts), or petitioning a Roman offi cial or emperor, would be judged, in general, according to Roman legal principles. Emperors, jurists and Roman offi cials under the Early Empire did take some established customs, ‘ancient practices’ and even ‘peregrine laws’ into account. For example, an imperial rescript promulgated on 26/27 March, 224 CE informs a certain Aper, a veteran, that whether the ruins of a house could be legally turned into a garden or not (thus changing the original land use) would be decided by the provincial governor on the basis of ‘what has usually been done in the town in similar cases’.

During the time of the Republic, personal violence wouldn't have broken public law and thus not properly been criminal, but there was a specific Roman criminal act that covered political violence. From Roman Law and the Legal World of the Roman by Andrew M. Riggsby, p. 200

Vis. The Latin name for this offense means simply “force” or “violence,” but the scope of the crime seems to have been much narrower. Prosecutions for vis did not arise from just any use of violence (say, a tavern brawl or a mugging), but only from those that were “against the state.” That is, the violence had to have a clear political aim or be on such a scale (a riot more than an assault) as to take on political implications. Over time, some individual acts seem to have been specified by the statute or by explanatory decrees of the Senate (e.g., seizing public places, stirring up the troops), but the basic definition remained abstract and vague.

In the legal environment of the Republic, Jesus' "cleansing of the Temple" might not have been considered vis simply because its impact was too limited (although, if we take the Gospels at face value, he did "cast out all them that sold and bought in the Temple"), but as the Empire expanded the sphere of criminality, Jesus' actions almost certainly would have been considered crimes against the Empire. From p. 69:

Over the course of the late Republic and early Empire, however, more and more of this behavior came to be discouraged or even criminalized. Vis, a criminal offense that originally encompassed riot and sedition, was extended “downward” to more private, individualized acts of violence.

Since vis was a capital crime, Jesus was a criminal that had earned the death penalty.

[Purple Knight]

If he didn't [think Jesus would be put to death] he was delusional as well as corrupt.

Little from column A, little from column B, I expect. No one would say that he himself was corrupt. People invent reasons that what they do is actually okay, and most of them believe it. When you really can't convince yourself that you do no wrong is when you put your hands on an innocent person.

I don't pretend to know what Judas believed or what motivated him to do as he did, but the Bible narrative is clear: Judas had every reason to believed his betrayal would lead to Jesus death.

There had been at least 4 reported death plots in Jesus regard. There had been a warrant for Jesus' arrest since the Festival of light (sept/Oct 32). The rumours that the religious leaders wanted him dead were common knowledge (see John 7:25) .

In view of this if Judas seriously expected the religious leaders unlawful arrest to lead to a lawful trial and acquittal he was stupid as well as disloyal.

Two of Satan's favourite traits for the useful idiots he uses as his puppets.

I'm not sure where idiots fit in the scheme of good and evil. I just know that everywhere I turn there's someone harming me and someone else looking at my disdain with tenfold the disdain because, "he doesn't know any better." The "he doesn't know any better" people always seemed excessively moral to me so I couldn't say if ignorance (maybe even deliberate or self-justification-style semi-deliberate ignorance) is a legitimate cop-out or not.

I've listened to you and your explanation is, God makes sure we know. It's a good explanation. There's still a full spectrum from simply being stupid and being legitimately deceived by others who are smarter, to being non-receptive and numb out of being bombarded with moral edicts, to being semi-deliberately-ignorant, to outright ignoring it and willfully turning away from at very least, something that might be true.

So how do you understand obtained a field with the reward?

I understand it this way:

Judas felt so guilty that he got an ulcer and coughed blood. The blood spattered on his bread in the shape of the face of Athena and three insane Greeks gave him a field for it. This was instead of eating the bread, so Judas had to eat from the garbage that day and he became very ill. At that point he went to get his stomach pumped (not because this was an established treatment in this time but because, in his food-poisoning-induced delusion, he became convinced that the sick itself could be drawn from his stomach as from a well) but the only ones who would do it were the Greeks, and only in the field. One of these sages was a mentally handicapped time-traveler who thought he could build the pump, but he'd reversed the polarity, and this was the very reason Judas ultimately exploded.

Really it makes little difference whether the accounts can or cannot be reconciled. I'm taking the worse of the two, rather than the one who was so remorseful he killed himself. And still, he just doesn't look that bad.

And where did Jesus get the right to attack and evict anyone? Was it his temple?

From God, and yes. But as you point out, it's difficult for the people whose property is being invaded to see it that way. I have a unique perspective because I'm terrified of moral people, so if someone carrying the weight of morality scattered my animals and turned over my tables, I would be very upset but ultimately I would accept that they had every right to do it and count myself lucky to still be alive. Much the same has happened to me and I'm bitter, but ultimately when someone hurts me and I hear the first whisper of "because morality," I know it's a fight I won't win, so I don't fight. I just take whatever moral edicts they explain how I've just violated and try to follow them in the future. It's a miserable existence. And only a minority of people doing this are even religious.

Does your atheism collapse, if you can’t find mistake in the Bible?

I agree with this in that I think people who disagree with the Bible are too obsessed with finding contradictions in it.

The Bible is a book of stories that are fundamentally about morality. Whether or not any of it actually happened (which is all you disprove if there are contradictions) is absolutely irrelevant if the stories teach good morality. They obviously don't teach useful morality if the only way for someone to be good is to do both A and not-A, but that's a very specific kind of contradiction.

[JehovahsWitness]

No law against disturbing the peace, or abusing personal property?

No, the notion of "disturbing the peace" was foreign to traditional Hebrew law save that of prohibition of apostacy (teachings). There were laws against theft or criminal damage but the bible doesn't say Jesus broke the tables only that he overturned them.


WHO HAD JURISDICTION OVER THE 2ND TEMPLE?

However, a sanhedrin was assembled at Jabneh, ... Composed of leading scholars, it functioned as the supreme religious, legislative, and educational body of Palestinian Jews; it also had a political aspect, since its head, the nasi, was recognized by the Romans as the political leader of the Jews (patriarch, or ethnarch). - https://www.britannica.com/topic/sanhedrin

Sanhedrin Gedolah ...[delt] with questions relating to the Temple, the priesthood, the sacrifices, and matters of a kindred nature. Adolf Büchler assumes indeed that there were in Jerusalem two magistracies ...[t]hat to which the Gospels and Josephus refer was the highest political authority, and at the same time the supreme court; this alone was empowered to deal with criminal cases and to impose the sentence of capital punishment. The other, sitting in the hall of hewn stone, was the highest court dealing with the religious law, being in charge also of the religious instruction of the people (Sanh. xi. 2-4). - Jewish Encyclopedia

In the time of Jesus’ earthly ministry the Roman government allowed the Sanhedrin a great measure of independence, granting it civil and administrative authority. It had officers at its disposal as well as the power of arrest and imprisonment. (Mt 26:47; Ac 4:1-3; 9:1, 2) Its religious authority was recognized even among the Jews of the Dispersion. (See Ac 9:1, 2.) However, under the Roman rule the Sanhedrin in time evidently lost the legal authority to execute the death penalty, unless they got the permission of the Roman governor (procurator). - Insight on the Scriptures

Despite [Roman] rule, however, these authorities granted the Jews with some degree of power, since the Jews were allowed to impose a civil law to serve as a binding law amongst themselves. This chapter explores how the Romans gave much importance to jurisdiction, since this varied with situation. There were two main kinds of jurisdictions: the public jurisdiction, which mainly concerned criminal law; and the civil jurisdiction, which dealt with matters of private law, specifically that of property law, contract law, family law, and the like. This chapter looks into the need to differentiate and determine which system was to be imposed over the Jews, and how the Romans were able to manage such power even after giving the Jews a certain degree of legal authority. - An Introduction to the History and Sources of Jewish Law

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JW

[Tcg]

No law against disturbing the peace, or abusing personal property?

No. There were laws against theft or criminal damage but the bible doesn't say he broke the tables only that he overturned them. Jesus broke no Jewish law.

JW

This is an interesting assertion. Perhaps you can support it by documenting how you know what "Jewish law" at the time consisted of.


Tcg

[JehovahsWitness]

short of inciting a riot the Romans would have left temple oversite to the Jewish authorities

Vis, a criminal offense that originally encompassed riot and sedition, was extended “downward” to more private, individualized acts of violence.

If Jesus had committed any acts of "criminal violence" under Roman law or attempted to incite a riot, he no doubt would have been charged as such . As it was he was charged with sedition and found innocent before a Roman court.

One is not generally viewed as a criminal until one has been charged and convicted of a crime.

JW

[Difflugia]

WHO HAD JURISDICTION OVER THE 2ND TEMPLE?

Your references and my references all say the same thing, that the Romans afforded provincial authorities in general and Jewish authorities in particular some measure of governmental autonomy. Neither my references nor yours, however, support your extrapolation:

* short of inciting a riot the Romans would have left temple oversite to the Jewish authorities

All of the references suggest the same thing, that there were overlapping layers of jurisdiction. Jesus was subject to whatever legal principles were set by the local governing body, but was also subject to Roman public law. At the time, roughly eighty years after the advent of the Roman Empire, both Roman public and private law prohibited the sort of violent acts that Jesus committed. Indeed, in the second century BCE, private law had expanded the concept of injury to include indignity suffered from the assault (Riggsby, p. 192), which means that Jesus was not only a public criminal, but had broken the law in terms of private liability, even if the recovery of damages by the injured was impractical; the simple fact of unenforceability doesn't somehow make Jesus' actions legal. The further fact that his crimes happened within a province or the Temple square rather than Rome doesn't absolve him of them (du Plessis, p. 88):

Since at least Mitteis and Schönbauer, Roman historians have in fact acknowledged the existence of other types of ‘organized legal knowledge’ existing alongside Roman law in certain provinces of the early Empire: ‘Greek law’, ‘Egyptian law’, ‘Jewish law’, ‘Nabatean law’, what Mélèze Modrzejewski terms ‘Hellenistic law’, and so on. Much of this scholarship, however, tends to be based upon what Lauren Benton (in a different context) describes as a ‘stacked legal systems or spheres’ model: a model that imagines a number of ‘ordered, nested legal spheres or systems’, with state law, in our case to be understood as Roman law, ‘capping the plural legal order’ through its ability to establish a monopoly on violence.

Did you catch that? Roman law existed alongside provincial legal systems rather than being superseded by it. Your claim that the Roman legal system had no "jurisdiction" within the Temple grounds is baseless and results from a misunderstanding of your sources.

[Difflugia]

Vis, a criminal offense that originally encompassed riot and sedition, was extended “downward” to more private, individualized acts of violence.

If Jesus had committed any acts of "criminal violence" under Roman law or attempted to incite a riot, he no doubt would have been charged as such . As it was he was charged with sedition and found innocent before a Roman court.

The "cleansing of the Temple" is described as violence as a political statement during a time when the Temple square would have been packed. I agree that there's "no doubt" that he would have been charged (or summarily executed, as a prefect had the power to order). Rather than an indiication that what Jesus did was somehow technically legal, the fact that he wasn't apprehended, charged, or outright killed is much more of an indication that the story itself is simply ahistorical.

One is not generally viewed as a criminal until one has been charged and convicted of a crime.

Is that the new position of the goalposts? Are you abandoning the claim that Jesus broke no law in favor of a new claim that he wasn't convicted of breaking any?

[JehovahsWitness]

Your claim that the Roman legal system had no "jurisdiction" within the Temple grounds is baseless and results from a misunderstanding of your sources.

Where did I claim that {quote} " the Roman legal system had no "jurisdiction" within the Temple grounds "?

JW

[Difflugia]

Where did I claim that {quote} " the Roman legal system had no "jurisdiction" within the Temple grounds "?

You said:

But I know that the temple of Jesus day was under Jewish jurisdiction and he broke no Jewish law by evicting the traders.

If you didn't intend that to be exclusively Jewish jurisdiction, then you didn't actually address the point I made. Was I being too charitable when I assumed otherwise?