The Death of Judas (Both Versions of the Story)

[Jagella]

The New Testament includes two versions of the story of the death of Judas. Matthew 27:5 tells us that Judas hanged himself, and Acts 1:18 says that Judas fell head-first and was disemboweled from the fall.

Most people might read these passages and see that there is a conflict between these two stories. Since these two stories are contradictory, at least one of them must be untrue, and we would then know that the Bible has at least one error in it.

Christian apologists cannot tolerate any errors in the Bible or in their beliefs, so they must reconcile these two conflicting stories. But how?

I am acquainted with an apologetic that is popular with Jehovah's Witnesses which they use to resolve the two stories of the death of Judas. According to at least two Jehovah's Witnesses I've spoken to, Judas hanged himself like Matthew 27:5 says, but the rope broke. Judas then fell, and the fall disemboweled him like we are told in Acts 1:18.

Question for Debate: Is this apologetic for the death of Judas plausible?

I can think of at least two reasons why the proposed reconciliation of the paradox of the death of Judas is not plausible. For one thing, nowhere does the Bible say that the rope Judas used to hang himself broke. Matthew tells us Judas hanged himself, and if Judas did hang himself, then hanging was the cause of his death. He could not have died that way if the rope broke.

The second objection I can raise is that if Judas fell headfirst like Acts tells us, then he could not have fallen that way if he hanged himself! Unless, of course, apologists wish to argue that Judas hanged himself by his feet.

[benchwarmer]

[Replying to post 1 by Jagella]

The two accounts are contradictory in the Christian apologetics sense that it is impossible for them to be true together. Matthew 27:8 says that the Field of Blood was called Field of Blood because strangers were buried there. Acts 1:18-19 says that it was called the Field of Blood because Judas's guts fell out there.

The actual death accounts are implausible because a fuller account of the tradition referenced in Acts is included in the Fragments of Papias:

Judas walked about in this world a sad example of impiety; for his body having swollen to such an extent that he could not pass where a chariot could pass easily, he was crushed by the chariot, so that his bowels gushed out.

This is pretty obviously based on the same tradition as the one in Acts, but can't be made to fit the "hanged himself then exploded" apologetic.

Well, there goes my unicorn theory. Thanks a lot!

Wait, maybe the horse pulling the chariot had a horn strapped to its head and that's what did the disemboweling before the head dashing from the chariot. Judas decided to hang himself in a narrow passage where chariots regularly run.

Phew, still all holds together...

[Jagella]

CARM : Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry.
https://carm.org/bible-difficulties/mat ... lling-down

There is no contradiction here at all because both are true.

A contradiction occurs when one statement excludes the possibility of another.

The Second Law of Logic, the Law of Non Contradition, (LNC) says that something cannot be both true and false at the same time and in the same sense. It is not a contradiction to describe something differently: Judas was hung and Judas fell down. Both are possible since neither negates the possibility of the other. A contradiction occurs when one statement makes another statement impossible but both are said to be true. So, what happened here is that Judas went and hung himself and then his body later fell down and split open. In other words, the rope or branch of the tree probably broke due to the weight and his body fell down and his bowels spilled out.

Also, notice that Matt. 27:3-8 tells us specifically how Judas died, by hanging. Acts 1:16-19 merely tells us that he fell headlong and his bowels gushed out. Acts does not tell us that this is the means of his death where Matthew does.

The problem with what CARM is arguing here is that they are not arguing how plausible or likely it is that the two accounts of the death of Judas are credible historical accounts. Rather, they go off on a tangent by denying that the two accounts strictly fit the definition of a contradiction. Even if the two accounts are not contradictory, they may still be in such a conflict that it would be folly to think both accounts are true.

[Jagella]

I suppose if we also presuppose that Judas also got HIMSELF above all these ledges to begin with in order to initially hang himself.

Those ledges would need to be aligned just the right way. The first ledge would need to be directly below his feet, and Judas would need to lean forward just a bit to cause him to fall forward then headfirst after his feet strike that first ledge. As his fall continues, he could not fall too vertically but with his body diagonal with respect to the ground. That diagonal orientation would then make possible his belly striking the second ledge, the second ledge at just the right position to make said belly-striking possible.

I'm sure many of us could come up with all sorts of Rube Golberg contraptions that allow someone to both hang themselves successfully and then also manage to have the rope break such that a head dashing and disembowelment follows.

My gospel:

Judas found the flimsiest piece of rope he could (because he liked doing the job poorly) and then proceeded to plan the actual hanging. He fancied the idea of riding a unicorn into the sunset so he found a horse and strapped a horn to its head. Then he found a suitable tree to tie the rope to. After tying the rope to the tree and around his neck, he mounted his 'unicorn'. He intended to have the unicorn bolt toward the sunset and snap his neck in the process. However, after slapping the unicorn on the flank, the unicorn balked and bucked him instead. He went flying up then down thereby breaking his neck, then the weak rope in short succession. As the unicorn/horse continued to flail around, poor Judas came down belly first right on the horn disemboweling himself in the process. After the unicorn/horse flipped him off his horn, he trampled him for good effect and thus dashed his head on rocks laying about on the ground.

Gee, I guess it is plausible after all.

Hey--you forgot to link to the apologetics website you got this from!

[Jagella]

There is the boring answer:
That "disemboweled" was used as an allegory for a horrible death. "Disemboweled" is such an unnatural condition, one could reasonably expect the writer to understand that it was a horrible death, and not an actual disembowelment.

Hmmm. I know it's common for apologists to argue semantics saying that alternate definitions or translations of the words in a Bible passage can smooth over an inconsistency or make the story in that passage more plausible. As a skeptic, I cut through all that nonsense and just say the Bible's wrong!

[bjs]

The mistake about the language from the opening post really bothers me. Acts says Judas “fell headlong,� not “headfirst.�

Jag seems to be arguing that Judas could not have hung himself because Acts says that he fell headfirst, sort of life a dive, which would not fit with hanging.

Acts actually says that he fell headlong, which is more like a man standing on a cliff and leaning forward until he goes over the edge.

Personally, I find the claim of a contradiction in this passage to be manufactured. Reading these two passages, even before I was a Christian, I pictured Judas finding a perch, tying a rope around his neck, and leaning forward until he fell and hung himself. His body remained there until it burst open from the heat and his intestines spilled out. (I was going to provide links to show that this is what would happen to a body that was left hanging, but it is rather disgusting so if you care to check you will have to do so yourself.)

[SallyF]

The mistake about the language from the opening post really bothers me. Acts says Judas “fell headlong,� not “headfirst.�

Jag seems to be arguing that Judas could not have hung himself because Acts says that he fell headfirst, sort of life a dive, which would not fit with hanging.

Acts actually says that he fell headlong, which is more like a man standing on a cliff and leaning forward until he goes over the edge.

Personally, I find the claim of a contradiction in this passage to be manufactured. Reading these to passages, even before I was a Christian, I pictured Judas finding a perch, tying a rope around his neck, and leaning forward until he fell and hung himself. His body remained there until it burst open from the heat and his intestines spilled out. (I was going to provide links to show that this is what would happen to a body that was left hanging, but it is rather disgusting so if you care to check you will have to do so yourself.)

That too is how I imagined it happening.

But I must emphasise that I was using my imagination.

Imagination is very important when it comes to matters of "faith".

One can imagine all manner of things that are not actually there … when one WANTS them to be there.

And if one has had one's imagination stimulated by the imaginings of other members of one's faith community, I suggest that the imaginings can become "reality" for the faith community.

The apologetic may be more or less plausible, but that does not mean that it is anywhere close to what may have happened.

The suggestion that we are dealing with deceptive fiction in sectarian propaganda is also plausible.

[Jagella]

The two accounts are contradictory in the Christian apologetics sense that it is impossible for them to be true together. Matthew 27:8 says that the Field of Blood was called Field of Blood because strangers were buried there. Acts 1:18-19 says that it was called the Field of Blood because Judas's guts fell out there.

Yes. I see no way to reconcile that conflict.

The actual death accounts are implausible because a fuller account of the tradition referenced in Acts is included in the Fragments of Papias:

Judas walked about in this world a sad example of impiety; for his body having swollen to such an extent that he could not pass where a chariot could pass easily, he was crushed by the chariot, so that his bowels gushed out.

This is pretty obviously based on the same tradition as the one in Acts, but can't be made to fit the "hanged himself then exploded" apologetic.

That's a good observation. If we have those extra details, then we have a better idea of what the heck the Bible writers were talking about. Oddly, the dearth of details in Biblical accounts opens the gate wide for apologists to insert all kinds of their own details that are intended from the start to make the Bible appear to be true.

[Jagella]

The mistake about the language from the opening post really bothers me. Acts says Judas “fell headlong,� not “headfirst.�

Jag seems to be arguing that Judas could not have hung himself because Acts says that he fell headfirst, sort of life a dive, which would not fit with hanging.

Acts actually says that he fell headlong, which is more like a man standing on a cliff and leaning forward until he goes over the edge.

Like I said, apologists love to argue semantics!

Anyway, the Greek word translated "headlong" in Acts 1:18 is π�ηνής. It can be defined as "face down." While I agree with you that face down is not exactly head first, the distinction in the meaning of the two words makes little difference to my argument that it is not likely that Judas fell that way when the rope he hanged himself broke.

But--I am corrected in the exact orientation of the body of the falling Judas. I was off by ninety degrees!

Personally, I find the claim of a contradiction in this passage to be manufactured. Reading these two passages, even before I was a Christian, I pictured Judas finding a perch, tying a rope around his neck, and leaning forward until he fell and hung himself. His body remained there until it burst open from the heat and his intestines spilled out. (I was going to provide links to show that this is what would happen to a body that was left hanging, but it is rather disgusting so if you care to check you will have to do so yourself.)

I'm not a coroner, but I've never heard of an exploding corpse before. Besides, I thought that Acts was telling us that the disembowelment was the cause of death.

I can also take issue with your version of how Judas hanged himself. Why would he lean forward to hang himself? It seems more likely to me that he would have stepped off his "perch," and when the rope became taut, his body would be forced into a vertical position. That vertical position would make a headlong fall unlikely.

This is all very gruesome, isn't it?

In conclusion, I cannot rule out your apologetic. Maybe Judas did by chance use an unusually weak rope that could not support his weight. Maybe he did manage to find a cliff and somehow fastened his rope to something above it. As he fell, he may have managed to lean forward into a prone position. After his fatal impact with the ground below, nobody noticed his body for a few days or at least long enough for the heat to cause his body to explode.

And let's not forget how this story was reported. Matthew skipped the disembowelment after the hanging, and Luke skipped the hanging. Both writers skipped the part about the rope breaking.

How likely is all that?

[JehovahsWitness]

Matthew 27:8 says that the Field of Blood was called Field of Blood because strangers were buried there.

WHAT'S IN A NAME?

Mathew gives several related but independently standing facts and concludes "... that is why" the field got it's name. The facts are as follows:

• 1. The money was "blood money" and viewed as unclean.
  
  2. The "unclean money" was eventually used to buy a field.
  
  3. The bought field came to be used for strangers.

The writer concludes "therefore" (or in some bible's "that is why").. "that field has been called Field of Blood". Would any of this contradict Peter's aside (after describing Judas suicide in the vacinity, stating ...

• 4. his [Judas'] body burst open at the site and all his insides spilled out

So was the place called “Field of Blood because of Judas gruesome end there or because it was bought with blood money or because strangers were buried there.

YOU GET A CAR! YOU GET A CAR! EVERYBODY GETS A CAR

• Whichever of the above facts came to light first, and whichever was the major force in its later designation, one thing is clear, there is no reason why all of the above (1-4) cannot be true. Neither Matthew 27 nor Acts claim to be exhaustive, and neither specifically exclude other factors influencing the popular desgnation. The bible narrators do not say which reason first came to light so like Oprah handing out new cars to her audience, the field may just have won on the gruesome lottery and as it's bloody history came to light so did it's name.

No need to call the contradiction police,


JW



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[Jagella]

[Replying to post 16 by SallyF]

Well, in this discussion we are forced to use our imaginations because the Bible fails to offer us the necessary details to really know the truth about the story of Judas and his very tragic death. I'm asking people to come up with plausible scenarios for how that death occurred based on the available information, and to do so it's necessary to imagine what may have happened if there was any real Judas at all.