Originally Posted by davidH

In answer to your Judas statement:

Matthew 27.

1. Judas gets 30 silver coins
2. Realises what he had done and wants to return the money.
3. Priests couldn't care less what he had done - Judas flings the money into the temple and leaves.
4. He went away and hung himself
5. Priests use the money to by the potter's field to use as a burial ground for foreigners.

Acts 1

1. With the reward Judas got, he bought a field.
2. There he fell headlong, his body burst open and all his intestines fell out.

Firstly if the Bible is correct in everything that it says then:

The priests wouldn't accept 'blood money' for their own use. It was against the law to put it into the treasury, because of what it had been used to condemn an innocent man to death.

That field were Judas hung himself would have been considered cursed/defiled (Remember the whole of Jerusalem heard about it- the priests then bought the field in Judas' name for they couldn't consider the money as their own, so it was his money and hence the reason why it became a graveyard for foreigners.

I guess the biggest problem that is seen with this is not that Juads fell headlong - since he could well have fell after hanging himself, rather it is in that statement of Peter "Judas bought a field".

Looking at it from a different angle - did the priests buy the field?

If I have 10 dollars, and I give the $10 to my little brother and tell him to go down to the shop and get me $10 worth of sweets. He returns and gives me the sweets.

Who bought the sweets?

Sure my little brother paid for the sweets, but did he buy them?

The answer is that I bought them - because my money was paid, they are mine - I get them. My brother only acted as a messenger to get the money from my wallet to the shop.

There is a difference between paying and buying. If I pay for something, I have not necessarily bought it. eg. I pay for the flights for my sister, but it is she who has bought the tickets.

The person who buys something exchanges their money for something and therefore owns what they have bought. If you use my money to get something you can't say that you own it, it is still mine because you only paid my money.

So Peter is correct when he says that Judas bought the field

It wasn't the priests' money - it was Judas' - he bought the field, the priests only paid for it.