TedM

Having addressed Vorkosigan’s expectation for Judas to have been mentioned in the Epistle to the Hebrews in the previous post, I’ll proceed to his comments regarding the absence of Judas in 1 Clement:


I agree that Clement is talking about sedition. However, Vork seems to want to minimize the importance of the root cause of envy/jealousy, which he not only states repeatedly in his examples, but also stresses in his final statements as pertaining to the current situation he was writing to the Corinthians about:

Though Judas’ betrayal is mentioned in all 4 gospels and Acts, no reason of jealousy or envy is ascribed to his actions. If the problem is sedition which is “caused by envy� and Judas was not perceived to have acted out of envy or jealousy, then Judas is not a valid example for the author to have used.


Do the accounts of Judas ascribe ANOTHER reason? YES! Judas was paid 30 pieces of silver for the betrayal. We have two other accounts that show us that Judas was motivated by money: First, in John 13:29 it says that Judas was the keeper of the money box. He was the treasurer. Second, in John 12:5 Judas complains that the costly ointment that Mary used to anoint the feet of Jesus could have been given to the poor. The next verse reveals Judas to have been a thief: “This he said, not that he cared for the poor but because he was a thief, and as he had the money box, he used to take what was put into it�. In Mark 14:10-11 we see that immediately after this incident Judas went to the chief priests in order to betray Jesus…�and when they heard it they were glad, and promised to give him money. And he sought an opportunity to betray him.� The only stated reason for betrayal was for money, not jealousy or envy.


Again, as Vorkosigan seems to recognize, the emphasis is on envy. If Judas wasn’t motivated by envy, but by money, why should he deserve “some mention�? Further, as is evident from the above passage, the author was going through the Old Testament on a chronological basis, so Judas doesn’t fit in at this point. Like in Hebrews, the emphasis was in instructing by use of the OT, as the author of 1 Clement says plainly in 53:1: Finally, with regard to your assertion that Joseph is the literary source of the Judas tale--if that is true there is no need to discuss this any further. As such, it is not relevant to this argument because it is an entirely different argument.

I might point out further that in each of the examples given above, with the exception of Moses and the Pharaoh, the motivations of envy and jealously are very clear from the context, and are not invented by the author of 1 Clement. If he had known of the Judas story, there is little reason to suspect that he might ascribe an invented motivation beyond that given in the gospel accounts.


He is comparing the sedition against Moses’ instructions to the CURRENT sedition against Jesus’ instructions passed along through the apostles. Though the author could have mentioned Judas and his sedition and explained it‘s necessity, there was no “need� to bring that up because the issue he was really comparing Moses to wasn’t the appointment of apostles. It was to the successive appointments by those apostles, and in turn by those who had been appointed. THAT’S where the sedition was now.


I think the silence in this passage may explained in two ways:

1. Judas was not jealous or envious, as were the seditious Corinthians.

2. Judas was not a believer in Jesus, as far as we know.

3. Any rift among the other disciples caused by Judas was short-lived, since his act was unanticipated by them (they had no idea that Judas would betray Jesus until the exact moment it occurred), Judas was dead and the original 11 were a coherent unit again within a few days.

4. Judas was not among the disciples commissioned by Jesus to go out and preach the gospel. Nor was he among those who appointed successors. If the accounts of Judas are true, he was gone before the advent of Christianity. He was immediately replaced by another disciple. If the author wanted to give examples of early strife amongst the apostles, St. Paul would have been a much more fitting example. After all Paul’s second letter to the same Corinthian church appears to have primarily been a defense of his own authority as a fellow apostle!

5. A comparison of the seditious Corinthians to Judas may have been too extreme for the authors style. According to http://www.earlychristianwritings.co....html#1clement

The author encourages the seditious to repent in a diplomatic way, recalling the words found in the gospels of Jesus himself:

To compare the believers who were currently sinning and whom he calls to repentance to the thief Judas who killed their Savior and who may have never even been a believer, and who then ended up taking his own life may have been just a little too extreme for one trying to be diplomatic.


I agree that there were occasions for the author to have mentioned Judas and his betrayal of Jesus as an example of sedition, but for the many reasons listed above, I don’t see a good reason for a high expectation of such mention given the context of the entire letter, nor the specific contexts cited by Vorkosigan.

ted

Roger Pearse

That sentence is not to be found in Chadwick's translation.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

TedM

Vorkosignan, now that I’ve addressed your arguments regarding the absence of Judas in Hebrews and 1 Clement, I’ll respond to your other comments in favor of the fictional invention of Judas:

Matthew gives an account of the death of Judas. John tells us that he was keeper of the money box, and a thief. Acts gives a similar account of the death of Judas in the Field of Blood. None of these are mentioned by Mark. For your implication to be correct you are accusing all three of these authors of lying about additional information pertaining to Judas, are you not?

As for the absence of mention by Paul, and the books of James, Hebrews, 1&2 Peter, Jude, Revelations, and 1&2&3 John, I reject this argument unless you can come up with passages in which you would expect such a mention given their contexts.

This is wrong. He was thrown into a pit by his eleven other brothers. Joseph was one of the twelve brothers, and one of the twelve tribes was named after him! Obviously this doesn’t correspond to the situation with Jesus. Jesus wasn’t one of the twelve. SO, nice try. Also, no one is saying that the choice of twelve disciples coincided with twelve tribes by coincidence. It is quite reasonable to conclude that twelve disciples were deliberately chosen to correspond with the twelve tribes.

Well, in the case of Joseph who else were they going to be handed over to? In the case of Jesus the betrayal actually was first into the hands of fellow Jews. Mark 14:43: “..Judas came, one of the twelve, and with him a crowd with swords and clubs, from the chief priests and the scribes and the elders.� Of course the final say would require Roman involvement, but this connection would have been stronger had the instigators of betrayal been Romans, and not Jewish religious leaders.

It would have helped if the amount was the same. Money is a common means of purchase, so this doesn’t seem all that surprising to me.


Yes, that is a good comparison. However, that same Judah actually saved Joseph from death in the pits by selling him: Gen 37:26 “Then Judah said to his brothers, “What profit is it if we slay our brother and conceal his blood?“ In the story of Judas and Jesus, Judas’ sale resulted in the death of Jesus, so the result was completely the opposite! As for the name of Judas, which means “Jehovah leads�, since it was a name of one of the tribes, and the one from whom the Messiah would come, it was a popular name in Jesus' day: Another of the 12 disciples was also named Judas, one of Jesus' brother's name was Judas, Paul traveled with another Judas, and one of the two mentioned "Messiah's" of the day in Acts and by Josephus was named Judas. So, this is not a strong coincidence of names.


So we have ALL of the 11 brothers betraying their fellow brother Joseph as compared to 1 of the 12 disciples betraying their leader Jesus. We have a direct delivery by the betraying brothers Gentile hands vs. a direct delivery by Judas into Jewish hands, to only later be put under Gentile control. We have a common means of payment with a different dollar amount. And, we have a common name attached to the idea of sale for profit, yet the result in one case was delivery from death and in the other was delivery INTO death. Of course you can always argue for a “reverse comparison� or something like that, just to cover all the bases, but you still have all the differences to contend with. None of the 12 disciples knew of Judas’ plans vs. ALL of the 11 brothers planning together and one of them (Reuban) trying to save him, the different dollar amount, the different end result.. IMO the only similarity worth considering is the name of Judas attached to betrayal for profit, but this needs to be OFFSET by the obvious differences in the stories also. To not offset it at all is to skew the picture which results in seeing what one wants to see.



That’s a decent argument from silence, though it is just as surprising that Paul doesn’t mention any of the false apostles directly in 2 Cor 11 either! Sometimes arguments from silence simply expect too much.

I’m not sure why you say that. In Mark, clearly Judas was portrayed as a betrayer who was doing something wrong, and Jesus wasn‘t expecting to meet his betrayer in Galilee after his resurrection:
A “careful reading� shows that the idea that Judas hadn’t really done anything for which he was accountable is ridiculous. The fact that both Paul and Mark use the same Greek word of "paradidomi" to mean "betrayed" and Mark is clearly referring to a betrayal by Judas and not a "delivering up" by God, can reasonably argue for Paul having the same intention, regardless of what other word Luke later used or Paul could have used. Of course, Paul's one other use, as I've agreed is helpful to the opposite conclusion but the absence of other references by Paul makes it prudent to consider the meaning of others (such as Mark) who do use the exact same Greek word.




This is no big deal to me. “The twelve� likely was a common expression meant to apply to the disciples of Jesus which would be retained any time they were referenced.


It is not clear that the Q saying mentions 12 thrones. The Q book I have from Borg simply has “Jesus said to his followers, “You have stayed close to me through all of my trials. You will eat and drink with me in the realm of God.�

If the tradition came from real fact, then we have several options: 1. Jesus didn’t know until after he said this that he would be betrayed. This is consistent with Matthew, but not Luke and not Gjohn. 2. Jesus didn’t say this until after he knew of the betrayal. This is consistent with Luke, but not Matthew and Gjohn. 3. Jesus knew of his betrayor, but was making a bigger point about the rewards for his followers, and wasn‘t interested in revealing a betrayor among them at the time he said it. 4. Jesus never actually said anything about 12 thrones, and the author of Matthew made a mistake by inserting the number 12.

If the saying was not from real fact, but was from a “developing tradition� then why didn’t the author of Matthew “catch� it, since he obviously incorporated information about Judas from Mark--and even added additional information about Judas’ death?


In all, the strongest point made is the name of Judas associated with profit for betrayal. However, this is offset by the many differences in the story that don't match and actually contradict the story. The other arguments presented may have some collective value but individually are none of them very strong because of the reasonable alternative explanations that exist.

This completes my response to Vorkosigan's challenges regarding Silence #13.

ted

Vorkosigan

Shit, Ted. That's a lot of response. I'll be back here soon.

Vorkosigan

TedM

I was sick yesterday, so had some time on my hands.. Still, it took me several weeks to respond to your original post, so take as much time as you need Michael.

ted

andrewcriddle

I don't have Chadwick's translation on hand but the reference should be Contra Celsus Book 8 Chapter 13 NOT Book 5 Chapter 2

Andrew Criddle