Athrond

Okies.

Creationists often say that the story of judas death is some kind of sequence of events rather than the contradiction that it is :Cheeky: .

The bowels bursting verse, indicates that it happened in his field, so I'm thinking he hanged himself from a tree in that field.

How tall would such a tree have to be in order for someones bowels to burst from falling "headlong? It's not like he could have reached terminal velocity or anything approaching those speeds.

Very unlikely? Mythbusters anyone??

Athrond

Ben C Smith

A typical explanation is that he hanged himself from a tree at the edge of the field that stuck out over a ravine.

Ben.

Athrond

Still, it had better been a very deep and steep ravine, so deep and steep infact that it's as bogus as ever.

Ben C Smith

Well, a typical explanation for the bursting asunder is that the body had been left hanging for a while and was rotting, so it did not need to fall very far to split open.

Trust me. Anything can be explained with a little bit of ingenuity.

Ben.

karlmarx

"Blood" may refer to Judas' blood money, which he used to buy the field. The way I read this, it could be that Judas just crapped himself. A mundane explanation for what I think is a fictitious story.

Tyburn3

My understanding from a biblical course I took once upon a time, is that judas suspended himself over a sharpened stake and fell on it; very much like the Roman custom of falling on your sword. The fact that the practice involves suspending oneself led to it being translated as him having hanged himself.

Aaron Thrash

This explanation makes the most sense. Perhaps he became bloated from trapped gases, the skin became taut and burst upon impact.

Or, it could be that people fabricated the story to seem more entertaining and more torturous for those who go against gods beliefs.

Maybe early people did not realize that you crap your pants when you die.:Cheeky:

Ben C Smith

I personally tend to side with those who suppose that fitting but differently imagined deaths were invented for Judas, a death by hanging based on the death of Ahithophel (2 Samuel 17.23) and a death by swelling based on the deaths of Nadan (in the legend of Ahiqar), Herod Agrippa, Antiochus Epiphanes, and others.

Ben.

John Kesler

Don't forget the heartwarming story of Bel and the Dragon:

However, wouldn't the simplest explanation be that Luke's inspiration comes from the same chapter from which "Peter" quotes just two verses later to establish that Judas should be replaced, Psalm 109:

Might it be that Luke, envisioning Judas's being filled with the "water" of cursing, said that Judas died by bursting open?

Ben C Smith

It might be. And I really had never made that connection. However, the verse lacks a bursting, and the motif of swelling up and exploding is somewhat common in antiquity. I would be surprised if Luke knew nothing of Ahiqar or Antiochus or some other famous personage who supposedly died of bursting open.

Ben.