Jesus Christ

Is Judas "real" or just a means... of promoting anti-semitism. I have read that the gospels are rather anti-semetic - proposing that the Jews killed Jesus, not the Romans. Pilate, of course, washed his hands and put the blame of Christ's death on the Jewish people who in turn had the "son of God" cucified... this, of course, is obviously anti-semitic.

But I wonder about Judas. Is it coincidence that Judas's name is a derivitive of Judaism, litereally meaning "Jew." It seems a little too coincidental that the apostle named JEW was the one who turned Jesus in - and then it was the Jews who killed him.

Is it possible that Judas was not even an apostle; that he was created to further promote the anti-semitic ideal of the new testiment?

Toto

You are not the first person who has had this idea. It's possible, maybe even probable. Judas is a contrived literary figure with no attestation outside of the gospels.

Roland

I doubt Judas existed. The first person to mention him outside the Bible is Papias around 125 AD. And his explanation of Judas' death is so preposterous and far-fetched that it can scarcely have much validity behind it.

As far as I know, not even Justin Martyr mentions him.

ichabod crane

There is in fact a very good reason why the gospel writers might have wanted to create the character of Judas. They were portraying Jesus as a Davidic-style king, and therefore would have wanted to make parallels between the life of David and the life of Jesus. David was betrayed by his advisor Ahithophel, who ended up hanging himself. Hence the story of Judas who betrayed Jesus and went out and hanged himself (in the Matthew account anyway). I suppose it is possible that Judas has some historic origin, but, if so, the story of his betrayel seems to me to have been embelished with time. The parallels with Ahithophel are too convenient.

Chili

Judaism is a mystery religion that serves as a means to the end. In the beginning it must become our identity and as we near the end it must first betray us and later self destruct through the understanding of our faith. Hung in Matthew and spill its guts when all becomes clear.

The gospels are not anti-semetic and the conviction of Jesus by the Jews was the greatest thing they ever accomplished . . . for the law was given to Moses not to stop sin but to convict the accomplished Jewish believer of sin. Those who deny this are the very Jews that crucified (and will continue to crucify) the son of God (see anti-semitism in the gospels) while those who condemned Jesus to be crucified only convicted the Jewish identity and handed the son of man over to Pilate who would deal with this according to state law (as opposed to Jewish law).


If Judas was not an apostle what makes you think the others were? If the gosples are true they must first be true as a metaphysical event and from there you can look into history for related evidence that they were true.

funinspace

A name made up in the Canon, never! I mean who wouldn't name their son "Heal" (aka Jacob); or maybe "Son of" (aka Mosheh Egyptian, Moses), oops that's "Drawn out" if you twist the Hebrew enough. In reality, who could ever really know for sure which details are "real".

DK