aChristian

You're kind of touchy aren't you? The point was that Paul and Jesus were contemporaries. He pointed out an incident where Paul stood over the clothes of those who stoned Stephen (yes, you are right, Paul didn't throw any stones, although guarding the clothes probably indicated complicity with the action and some guilt). Now to repeat the answer to the main question you had, Paul and Jesus didn't necessarily meet, but they were alive at the same time.

aChristian

sschlicter has given you good answers and very good examples (Lincoln and 911), but you just refuse to accept the obvious. By the way, I think the better explanation is still that the rope broke (or the tree branch) as he hung himself and landed on the rocks.

aChristian

Well, I read it and, as I expected, it is nonsense.

sschlichter

These 2 passages are the total sum of everything we know about Judas' regret, death, and subsequent land ownership.

(Matt 27:3) Now when Judas, who had betrayed him, saw that Jesus had been condemned, he regretted what he had done and returned the thirty silver coins to the chief priests and the elders,
(Matt 27:4) saying, "I have sinned by betraying innocent blood!" But they said, "What is that to us? You take care of it yourself!"
(Matt 27:5) So Judas threw the silver coins into the temple and left. Then he went out and hanged himself.
(Matt 27:6) The chief priests took the silver and said, "It is not lawful to put this into the temple treasury, since it is blood money."
(Matt 27:7) After consulting together they bought the Potter's Field with it, as a burial place for foreigners.
(Matt 27:8) For this reason that field has been called the "Field of Blood" to this day.

(Acts 1:18) (Now this man Judas acquired a field with the reward of his unjust deed, and falling headfirst he burst open in the middle and all his intestines gushed out.
(Acts 1:19) This became known to all who lived in Jerusalem, so that in their own language they called that field Hakeldama, that is, "Field of Blood.")

He regretted what he had done.
He may have regretted the consequences, he may have been truly sorrowful. However, the word is not the greek word used for repentance usually, so it is safe to say he did not. His path was different then the others. Most of the apostles betrayed and/or ran off as well, and they were restored. He was not.

The chief priests did not want the money back and bought a field with it
They said it is not lawful to take the money so they consulted with themselves and bought a field with what they obviously felt was Judas' money making it Judas' field, either figuratively or literally. Acts 1:18 says that he acquired a field, not that he himself purchased it. This could be a statement saying "look what he got for his treachery, a field of blood". It could also mean that the priests legally purchased the field in his name since they were not comfortable taking the money back. Who knows? Who could know? There is not enought information to really figure it out.

Judas death
He went out and hanged himself. In the act of hanging, or after rotting, his intestines burst and spilled out. Nothing more is known about this. All else in conjecture.

No, there is not enough information to know.


ok

explained above

I have no need to make an assumption. unknown

explained above

well, Judas hung himself, and then probably rotted and his guts swelled and exploded. However, this is only slightly outside of the realm of conjecture.

What is more germane in the passage is the purpose of the author, not the details of the death of Judas. The purpose for Matthew was not only historical but the fulfillment of the prophecy in Jer 32:6-9. The Jeremiah passage has much of the same imagery that Matthew is drawing upon; silver pieces, blood, the renaming of a place in the valley of Hinnom (the traditional location of the potters field). It is also fullfillment of Zech 11:4-17 where Zechariah throws silver back to the potter in the temple because 30 pieces of silver was the redemptive price for the death of a slave (Exod 21:32).

It is also reminiscent of Joseph who like Jesus was beloved of his father, betrayed by his brothers and countrymen for silver pieces, was put into the ground, and later raised up, exalted by God for the purpose of saving Jews and Gentiles alike.

I see no contradictions in these 2 passages.

~Steve

aa5874

Jesus and Paul of the NT were alive at the same time! I never even thought such a thing was possible.

They are all fiction.

ChristMyth

I missed the 911 example so if you could link to it, I would appreciate it.

As for the Lincoln example is that in one instance sschlicter is giving the means by which Lincoln was killed (a bullet in a theater) while the other is giving the place at which he died (at home in his bed). These two statements do not contradict because they are describing the same incident at different times (where he was shot and where he eventually died).

The Judas passages are not doing this. Judas is dying in two different manners (one from hanging another by his insides busting out from his body). To infer a rope or a broken branch is reading into the passage something that is not there.

To use the Lincoln example (which I am reluctant to do, but will anyway just for clarity), it would be the equivalent of saying:

1. Abraham Lincoln was shot in the head by J.W. Booth at Ford's Theater and later died.
2. Blood spewed from Lincolns chest and body as he sat in Ford's Theater and later died.

Now, these two statements can be reconciled: J.W. Booth shot Lincoln in the head, the bullet traveled through his head and exited through the lower part of his jaw entering his chest where blood spewed forth and he later died. But if we are going to do this, why stop? Why not continue adding possibilities that could have happened.

Example 1: J.W. Booth approached Lincoln and intended to shot him. Lincoln, however, having consulted a psychic before hand, knew this incident was to occur, proceeded to grab Booth's arm and wrestle him to the ground. Within this tangle, the gun went off, shooting Lincoln in the head and causing him to slump forward. Not realizing that Lincoln was already dying, Booth quickly pulled a knife from his pocket and stabbed the president in the chest, causing his blood to spew over the theater. Lincoln later died.

Example 2: President Lincoln sat quietly watching the play when J.W. Booth approached him and shot him in the head. The First Lady, secretly in love with Booth and wanting to dispatch her husband so that she may be with her lover, saw an opportunity. Not wanting to take any chances that her husband might survive, slipped a knife into his chest during all the commotion from the gunshot. Blood spewed from the chest all over the theater and Lincoln later died.

Now, all these examples are completely preposterous, but all fit with the two statements I gave before. My point: If your going to read into a text, there is no reason to stop with just the story you happen to like. All readings, no matter how far-fetched they may seem, must be considered if they include the proper incidents that need to be reconciled.

A branch snapping and Judas falling to the ground and having his guts bust open is just one story that connects the dots and would be just a relevant as any other story that might be made up:

Judas hung himself from a tree and died. Jesus, not yet ascended into heaven, was angered by the betrayal of Judas and felt that it was necessary to make an example of his remains so that all would remember this incident until the end of time. With a touch of his hand, he rebuked the tree and it withered (he had already pulled this trick once when he was alive, remember). The now withered branch was not able to sustain the weight of Judas' dead body and broke sending him falling. A split second before it hit bottom, Jesus caused his guts to gush forth from his belly and blood covered the ground.

Not how it happened? Show me where I'm wrong?

Christmyth

Toto

No it is not. :Cheeky:

You forgot to indentify the conservative scholars that you respect.

James Brown

I disagree.

I'm sure you do. Can you show me where in the Acts passage Judas felt remorse and was in the act of committing suicide when he died?

Von Smith

Aha! So Jesus was an alien. I knew it.

"Good evening, Mr. Judas. I'm Aleph and this is Resh. Would you mind looking at this stylus for a moment?"

James Brown

According to Matthew, yes. Not according to the author of Acts.

There is nothing in Matthew to indicate that it was Judas' field, either figuratively or literally.

Your copied text says "acquired." What about other translations?

New International Version: "...Judas bought a field..."
New Living Translation: "...Judas had bought a field..."
King James Version: "...this man purchased a field..."
Contemporary English Verison: "...Judas bought some land..."
New King James Version: "...this man purchased a field..."
New Century Version: "...Judas purchased a field..."
American Standard Version: "...this man obtained a field..."
Worldwide English: "...He bought a field..."
New International Version-UK: "...Judas bought a field..."

Seems clear to me that it was Judas who bought the field, not the Pharisees, even when using the word "acquired" which is obviously a synonym for "bought" or "obtained."

What information we do have is clear. What becomes confusing is trying to reconcile two contradictory accounts.

See, this is why police detectives will grill a suspect repeatedly about a crime. After multiple tellings and re-tellings, the suspect's story might change. It's those changes that allow investigators to puzzle out what parts of the suspect's story are true and which are not. For my part, I'm not trying to decide which part of Judas' death is true or not. I'm only defending my statement that the two different accounts are contradictory.

Since people don't rot and explode while they are still alive, what you are describing is what happened to his corpse. According to Acts, what caused Judas to become a corpse? Well, it doesn't say, does it. Strange, don't you think? It would be as strange as reporting that Lincoln died of blood loss without mentioning what caused the blood loss.

The rule of parsimony dictates that if the passage reads, "...falling headfirst he burst open in the middle..." then we should read it as an accidental death, which contradicts the Matthew passage.

Yes, Matthew is notorious for hauling in details about the life of Jesus--details that no other New Testament author seems to know about or find relevant--in order to "fulfill" some obscure OT passage trumped up to the status of "prophecy." The Jeremiah passage is a description of an historical event, not a prophecy of a future one. Writing a passage about Judas that has vague similarities is not a fulfillment of prophecy, it is a parallel--a common literary device in historical fiction.

The two passages are a contradiction.