Vanderzyden

Judas did NOT fall headlong
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One final concern seems to be the occurence of the term "headlong" in the one-verse account of Judas death in Acts 1:

Headlong, of course, means headfirst. This does not mean landing squarely on one's head. Rather, it means to fall and land with the head oriented in the direction of the fall. From an upright position, one only need rotate forward through 45-55 degrees in order to land face down in the direction of the fall. So, the fall of a bloated body from a hangman's noose at a sufficient height could easily rotate sufficiently to land in a headlong position. This simple scenario seems to be a suitable answer to all but the most abrasive and stubborn skeptic.

However, let us talk no more of a headlong fall. My main purpose for writing this post is to show that the concept of a fall, much less a headfirst fall, is actually absent from the original text. Although most popular English translations contain the word "headlong" (or at minimum the notion of a "fall"), the early reliable manuscripts apparently do not. This is discovered conveniently by examining a modern Greek Interlinear text, which translates the ancient Greek directly into English. The definitive Greek translation is Eberhard Nestle's Novum Testamentum Graece, now in its 27th edition. I have an Interlinear on my shelf from 1993, and it is based upon the 21st edition of Nestle. When I compare the Greek with the 27th edition, it is identical. I confirmed this at the Biola website, which has the 26/27 edition of the greej: <a href="http://unbound.biola.edu/" target="_blank">http://unbound.biola.edu/</a>

So, what does the original Greek have to say?


Take your time to carefully notice that there is no mention of the falling of Judas body. None whatsoever. We read that the body became "swollen", and "burst", after which the bowels "poured out". On this reading, it would seem that the bowels poured out, that is downward. The word used is "poured", not "spilled".

I understand that there are two common English translations that were somewhat accurate in this regard:

This account, then, is fully consistent with the hanging account in Matthew 27:5 :

The two texts are easily combined. Hanging from a rope, his body became swollen as it decomposed. Finally, it burst and it contents poured out. This analysis again affirms that there is no contradiction in the accounts of Judas' death.


Vanderzyden

[ October 16, 2002: Message edited by: Vanderzyden ]</p>

Butters

O.K. Van, just for fun,
Fist off I copied ALL of your post, to address All of your statements, not a select few.

The mention of Judas being run over, was in response to Peter Kirby's post quoting Papias. If we are to treat the Bible as any other ancient text, this account should be included in the investigation. I have not pursued it because I am not trying to determine if either Bible account is true, only that they contratict each other.

posted October 16, 2002 04:41 PM
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Butters,
I went back to read your rebuttal. Most of it is simply copying the OP. However, we do find a four-part summary of your critique, all of which have been addressed already:


quote:
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Originally posted by Butters:
The first problem is that you are addressing ONE contradiction, when there are FOUR.
Judas hanged himself
Judas fell and split open
(If we were to actually treat this as any other acient text we would be obliged to include the account of his being run over.)

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"This was covered fully in the OP. Did you read it? Falling will eventually follow a hanging. Or, if the hanging does not suceed, a fall will necessarily occure"

1st, falling does not necesarily follow a hanging, in fact most often it is followed by removal of the body, and anyone removing the body would be careful to not drop it.(to prevent to body from opening. But this is ignoring the fact that this is NOT what the text says happened. You have completly ignored my objection to your method of choping up the text, then drawing your conclusion from the half sentences that you yourself created.

"Let's take a moment to see if this dismissal is warranted. First, observe that, in both passages, very few words are specifically concerned with the type of death Judas underwent. In Matthew, we find three English words (NIV):
"and hanged himself".

In Acts, we have fourteen English words:

"there he fell headlong, his body burst open and all his intestines spilled out."

These words do not even comprise full sentences."

Abovr is your method, it is not acceptable to remove words to create your own meaning, any more than it is to add words to cteate your own meaning.The text actually reads,

Matthew: Then he went away and hanged himself
Acts:With the reward he got for his wickedness,Judas bought a field; there he fell headlong,his body burst open, and all his intestines fell out.

There is no room in Acts to insert a hanging, and if we were examining any other text, it would be laughable. (OOPS, wait a minute, its still laughable)

"Therefore, we immediately see that we are not reading a detailed account of his death. These are summary statements which, it would seem, are mentioned as minor (but not useless) details in a much larger context."

Only the fevered brain of a fundimentalist would consider a hanging a minor detail.


"So, they do not reclaim possession, but instead use the money to buy a field. Legally, then, it would have been Judas' field (if he lived)."

Wrong, once the money had been given to the priests, Judas lost all claim to it, the text does not say if the title to the land went to the temple, or to the state, and it doesn't matter, the priests Bought the field. (In Matt)

Of course again you ignore the text.
NIV- Matt27;6 It is against the law to put the money into the treasury (I think this is also BS, since when to priests care where the money comes from, as long as it spends, and as they were Jews,why did it concern then that it was reward money for lawfully turning in a wanted criminal?)
So they decided to use the money to buy the potters field as a burial place for foreigners.

So the didn't put the money in the treasuray, but THEY used it to buy the field, that Judas never would have claim to.

Notice that verse 5 discuss Judas' sequence of events, and verses 6 and 7 describe the sequence of events for the priests. Surely, Judas did not go out and hang himself in the short interval between his departure from the temple and the priest's statement "It is not lawful..."

"In fact, it is quite reasonable that Judas did not hang himself immediately, and this would be consistent with the text. We can easily imagine that Judas learned of the purchase of the land and went to spend time there. At some point following Jesus' execution, Judas then kills himself knowing that he was instrumental in bringing him to trial."

WRONG.
This could not happen in the Matthew account. Even if you ignore to text, that clearly says Juidas went away and hanged himself, followed by the preists deciding to buy the field.
Matthew 27:11 starts "MEANWHILE". reffering to the same time, so Judas hung himself during the trial, not after. Since the priests could not have actually have purchased the field in that short time, and since Judas went away before they decided to, your wild speculation could not have happened.

As to your objection to K,

"Your analogy is generally inapplicable since the Bible is not a newspaper. In addition, a newspaper would not report things in this way nor in this terse format. And again, we must identify the primary character and the primary event in the account: in the chapters containing the Judas accounts, he is NOT the primary character and the main event is NOT his mode of death; in the newspaper, John is the primary character and the primary activity in question is his death."

Why must we "identify" with the primary character?
Judas was an important part of the story, and in fact is pointed to by most Christians as fufillment of a prophecy, this is a very important part of the story, and of course the fact that the two (biblical) accounts contradict on another, at least one must be false.

"The only other notable objection concerns the term headlong. I have discovered some new information that should put this issue to rest, as well. That will come in a subsequent, separate post."

The term headlong, how he could have fell after hanging, is all so much Blah Blah Blah.
Acts gives a version that leaves no room for a hanging, to insert one is ludicrus, and if YOU were examining any other acient document, YOU would come to the same conclusion. Without manipulating the text, cutting and pasting it is flat out WRONG!

Butters

Viber8,
Please don't take offence at my post, I was answering Leonade, and he seemed to think that your only criteria were the ones he listed, that is why I qualified my statement with "if" that were your only criteria. Of course your criteria were not crystal clear to him, but maybe it is now!

Vanderzyden

Butters,

It would seem from your "analysis", which comes a mere eight minutes after I posted, that it is hardly worth the effort to continue to dialogue with you. You have already made up your mind, and, like others accentuate your post with insults.



Read the next post from me concerning the absence of any notion of "falling" or "headlong"

Good day,

Vanderzyden

leonarde

I rest my case. (see above post by Ion)

Ion

Vanderzyden posts:
"So the fall of a bloated body from a hangmsn's noose at a sufficient height could easily rotate sufficiently to land in a headlong position.".

This supposedly reconcile two different accounts of Judas' death, one by hanging and the other by falling.

It doesn't because in the scenario:
"So the fall of a bloated body from a hangmsn's noose at a sufficient height could easily rotate sufficiently to land in a headlong position.",
the cause of death is hanging.
Falling in this scenario, would be a consequence of hanging.

So, that's one demonstrated Biblical contradiction.

Another Biblical contradiction was reported earlier, in the death of Saul.
There are many more.

Ion

You never had a case, Leonarde.

But you can rest, anyway:
it must be hard to contort for no case, like you did.

Butters

To Van,
Did it take me a whole eight miniutes?
Seriously, your errors in logic and rational thinking are clear. Your bias in examining the Bible is clear. You claimed to want the Bible examined as any other acient text, then proceed to cut text to remove it from context, add to the text, when there is clear reason not to, and suppose that the order of events happened contrary to what the text suggests. You wouldn't approach any other ancient document presupposing that it could not be contradictory, and then use these methods to prove your point.
Your arguments have all been shown to be false, and your conclusions baseles.

I say good day to you sir!

leonarde

Partial repost of Butters responding to my post to
him/her: Once again and for the last time on this
point:

1)I was not trying to prove anything
was a "fact" in my post in question.

2)I was responding to the level, extent, and scope
of "recognition" afforded the historicity of
Jesus Christ/Jesus of Nazareth (a point raised by Ion).

3)Since there are 1 to 1.5 [edit]billion religious believers on this
planet who recognize Jesus as having been a historical personage;

4)Since the majority of historians recognize the same thing;

5)Since two major religions (Christianity and Islam) base at least some of their beliefs
on the historicity of Jesus,

the recognition question is settled. What
one makes of the truth behind that recognition is
another thing....

Cheers!

[ October 16, 2002: Message edited by: leonarde ]</p>

leonarde

Posted by Ion: