It is thought by many the "apparent contradiction" about Judas' death as recorded in the two Gospel accounts is easily cleared up with the theory that Judas, in hanging himself, suspended himself over the edge of a cliff of some sort, using a limb that could not support the full weight of his body. He, therefore, hanged himself and also plunged into an abyss (as you say)when the limb gave way. Far-fetched? I don't believe so. Judas expressed a deep remorse over what he had done and, in seeking to end his own life may well have wanted to be certain that nothing could go wrong (how could he ever face the other disciples--they saw him come and betray Christ with a kiss--after hearing Jesus talk repeatedly about being betrayed by one who sat down to bread with Him--No, neither the Lord, nor Judas were going to be spared that night.)
Convenient, shallow explanation? Belief says, "No." Unbelief concludes, "Absolutely!" The believer is always accused of acting on some simplistic (simple-minded?) faith in accepting the scriputes, while the skeptic is often attributed with some vastly superior intellect for doubting. The Scriptures themselves explain this, though, "No man can come to the Father except the Father draw him." The very faith that is at work in the believer involves a mind divinely opened to receive the things of the Scriptures (Paul would say, "We have the mind of Christ."--not to boast, but to explain how a believer sees things through a spiritual lens that the world would see through a material one.)
The problem with the new Judas manuscripts is that they do not line up with the Scriptures (at least not the parts of the Judas gospel I have read, anyway. Now, I must admit I have not read it through its entirety. There's a lot of supposed holy works that I have not read through--doesn't make me right, and it doesn't make me wrong, either--maybe just not as widely read as the next person.) But when I read excerpts that state things that clearly go against the consistent, prophetic, accurate Scriptures with such a clear untruth--it doesn't take much for faith to conclude where such thougths and words came from (see John 8: 43-47)
POTTER'S FIELD
Historical Background
"Then Judas, which had betrayed Him, saw that he was condemned, repented himself, and brought again the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests . . . and they took counsel, and bought with them the potters' field to bury strangers in." This excerpt from the Gospel of St. Matthew is probably the origin of the name Potter's Field; certainly, even in pre-Biblical times, man felt the obligation to do justice and honor to the dead with proper burial.
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Dear Yahoo!:
Where did the term "Potters Field" come from?
Dale
Aurora, Ohio
Dear Dale:
We set out to unearth the origin of this curious term for the place where indigent or unknown people are laid to rest with a search on "potters field origin." We hit pay dirt with our first result, a web page from the New York Correction History Society.
According to the page, the term "Potters Field" probably derives from the Gospel of Matthew. In the book, after Judas Iscariot betrays Christ, he repents and returns his payment of 30 pieces of silver to the priests before hanging himself. The priests called the coins "the price of blood" and did not want to put them in the temple treasury, so they used them to buy a field:
And they took counsel, and bought with them the potter's field, to bury strangers in.
The original Potters Field is thought to have been located in Hinnom valley in Jerusalem. The burial ground was also called the "Field of Blood" or "Aceldama" in the Aramaic language.
Usually with etymology questions, we find a number of likely explanations (along with some not-so-likely ones). But in the case of "Potters Field," there seems to be a general consensus that the term comes from the Bible, and we uncovered no other popular explanations.
The Gospel of Judah
There is a bit of pathos in the prominence given here to the publication of the Gospel of Judas. The story appeared prominently on the front page of Ha'aretz. Prominent radio talk shows interviewed leading experts and asked time and again, would the revelation work to end the religious basis of anti-Semitism?
For those not in the loop, the Gospel of Judas surfaced in a Coptic translation discovered in an Egyptian desert repository. Tests find it to be an ancient document, perhaps from the third century, which tells a story that Judas was the favored disciple; his turning over Jesus to the Roman authorities was in keeping with Jesus' wish to be put to death in order to free his spirit from the encumbrance of his body.
What was found was a copy in Coptic of a Gospel composed many years earlier, known to Church fathers, and kept out of the New Testament. Whether the story it tells is historically true or not is lost to us. Scholars recognize that early Christians conceived of numerous ideas not canonized, or accepted by those who put together the New Testament. The assignment of the name Judah (Jew) to the disciple defined as evil may well have been made in order to further the emphasis against the Jews. The modern recognition that the New Testament was composed several decades after Jesus' death, and is something other than true history recorded in real time, is part of the effort made by Catholics and others to discount its accusations against the Jews. It is common among scholars to view the New Testament as designed to tell the story of a new and weak religious community, concerned to justify itself in the eyes of Roman authorities and to cast aspersions on the dominant Jews.
Roman Catholic Church leaders have said in recent days that they do not expect the Gospel of Judas to alter Church doctrine. What was categorized with other heresies many centuries ago will not easily win recognition as authentic. Changing the canonized Christian Bible will be especially difficult when there are many Christian churches, each with its own authorities and inclinations, in a period when the issue of authenticity is very much open to question in religious circles as well as elsewhere. A century ago Albert Schweitzer wrote his doctoral dissertation around the question of finding what is real in the New Testament's material about Jesus. Since then numerous other scholars have worked the field, typically admitting that there is a great deal of uncertainty. Replacing one set of tendentious stories with another does not make a great deal of intellectual sense.
The Hebrew Bible also has its problems as historic text, as is well known to anyone who has entered the endless list of books and articles that wrestle with the problems of finding historic reality in a collection of good literature composed before historians worried about portraying accuracy. As in the case of the New Testament, those who contributed to the accumulation of the Hebrew Bible as we know it decided in favor of some stories, and against others. Scholars see real signs of political conflict between those who wanted to advance one group of priests, or the Temple in Jerusalem, against other claimants of being the true priests, or the site that should have a monopoly of being the Holy Temple. What we read as ancient Jewish history is no more certain in its details than what we read about Jesus and the disciples in the New Testament. We read the stories of the winners: those who wrote the history that came to be accepted as authentic.
We should hope for the best in the continuing efforts of the Roman Catholic Church and other Christian leaders to accept Jews as something other than Christ killers. But it may be that the cartoonist of Ha'aretz got the story better than the serious writer of the front page article. He pictures two worried fathers of the Church, with one of them saying, "That Judah is again causing problems."
Posted by Ira Sharkansky at 11:17 PM | Comments (1)