WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.940 for For 2 ,000 years, I think it's safe to say, 00:00:04.160 --> 00:00:07.040 Judas Iscariot has been the undisputed ultimate 00:00:07.040 --> 00:00:09.599 villain of Western history. Oh, absolutely. I 00:00:09.599 --> 00:00:11.720 mean, his name alone is basically a curse word 00:00:11.720 --> 00:00:14.060 in multiple languages. Right. But when you bypass 00:00:14.060 --> 00:00:17.600 the Sunday school version and dive into the actual 00:00:17.600 --> 00:00:20.719 historical and biblical texts and the apocryphal 00:00:20.719 --> 00:00:23.940 texts, too, the man who handed over Jesus becomes 00:00:23.940 --> 00:00:26.640 a massive historical puzzle. He really does. 00:00:26.800 --> 00:00:29.500 So today we are looking at a really fascinating 00:00:29.500 --> 00:00:32.409 stack of sources. We've got comprehensive Wikipedia 00:00:32.409 --> 00:00:35.890 entries detailing the canonical gospels, obscure 00:00:35.890 --> 00:00:38.509 apocryphal texts, and deep modern historical 00:00:38.509 --> 00:00:40.670 analyses. All focused on trying to understand 00:00:40.670 --> 00:00:43.329 this single incredibly debated figure. Exactly. 00:00:43.369 --> 00:00:46.250 And our goal today isn't to preach or take sides 00:00:46.250 --> 00:00:48.390 in 2 ,000 -year -old theological debates. Right. 00:00:48.429 --> 00:00:50.329 For you, the listener, who probably already knows 00:00:50.329 --> 00:00:53.049 the basic outline of the story, we are just here 00:00:53.049 --> 00:00:55.350 to look at the historical breadcrumbs. We want 00:00:55.350 --> 00:00:57.590 to see what these diverse texts actually say 00:00:57.590 --> 00:01:00.100 without endorsing any particular... religious, 00:01:00.359 --> 00:01:02.679 or political viewpoint. Just following the evidence. 00:01:02.840 --> 00:01:05.400 Yeah, okay, let's unpack this. It is quite the 00:01:05.400 --> 00:01:08.500 unpacking job, too. Because while the headline 00:01:08.500 --> 00:01:10.819 is universally known, Judas betrayed Jesus for 00:01:10.819 --> 00:01:13.640 30 pieces of silver, the actual historical record 00:01:13.640 --> 00:01:16.780 is remarkably fractured. Fractured how? You have 00:01:16.780 --> 00:01:19.739 conflicting ancient stories, shifting theological 00:01:19.739 --> 00:01:22.859 agendas, and massive cultural impacts over the 00:01:22.859 --> 00:01:25.340 centuries. When you look closely at the sources, 00:01:25.519 --> 00:01:28.519 Judas isn't just a one dimensional bad guy. No. 00:01:28.620 --> 00:01:31.180 He functions more like a mirror reflecting the 00:01:31.180 --> 00:01:34.060 anxieties of early Christian communities. And 00:01:34.060 --> 00:01:36.920 that historical puzzle actually begins with his 00:01:36.920 --> 00:01:39.739 name. Because today, nobody names their child 00:01:39.739 --> 00:01:42.480 Judas. But in the first century Judean world, 00:01:42.620 --> 00:01:45.000 it was an incredibly common, highly respected 00:01:45.000 --> 00:01:47.060 name. Very popular. Yeah, it comes from the Hebrew 00:01:47.060 --> 00:01:50.219 Judah, which literally means praise. And the 00:01:50.219 --> 00:01:52.359 New Testament itself is full of quote -unquote 00:01:52.359 --> 00:01:54.939 good Judases. Right. You've got the prophet Judas 00:01:54.939 --> 00:01:58.260 Barsabbas, Jesus' own brother Jude, and another 00:01:58.260 --> 00:02:01.049 apostle actually named... Judas, son of James. 00:02:01.349 --> 00:02:04.189 And that commonality plays directly into a massive 00:02:04.189 --> 00:02:06.230 debate about his historicity. Like whether he 00:02:06.230 --> 00:02:09.409 even existed at all. Exactly. The question being, 00:02:09.509 --> 00:02:12.590 did Judas Iscariot actually exist? Or was he 00:02:12.590 --> 00:02:15.930 a literary invention? Scholars like Haya Mokobi 00:02:15.930 --> 00:02:18.530 and John Shelby Spung have argued that Judas 00:02:18.530 --> 00:02:21.009 was entirely contrived by early Christian writers. 00:02:21.389 --> 00:02:23.770 What's their reasoning for that? Their theory 00:02:23.770 --> 00:02:26.389 is that the character was invented as an attack 00:02:26.389 --> 00:02:29.050 on the Judean religious establishment. to blame 00:02:29.050 --> 00:02:32.030 them for executing Jesus. Essentially, they argue 00:02:32.030 --> 00:02:34.770 the story was crafted specifically to foster 00:02:34.770 --> 00:02:37.370 early anti -Semitism. Using a character named 00:02:37.370 --> 00:02:39.889 Judas as a stand -in for the Judeans. Precisely. 00:02:39.969 --> 00:02:42.610 But if that story is so convenient for an anti 00:02:42.610 --> 00:02:45.750 -establishment narrative, why do mainstream historians 00:02:45.750 --> 00:02:48.210 largely reject the idea that he was entirely 00:02:48.210 --> 00:02:50.370 made up? It comes down to something historians 00:02:50.370 --> 00:02:54.229 call the criterion of embarrassment. Okay. When 00:02:54.229 --> 00:02:57.009 analyzing ancient texts, scholars operate on 00:02:57.009 --> 00:02:58.930 the assumption that early followers would be 00:02:58.930 --> 00:03:01.330 highly unlikely to invent a story that made their 00:03:01.330 --> 00:03:03.669 leader look foolish. Or like a terrible judge 00:03:03.669 --> 00:03:05.909 of character. Right. Why make up a story that 00:03:05.909 --> 00:03:08.590 one of Jesus' hand -picked inner circle of 12 00:03:08.590 --> 00:03:11.469 disciples turned on him? It creates a massive 00:03:11.469 --> 00:03:13.849 PR problem for a fledgling religion. That makes 00:03:13.849 --> 00:03:16.389 sense. Furthermore, the earliest allusion to 00:03:16.389 --> 00:03:18.650 the betrayal doesn't even come from the Gospels. 00:03:18.710 --> 00:03:22.250 It comes from Paul in 1 Corinthians. Paul uses 00:03:22.250 --> 00:03:24.969 the Greek word paradimi, which most translate 00:03:24.969 --> 00:03:28.569 as handed over or betrayed. So he was likely 00:03:28.569 --> 00:03:31.210 a real historical figure. Most historians agree, 00:03:31.310 --> 00:03:33.530 yes. But because Judas was basically the John 00:03:33.530 --> 00:03:36.210 or Michael of the first century, they had to 00:03:36.210 --> 00:03:38.770 distinguish him. Hence Judas Iscariot. Right. 00:03:38.909 --> 00:03:41.689 And the sources present some wild theories on 00:03:41.689 --> 00:03:43.550 what Iscariot actually means. It's a linguistic 00:03:43.550 --> 00:03:46.370 mystery all on its own. The most widely accepted 00:03:46.370 --> 00:03:48.949 theory is that it's a Greek rendering of the 00:03:48.949 --> 00:03:51.810 Hebrew ikrios, meaning man from Kerioth. Referencing 00:03:51.810 --> 00:03:54.849 a specific town. Yes, but that is far from settled. 00:03:55.150 --> 00:03:57.370 Some scholars suggest it's a corruption of the 00:03:57.370 --> 00:04:00.729 Latin word sicarius, meaning dagger man or assassin. 00:04:00.969 --> 00:04:03.340 Which would link him to the Sicarii. Exactly. 00:04:03.419 --> 00:04:06.300 That group of violent Jewish rebels who carried 00:04:06.300 --> 00:04:09.259 concealed daggers to assassinate Roman sympathizers. 00:04:09.400 --> 00:04:11.860 But the sources also point out a major chronological 00:04:11.860 --> 00:04:14.219 issue with that theory. The Sicarii probably 00:04:14.219 --> 00:04:16.579 didn't even exist as an organized group during 00:04:16.579 --> 00:04:19.259 the 30s AD when Judas was alive. Right. They 00:04:19.259 --> 00:04:22.420 rose to prominence decades later. So other linguists 00:04:22.420 --> 00:04:25.199 look elsewhere. Some think it might come from 00:04:25.199 --> 00:04:28.100 Aramaic words meaning the liar or the false one. 00:04:28.279 --> 00:04:31.370 Or even red color. Yeah. And in a particularly 00:04:31.370 --> 00:04:33.930 morbid twist, some linguists think it could derive 00:04:33.930 --> 00:04:36.790 from a Greek -Aramaic hybrid meaning chokiness 00:04:36.790 --> 00:04:40.009 or constriction. Which is very dark. Extremely 00:04:40.009 --> 00:04:43.110 dark. Because if true, that would mean the nickname 00:04:43.110 --> 00:04:45.509 was given to him posthumously by the other disciples 00:04:45.509 --> 00:04:48.399 because of how he died. By hanging. Just imagine 00:04:48.399 --> 00:04:50.399 for a second having a nickname that linguists 00:04:50.399 --> 00:04:53.139 are still arguing over two millennia later. For 00:04:53.139 --> 00:04:55.319 you listening, it really demonstrates how much 00:04:55.319 --> 00:04:58.339 context gets lost or potentially invented over 00:04:58.339 --> 00:05:00.920 centuries of translation. Absolutely. And that 00:05:00.920 --> 00:05:03.579 ambiguity surrounding his name bleeds perfectly 00:05:03.579 --> 00:05:06.000 into the ambiguity of his actions, which raises 00:05:06.000 --> 00:05:08.199 an important question. Why did he do it? Why 00:05:08.199 --> 00:05:10.439 did he do it? We know the core canonical act. 00:05:10.879 --> 00:05:13.100 Judas goes to the authorities, leads them to 00:05:13.100 --> 00:05:15.680 Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, and identifies 00:05:15.680 --> 00:05:18.300 him with a kiss. And Matthew specifies the price 00:05:18.300 --> 00:05:21.220 was 30 pieces of silver. Which the sources note 00:05:21.220 --> 00:05:24.480 were likely Tyrian shekels. And that specific 00:05:24.480 --> 00:05:26.939 currency matters because Tyrian shekels had a 00:05:26.939 --> 00:05:29.939 high silver content and were the only currency 00:05:29.939 --> 00:05:32.459 accepted for the temple tax in Jerusalem. It 00:05:32.459 --> 00:05:34.720 adds a layer of religious bureaucracy to the 00:05:34.720 --> 00:05:37.740 transaction. It really does. But the underlying 00:05:37.740 --> 00:05:39.939 motivation for why he took that money shifts 00:05:39.939 --> 00:05:42.199 dramatically depending on which gospel you read. 00:05:42.399 --> 00:05:45.660 If you read the Gospel of John, the motivation 00:05:45.660 --> 00:05:48.439 is straightforward greed. Just purely about the 00:05:48.439 --> 00:05:51.220 money. Right. John paints Judas as the group's 00:05:51.220 --> 00:05:54.620 treasurer. but also a literal thief. There's 00:05:54.620 --> 00:05:57.259 that famous scene where expensive perfume is 00:05:57.259 --> 00:06:00.240 used to anoint Jesus. Oh, right, and Judas complains. 00:06:00.339 --> 00:06:02.339 Yes, he argues they could have sold it and given 00:06:02.339 --> 00:06:05.040 the money to the poor. But John throws in an 00:06:05.040 --> 00:06:07.379 editorial side note claiming Judas didn't actually 00:06:07.379 --> 00:06:09.339 care about the poor. He just wanted to skim the 00:06:09.339 --> 00:06:11.879 cash from the money box. Exactly. But the Gospels 00:06:11.879 --> 00:06:13.860 of Luke and John also introduce a completely 00:06:13.860 --> 00:06:17.189 different supernatural element. They explicitly 00:06:17.189 --> 00:06:20.230 state that Satan entered into Judas. So we are 00:06:20.230 --> 00:06:22.930 left trying to reconcile mundane greed with demonic 00:06:22.930 --> 00:06:26.129 possession. And if you look at modern historical 00:06:26.129 --> 00:06:29.810 theories, there's a third option. Political disillusionment. 00:06:29.930 --> 00:06:32.410 The political theory is fascinating. Many modern 00:06:32.410 --> 00:06:35.290 scholars theorize that Judas, like many at the 00:06:35.290 --> 00:06:38.509 time, expected the Messiah to be a military leader. 00:06:38.649 --> 00:06:41.170 Someone who would violently overthrow Roman rule. 00:06:41.290 --> 00:06:43.560 And restore the kingdom of David. When he realized 00:06:43.560 --> 00:06:46.339 Jesus had no intention of starting a war, Judas 00:06:46.339 --> 00:06:48.600 grew deeply disillusioned and handed him over. 00:06:48.779 --> 00:06:50.920 And there's another spin on that same theory, 00:06:51.019 --> 00:06:54.000 right? That Judas betrayed Jesus to deliberately 00:06:54.000 --> 00:06:57.500 force his hand. Yes, hoping that getting Jesus 00:06:57.500 --> 00:06:59.879 arrested would spark the violent rebellion he 00:06:59.879 --> 00:07:01.420 was waiting for. Well, here's where it gets really 00:07:01.420 --> 00:07:03.680 interesting. Because the betrayal is only half 00:07:03.680 --> 00:07:06.829 the story. The consequences, specifically what 00:07:06.829 --> 00:07:09.350 happens to Judas after the betrayal, is where 00:07:09.350 --> 00:07:12.009 the sources go completely off the rails into 00:07:12.009 --> 00:07:14.430 some massive contradictions. Oh yeah, the deaths. 00:07:14.689 --> 00:07:16.529 In fact, the discrepancy in the Bible regarding 00:07:16.529 --> 00:07:19.329 Judas' death is so stark that it famously caused 00:07:19.329 --> 00:07:21.949 the writer C .S. Lewis to reject the idea of 00:07:21.949 --> 00:07:24.629 strict biblical inerrancy. The canonical accounts 00:07:24.629 --> 00:07:27.689 are completely at odds. In the Gospel of Matthew, 00:07:27.910 --> 00:07:31.709 Judas is hit with overwhelming remorse. He tries 00:07:31.709 --> 00:07:34.620 to give the 30 pieces of silver. Back to the 00:07:34.620 --> 00:07:36.959 priests. And they refuse it, calling it blood 00:07:36.959 --> 00:07:39.639 money. So he throws the silver into the temple 00:07:39.639 --> 00:07:43.019 leaves and hangs himself. The priests then take 00:07:43.019 --> 00:07:46.819 that money and buy a potter's field to bury strangers 00:07:46.819 --> 00:07:49.100 in. Which becomes known as the field of blood. 00:07:49.399 --> 00:07:51.079 Right. But then you flood over to the book of 00:07:51.079 --> 00:07:52.579 Acts and it's a completely different narrative. 00:07:52.899 --> 00:07:55.560 There is absolutely zero mention of remorse. 00:07:55.660 --> 00:07:58.319 None. Judas doesn't get the money back. He uses 00:07:58.319 --> 00:08:01.120 it to buy the field himself. And he doesn't hang 00:08:01.120 --> 00:08:03.740 himself. According to Acts. He falls headlong 00:08:03.740 --> 00:08:06.000 on the property. His body bursts open in the 00:08:06.000 --> 00:08:09.079 middle and all his bowels gush out. It's so graphic. 00:08:09.139 --> 00:08:11.759 And for centuries, theologians tied themselves 00:08:11.759 --> 00:08:13.959 in knots trying to make these two stories fit 00:08:13.959 --> 00:08:16.240 together. St. Augustine tried a rather clumsy 00:08:16.240 --> 00:08:18.540 harmonization. He suggested that Judas hanged 00:08:18.540 --> 00:08:20.220 himself in the field, but the rope snapped and 00:08:20.220 --> 00:08:22.139 then he fell and burst open. Which feels like 00:08:22.139 --> 00:08:24.139 a desperate attempt to make the puzzle pieces 00:08:24.139 --> 00:08:26.339 fit. When they belong to two different puzzles. 00:08:26.660 --> 00:08:29.800 It does. Modern scholars generally view these 00:08:29.800 --> 00:08:32.419 as distinct theological narratives written for 00:08:32.419 --> 00:08:34.899 entirely different purposes. Like David A. Reed's 00:08:34.899 --> 00:08:38.039 theory about Matthew. Yes, Reed argues that Matthew's 00:08:38.039 --> 00:08:42.149 account is a midrashic exposition. Think of Midrash 00:08:42.149 --> 00:08:45.190 as an ancient Jewish method of storytelling where 00:08:45.190 --> 00:08:47.769 writers deliberately echo Old Testament scriptures 00:08:47.769 --> 00:08:50.730 to prove a theological point to their audience. 00:08:51.029 --> 00:08:53.129 So Matthew wasn't acting as a modern journalist 00:08:53.129 --> 00:08:55.889 reporting facts at a crime scene. Not at all. 00:08:55.929 --> 00:08:57.870 He was writing theology. He was trying to present 00:08:57.870 --> 00:09:00.389 Judas's death as the fulfillment of ancient prophecy. 00:09:00.710 --> 00:09:03.789 In doing so, he actually seems to blend passages 00:09:03.789 --> 00:09:07.169 from the prophets Jeremiah and Zechariah regarding 00:09:07.169 --> 00:09:10.559 30 pieces of silver and a potter's field. Meanwhile, 00:09:10.600 --> 00:09:13.500 regarding the bursting death in Acts, a classicist 00:09:13.500 --> 00:09:15.879 named Glenn Most suggests the author might be 00:09:15.879 --> 00:09:18.840 using figurative language. How so? He theorizes 00:09:18.840 --> 00:09:21.159 the text is comparing Judas's posture and demise 00:09:21.159 --> 00:09:24.100 to that of a dead, burst -open snake. Ah, the 00:09:24.100 --> 00:09:26.399 ultimate cultural symbol of evil and degradation. 00:09:26.980 --> 00:09:30.000 Exactly. So we see these early communities utilizing 00:09:30.000 --> 00:09:33.039 different literary devices to punish the traitor. 00:09:33.259 --> 00:09:35.779 But the canonical deaths are relatively tame 00:09:35.779 --> 00:09:38.100 compared to the apocryphal accounts. They really 00:09:38.100 --> 00:09:40.360 are. That brings us to the ancient historical 00:09:40.360 --> 00:09:43.360 gossip that didn't make it into the Bible. Around 00:09:43.360 --> 00:09:46.779 100 AD, an early church leader named Papias wrote 00:09:46.779 --> 00:09:49.960 this incredibly gruesome account. The bloated 00:09:49.960 --> 00:09:53.080 account. Yes. He claimed Judas was afflicted 00:09:53.080 --> 00:09:55.799 by God's wrath and became so enormously bloated 00:09:55.799 --> 00:09:57.639 that he couldn't walk down a street without hitting 00:09:57.639 --> 00:09:59.659 the buildings on either side. Yeah, it's such 00:09:59.659 --> 00:10:02.480 a bizarre image. Papias wrote that Judas's eyes 00:10:02.480 --> 00:10:04.779 were so swollen a doctor couldn't find them. 00:10:04.879 --> 00:10:07.580 He oozed pus and worms and eventually he basically 00:10:07.580 --> 00:10:10.799 exploded on his own land. And the stench. Right. 00:10:10.919 --> 00:10:13.700 The stench was apparently so horrible that a 00:10:13.700 --> 00:10:15.940 century later people still couldn't walk past 00:10:15.940 --> 00:10:18.080 the spot without holding their noses. It's a 00:10:18.080 --> 00:10:20.500 vivid demonstration of how early Christian communities 00:10:20.500 --> 00:10:22.799 were competing to describe the ultimate punishment. 00:10:23.240 --> 00:10:25.919 They needed the scale of his suffering to match 00:10:25.919 --> 00:10:28.330 the scale of his betrayal. And then there is 00:10:28.330 --> 00:10:30.389 a text called The Gospel of Nicodemus, likely 00:10:30.389 --> 00:10:33.789 from the fourth century, which introduces a bizarre, 00:10:33.990 --> 00:10:37.690 darkly comedic version. The roasted chicken story. 00:10:37.950 --> 00:10:40.850 Yes. In this text, Judas goes home feeling terribly 00:10:40.850 --> 00:10:43.529 guilty. He tells his wife that he's going to 00:10:43.529 --> 00:10:45.690 kill himself because he knows Jesus will rise 00:10:45.690 --> 00:10:48.230 from the dead and punish him. And his wife laughs 00:10:48.230 --> 00:10:51.309 at him. She points to a chicken roasting on a 00:10:51.309 --> 00:10:54.809 spit over their fire and says, Jesus can no more 00:10:54.809 --> 00:10:57.409 rise from the dead than this cooked bird. And 00:10:57.409 --> 00:10:59.549 then the punchline. Instantly, the roasted chicken 00:10:59.549 --> 00:11:02.009 comes back to life, hops off the spit and begins 00:11:02.009 --> 00:11:04.649 to crow. Unbelievable. Judas is so terrified 00:11:04.649 --> 00:11:06.850 by the undead poultry that he runs off and hangs 00:11:06.850 --> 00:11:09.509 himself. To modern ears, a zombie roasting chicken 00:11:09.509 --> 00:11:12.610 sounds entirely absurd. But these stories served 00:11:12.610 --> 00:11:15.269 a vital purpose. They were cultural processing 00:11:15.269 --> 00:11:17.990 mechanisms. Dealing with trauma, basically. Yes, 00:11:18.090 --> 00:11:19.870 early Christians were dealing with the profound 00:11:19.870 --> 00:11:23.090 trauma of the crucifixion and the cognitive dissonance 00:11:23.090 --> 00:11:25.669 of a betrayed savior. So we see these communities 00:11:25.669 --> 00:11:28.549 inventing bizarre, gruesome ends for Judas to 00:11:28.549 --> 00:11:31.549 punish him. But in Egypt, another group of early 00:11:31.549 --> 00:11:33.570 Christians went in the exact opposite direction. 00:11:33.909 --> 00:11:36.149 Instead of punishing him in their texts, they 00:11:36.149 --> 00:11:38.450 elevated him. Which brings us to the Gospel of 00:11:38.450 --> 00:11:41.950 Judas, a text discovered in Egypt in the 1970s 00:11:41.950 --> 00:11:44.309 and famously publicized by National Geographic 00:11:44.309 --> 00:11:47.269 in 2006. If we connect this to the bigger picture, 00:11:47.590 --> 00:11:51.149 the Gospel of Judas reveals that early Christianity 00:11:51.720 --> 00:11:53.940 wasn't a monolith. It was a fractured landscape. 00:11:54.299 --> 00:11:56.460 Where different groups were desperately trying 00:11:56.460 --> 00:11:58.899 to solve the logical paradox of the crucifixion. 00:11:59.159 --> 00:12:02.419 This text represents the Gnostic worldview. Break 00:12:02.419 --> 00:12:04.639 that down for us. To understand this, we have 00:12:04.639 --> 00:12:06.480 to look at how Gnostics viewed the universe. 00:12:07.600 --> 00:12:10.820 Imagine the physical world as a flawed, corrupted 00:12:10.820 --> 00:12:13.960 prison built by a lesser ignorant creator. That's 00:12:13.960 --> 00:12:15.899 the demiurge of the Old Testament. Okay. The 00:12:15.899 --> 00:12:18.700 true higher God, the Monad, is purely spiritual. 00:12:19.279 --> 00:12:21.299 Wait, so in that framework, having a physical 00:12:21.299 --> 00:12:23.679 body is a trap. Precisely. And in the Gospel 00:12:23.679 --> 00:12:25.799 of Judas, he isn't a traitor at all. He's the 00:12:25.799 --> 00:12:28.440 truest, most enlightened disciple. Wow. The text 00:12:28.440 --> 00:12:30.559 claims that Jesus actually pulled Judas aside 00:12:30.559 --> 00:12:32.759 and asked him to perform the betrayal. Because 00:12:32.759 --> 00:12:35.120 the physical body is a prison, Jesus needed to 00:12:35.120 --> 00:12:37.320 escape his flesh to return to the purely spiritual 00:12:37.320 --> 00:12:40.639 realm. So by handing him over to be killed, Judas 00:12:40.639 --> 00:12:43.460 was doing Jesus the ultimate favor. It was an 00:12:43.460 --> 00:12:46.139 act of profound obedience. that allowed Jesus 00:12:46.139 --> 00:12:48.700 to transcend the material world. But if Judas 00:12:48.700 --> 00:12:51.340 is the hero because he frees Jesus from his physical 00:12:51.340 --> 00:12:53.860 body, that completely unravels the traditional 00:12:53.860 --> 00:12:57.320 idea of original sin and a necessary blood sacrifice. 00:12:57.700 --> 00:13:00.279 It does entirely. How did mainstream church leaders 00:13:00.279 --> 00:13:03.100 react to this at the time? They viewed it as 00:13:03.100 --> 00:13:06.480 deeply heretical. Leaders like Irenaeus of Leon 00:13:06.480 --> 00:13:09.399 specifically condemned the gospel of Judas in 00:13:09.399 --> 00:13:12.039 the second century, arguing it completely inverted 00:13:12.039 --> 00:13:14.620 the truth of the gospel. I can see why. But it 00:13:14.620 --> 00:13:16.980 highlights how uncomfortable some early followers 00:13:16.980 --> 00:13:19.340 were with the idea that Jesus was simply a victim 00:13:19.340 --> 00:13:21.779 of circumstance or betrayal. They wanted to reclaim 00:13:21.779 --> 00:13:24.559 agency for him. And there's another apocryphal 00:13:24.559 --> 00:13:26.940 text that throws an even bigger curveball regarding 00:13:26.940 --> 00:13:30.779 agency in the crucifixion, the Gospel of Barnabas. 00:13:30.779 --> 00:13:34.360 Oh, this one is wild. It is. This is a late medieval 00:13:34.360 --> 00:13:37.399 pseudepigraphical text, meaning it was written 00:13:37.399 --> 00:13:39.879 much later and falsely attributed to Barnabas. 00:13:40.019 --> 00:13:43.360 It aligns heavily with Islamic theological lore, 00:13:43.580 --> 00:13:46.220 which rejects the idea that a prophet of God 00:13:46.220 --> 00:13:48.179 would be subjected to the humiliation of the 00:13:48.179 --> 00:13:51.039 cross. Right. In this version, Judas leads the 00:13:51.039 --> 00:13:53.559 Roman soldiers to arrest Jesus. But right before 00:13:53.559 --> 00:13:56.379 they enter, angels swoop in and pull Jesus out 00:13:56.379 --> 00:13:58.860 of a window up to the heavens. Just whisked away. 00:13:59.139 --> 00:14:01.889 Yeah. And at that exact moment, Judas is. physical 00:14:01.889 --> 00:14:04.210 appearance is miraculously transformed so he 00:14:04.210 --> 00:14:06.610 looks exactly like Jesus. It is the ultimate 00:14:06.610 --> 00:14:09.049 case of divine mistaken identity. The Romans 00:14:09.049 --> 00:14:11.610 burst in arrest Judas thinking he's Jesus and 00:14:11.610 --> 00:14:14.429 drag him off. The illusion is so perfect that 00:14:14.429 --> 00:14:16.649 the Pharisees, the high priest, and even Mary 00:14:16.649 --> 00:14:18.970 are completely fooled. Incredible. In the Gospel 00:14:18.970 --> 00:14:21.610 of Barnabas, it is actually Judas Iscariot who 00:14:21.610 --> 00:14:23.730 is scourged and crucified on the cross in Jesus' 00:14:23.889 --> 00:14:26.970 place. These alternative narratives really highlight 00:14:26.970 --> 00:14:30.250 a profound theological anxiety surrounding the 00:14:30.250 --> 00:14:33.009 mechanics of salvation. which inevitably leads 00:14:33.009 --> 00:14:35.190 to the ultimate theological question. What happened 00:14:35.190 --> 00:14:37.889 to Judas' soul? Exactly. If he had to betray 00:14:37.889 --> 00:14:40.429 Jesus for the crucifixion to happen, and the 00:14:40.429 --> 00:14:42.289 crucifixion had to happen for humanity's salvation, 00:14:42.830 --> 00:14:45.590 isn't he kind of a necessary gear in the machine? 00:14:45.909 --> 00:14:48.730 Yeah, heaven or hell. Where did he end up for 00:14:48.730 --> 00:14:50.529 you listening? Because if God planned the whole 00:14:50.529 --> 00:14:52.669 thing, it seems incredibly harsh to punish the 00:14:52.669 --> 00:14:55.950 guy who merely played his assigned role. That 00:14:55.950 --> 00:14:58.330 is the central paradox, and the theological divide 00:14:58.330 --> 00:15:01.429 on this issue is stark. On one side, you have... 00:15:01.529 --> 00:15:03.850 Protestant theologians like John Calvin, who 00:15:03.850 --> 00:15:06.850 argued strongly for rigid predestination. That 00:15:06.850 --> 00:15:09.529 his fate was sealed. Calvin believed Judas was 00:15:09.529 --> 00:15:12.370 predestined for damnation. That God willed his 00:15:12.370 --> 00:15:14.610 fall to demonstrate divine justice and fulfill 00:15:14.610 --> 00:15:17.750 prophecy. Others focused on his suicide. Like 00:15:17.750 --> 00:15:20.570 Cornelius Elipede. Yes. He argued that while 00:15:20.570 --> 00:15:23.230 Judas sinned by betraying Jesus, he could have 00:15:23.230 --> 00:15:25.830 been forgiven if he had genuinely repented. But 00:15:25.830 --> 00:15:28.490 by despairing and taking his own life, he rejected 00:15:28.490 --> 00:15:30.830 God's mercy and sealed his own fate in the depths 00:15:30.830 --> 00:15:33.679 of hell. It's a very bleak view. But when you 00:15:33.679 --> 00:15:35.899 look at the Catholic Church's stance, it is surprisingly 00:15:35.899 --> 00:15:39.399 nuanced. It really is. The Catholic Church has 00:15:39.399 --> 00:15:43.279 a canon of saints people officially recognized 00:15:43.279 --> 00:15:46.259 as being in heaven. But they actually do not 00:15:46.259 --> 00:15:48.500 have a canon of the damned. There's no official 00:15:48.500 --> 00:15:51.840 list of people in hell. No, there is no official 00:15:51.840 --> 00:15:54.799 infallible declaration from the church that Judas 00:15:54.799 --> 00:15:58.690 or anyone specific is definitively in hell. Interesting. 00:15:58.730 --> 00:16:00.789 During Vatican II, the church spoke generally 00:16:00.789 --> 00:16:03.669 of eternal fire, but explicitly left individual 00:16:03.669 --> 00:16:07.289 judgments to God's ultimate mercy. In fact, some 00:16:07.289 --> 00:16:09.490 modern Catholic theologians like Hans Urs von 00:16:09.490 --> 00:16:12.269 Balthasar have explored the theological concept 00:16:12.269 --> 00:16:14.929 of the empty hell. What does that mean practically? 00:16:15.289 --> 00:16:17.409 Von Balthasar argued that while hell is a real 00:16:17.409 --> 00:16:19.909 possibility for those who definitively reject 00:16:19.909 --> 00:16:22.649 God, Christians have a duty to hope for universal 00:16:22.649 --> 00:16:25.250 salvation. Okay. He suggested the possibility 00:16:25.250 --> 00:16:28.289 that Christ's descent into hell after the crucifixion 00:16:28.289 --> 00:16:30.490 might have reached even the most lost souls, 00:16:30.730 --> 00:16:33.250 including Judas. It is a theology of profound 00:16:33.250 --> 00:16:35.590 radical hope. Though historically, the arts and 00:16:35.590 --> 00:16:37.509 literature have definitely not shared that radical 00:16:37.509 --> 00:16:39.710 hope. Not at all. If you look at Dante's Divine 00:16:39.710 --> 00:16:43.169 Comedy, Dante places Judas in the absolute lowest, 00:16:43.429 --> 00:16:46.470 darkest, freezing center of hell. The ninth circle. 00:16:46.669 --> 00:16:49.129 Yeah, literally being chewed for all eternity 00:16:49.129 --> 00:16:52.590 in the mouths of Lucifer, right alongside Caesar's 00:16:52.590 --> 00:16:55.509 assassins, Brutus and Cassius. Art and literature 00:16:55.509 --> 00:16:57.769 have effectively turned him into a caricature. 00:16:58.269 --> 00:17:00.950 In historical paintings of the Last Supper, he's 00:17:00.950 --> 00:17:03.679 often the only disciple without a halo. or he's 00:17:03.679 --> 00:17:06.160 given a dark black halo to signify his fallen 00:17:06.160 --> 00:17:09.539 status. Always visually separated. He's almost 00:17:09.539 --> 00:17:11.779 always placed on the opposite side of the table, 00:17:11.900 --> 00:17:14.240 isolated from the rest of the group. The sources 00:17:14.240 --> 00:17:16.259 also note he's frequently depicted with red hair. 00:17:16.420 --> 00:17:19.059 You see it heavily in Spanish cultural representations 00:17:19.059 --> 00:17:21.960 and even in Shakespeare's writings. But as you 00:17:21.960 --> 00:17:24.299 look closer at the historical texts, there's 00:17:24.299 --> 00:17:26.640 a really dark, tragic reality attached to how 00:17:26.640 --> 00:17:29.359 his image has been manipulated over time. There 00:17:29.359 --> 00:17:32.250 is a terrible legacy here. Over the centuries, 00:17:32.410 --> 00:17:34.910 particularly beginning in the Middle Ages, the 00:17:34.910 --> 00:17:37.509 figure of Judas was weaponized. He was systematically 00:17:37.509 --> 00:17:40.250 turned into a personification of the Jewish people. 00:17:40.410 --> 00:17:42.470 The red hair depiction was part of that, right? 00:17:42.609 --> 00:17:45.950 Yes. It was actually a Renaissance trope deliberately 00:17:45.950 --> 00:17:48.710 used to visually correlate him with contemporary 00:17:48.710 --> 00:17:52.410 European Jews. The story of his betrayal for 00:17:52.410 --> 00:17:55.589 30 pieces of silver was twisted and utilized 00:17:55.589 --> 00:17:59.329 for centuries to justify horrific Christian anti 00:17:59.329 --> 00:18:02.009 -Semitism. Stereotyping an entire people based 00:18:02.009 --> 00:18:04.809 on the actions of this one highly debated figure. 00:18:05.130 --> 00:18:07.910 It is a stark reminder of how theological narratives 00:18:07.910 --> 00:18:10.349 can be distorted to inflict real world violence. 00:18:10.630 --> 00:18:12.970 So what does this all mean? We've gone from a 00:18:12.970 --> 00:18:15.490 man with a remarkably common name to a mysterious 00:18:15.490 --> 00:18:18.849 linguistic nickname to contradictory deaths featuring 00:18:18.849 --> 00:18:21.440 bursting bodies. and resurrected chickens. It's 00:18:21.440 --> 00:18:24.259 a wild ride. We've seen him framed as a Gnostic 00:18:24.259 --> 00:18:26.859 hero, an accidental martyr, and a resident of 00:18:26.859 --> 00:18:29.059 the lowest circle of hell. For you listening 00:18:29.059 --> 00:18:30.880 right now, the story of Judas Iscariot really 00:18:30.880 --> 00:18:33.359 serves as a mirror for 2 ,000 years of human 00:18:33.359 --> 00:18:36.660 history. A blank canvas. He is the ultimate blank 00:18:36.660 --> 00:18:39.910 canvas. We have projected all of our fears of 00:18:39.910 --> 00:18:43.190 betrayal onto him. We've used him to debate massive 00:18:43.190 --> 00:18:46.049 mind -bending theological concepts like free 00:18:46.049 --> 00:18:49.509 will versus predestination. And tragically, humanity 00:18:49.509 --> 00:18:51.650 has used his image to persecute others because 00:18:51.650 --> 00:18:54.170 we have a deep psychological need for a clear, 00:18:54.230 --> 00:18:57.069 undeniable villain to blame. He is a historical 00:18:57.069 --> 00:19:00.190 figure who simply refuses to stay buried in the 00:19:00.190 --> 00:19:03.789 past. And to leave you with one final incredibly 00:19:03.789 --> 00:19:06.029 bizarre nugget from the sources to mull over. 00:19:06.210 --> 00:19:08.750 Let's hear it. There's an obscure text we haven't 00:19:08.750 --> 00:19:10.650 mentioned yet called the Syriac Infancy Gospel. 00:19:11.150 --> 00:19:13.509 This ancient legend claims that when Judas was 00:19:13.509 --> 00:19:15.490 just a young boy, he was possessed by Satan. 00:19:15.650 --> 00:19:18.150 Okay. During a violent attack, this possessed 00:19:18.150 --> 00:19:21.190 boy Judas encountered another child, young Jesus. 00:19:21.470 --> 00:19:23.609 And what happened? Judas bit Jesus violently 00:19:23.609 --> 00:19:26.789 on his side. That is a wild image. It is. But 00:19:26.789 --> 00:19:29.210 the text adds one chilling, highly symbolic detail. 00:19:29.660 --> 00:19:31.980 It claims that the exact spot where the boy Judas 00:19:31.980 --> 00:19:35.579 bit the child Jesus was the very same side that 00:19:35.579 --> 00:19:37.819 would later be pierced by the Holy Lands as Jesus 00:19:37.819 --> 00:19:40.680 hung on the cross decades later. It's a haunting, 00:19:40.859 --> 00:19:43.779 evocative image. I invite you to ponder that. 00:19:43.960 --> 00:19:46.900 How deeply and almost cosmically intertwined 00:19:46.900 --> 00:19:49.460 the destinies of the betrayer and the betrayed 00:19:49.460 --> 00:19:52.059 were in the minds of the ancients. That is just 00:19:52.059 --> 00:19:54.319 a mind -blowing image to end on. A huge thank 00:19:54.319 --> 00:19:56.380 you to you, our listener, for joining us on this 00:19:56.380 --> 00:19:58.720 deep dive into the sources today. There is always 00:19:58.720 --> 00:20:01.160 more to the story than the headline. Stay curious, 00:20:01.259 --> 00:20:02.700 keep questioning, and we'll catch you on the 00:20:02.700 --> 00:20:03.279 next deep dive.