Different Deaths Of Judas?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Starwynd
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
Your response is logically fallacious! False analogies do not prove your point. It is also strange that you do not know the symbolic association between the 12 tribes of Israel and Jesus’ 12 apostles.
Was one apostle from each of the 12 tribes? Since at least two, and possibly three or four sets of brothers were involved, that doesn’t seem likely.

Therefore the symbolism seems rather subjective.

The proportions of the Ark were roughly the proportions of a human body. Symbolism or coincidence?

The first three men on earth, according to Genesis, were Adam, Abel and Cain. The first three men on the moon were Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins. Symbolic or merely a coincidence?

NEWS comes from the North, the East, the West and the South. Symbolism or coincidence?
 
Was one apostle from each of the 12 tribes? Since at least two, and possibly three or four sets of brothers were involved, that doesn’t seem likely.

Therefore the symbolism seems rather subjective.

The proportions of the Ark were roughly the proportions of a human body. Symbolism or coincidence?

The first three men on earth, according to Genesis, were Adam, Abel and Cain. The first three men on the moon were Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins. Symbolic or merely a coincidence?

NEWS comes from the North, the East, the West and the South. Symbolism or coincidence?
Keep entertaining yourself. 😃

Discussing religion with a person that voluntarily isolates oneself from the notions of symbolism and typology will produce no fruit. The fruit in this sentence is symbolic though 😉
 
Keep entertaining yourself. 😃

Discussing religion with a person that voluntarily isolates oneself from the notions of symbolism and typology will produce no fruit. The fruit in this sentence is symbolic though 😉
Wel, Ang, first of all, personal attacks are contrary to forum rules, and I certainly have not done so to you.

The theme of the thread is the two contradictory accounts of Judas’ demise, not symbolism and imagry.

I have offered my own theory of what MIGHT have occurred to cause the discrepancy, at the same time admitting that other possibilities exist.

Many Christians and Christian apologists DO believe that the proportions of the Ark, as described in Genesis, were intentionally chosen because they are the proportions of a human body, the Body of the Messiah, of which the ark is - you will pardon the expression - an ark-etype.
 
Wel, Ang, first of all, personal attacks are contrary to forum rules, and I certainly have not done so to you.

The theme of the thread is the two contradictory accounts of Judas’ demise, not symbolism and imagry.

I have offered my own theory of what MIGHT have occurred to cause the discrepancy, at the same time admitting that other possibilities exist.

Many Christians and Christian apologists DO believe that the proportions of the Ark, as described in Genesis, were intentionally chosen because they are the proportions of a human body, the Body of the Messiah, of which the ark is - you will pardon the expression - an ark-etype.
Your first post was not very friendly and it lacked maturity. No one has to believe in the same way as I do for sure. However, your analogy about the eggs was absolutely offensive.

It is certain that we do not agree on the interpretation of the accounts related by Matthew and Luke. What you see in the text is not clear to me as what I see in the same place makes no sense to you.

I know that the Bible is full of symbols and typologies. As a Christian believing in the Bible, I guess I have some rights to regard Luke’s account of Judas’ death as the typology of what happened to Judah in the past. Israel was both the name of Isaac’s son and of the nation descending from him. What if Luke points at something similar between the inhabitants of Judah in Jeremiah and apostle Judas with regard to iniquities and their disastrous results (divine punishment)? Certain elements in both stories bear astonishing similarities:

Judah is broken beyond repair vs Judas falling headlong and intestines gushing forth.

The land of Judah has a new name because of the horrible things occurring there as a result of divine wrath vs Judas’ field is named after his disastrous death.

Although we have the same organ to see, our sight is naturally different. 🙂
 
As a Christian believing in the Bible, I guess I have some rights to regard Luke’s account of Judas’ death as the typology of what happened to Judah in the past. Israel was both the name of Isaac’s son and of the nation descending from him. What if Luke points at something similar between the inhabitants of Judah in Jeremiah and apostle Judas with regard to iniquities and their disastrous results (divine punishment)?
Since Luke wasn’t Jewish, that seems very unlikely.
 
2 & 3. I am one of the ‘some’. He either used the money to buy a field or he returned it to the temple. That the ‘potter’ (treasurer) may have then used it to buy the field, even if it was purchased in Judas’ name, is not the same thing. Luke says clearly that he bought the field himself and died there. Matthew says that the money was returned and Judas hanged himself, which he could hardly have done in a field about which he knew nothing.
1.) The money cannot be put back into the Temple treasury (i.e. it cannot belong to the Temple again) as it is blood money. Even if Judas had ‘returned’ it back, it is not and can no longer become the Temple’s property as the money is rendered unclean!

2.) Luke uses a word (which you translate as ‘bought’) which can also mean get, acquire, obtain, possess, provide, or purchase (having connotations of ownership), whereas Matthew merely uses a word meaning ‘to purchase, to transact.’

3.) The temple leaders could not purchase the field in their own names, for it was ‘unclean’ blood money, which was unlawful for them to use (In the Ancient Eastern way of thinking, the guilt of innocent blood was very serious). To have been involved in such an act as bribing Judas with this sum would have been regarded as extremely dishonoring (remember that their culture took the matter of honor and shame very seriously, like the Japanese) if the news ever got out and in all likelihood, they would have bought it in Judas’ name to wash the stigma of dishonor from themselves and shift the blame to him, using whatever means.

Luke never says Judas bought the field himself, he just says that “this man purchased [obtained, possessed or whatever] a field with the reward of iniquity;” he does not say Judas personally went down there and paid money to the potter who owned the field.

When the priests would have bought the field where Judas died on (remember that in this time, society and culture, a rumor could spread fast), the owner would have only been too glad to sell them the field since Judas had already ‘defiled’ it by dying in there (either by strangulation or ‘swelling and bursting’). Under such circumstances the owner would probably not care in the least what the priests were up to, and the priests would frame it as doing the owner a favor, which in fact they were since Judas’ death made his property worthless in terms of trying to sell it to other Jews.
 
1.) The money cannot be put back into the Temple treasury (i.e. it cannot belong to the Temple again) as it is blood money. Even if Judas had ‘returned’ it back, it is not and can no longer become the Temple’s property as the money is rendered unclean!

2.) Luke uses a word (which you translate as ‘bought’) which can also mean get, acquire, obtain, possess, provide, or purchase (having connotations of ownership), whereas Matthew merely uses a word meaning ‘to purchase, to transact.’

3.) The temple leaders could not purchase the field in their own names, for it was ‘unclean’ blood money, which was unlawful for them to use (In the Ancient Eastern way of thinking, the guilt of innocent blood was very serious). To have been involved in such an act as bribing Judas with this sum would have been regarded as extremely dishonoring (remember that their culture took the matter of honor and shame very seriously, like the Japanese) if the news ever got out and in all likelihood, they would have bought it in Judas’ name to wash the stigma of dishonor from themselves and shift the blame to him, using whatever means.

Luke never says Judas bought the field himself, he just says that “this man purchased [obtained, possessed or whatever] a field with the reward of iniquity;” he does not say Judas personally went down there and paid money to the potter who owned the field.

When the priests would have bought the field where Judas died on (remember that in this time, society and culture, a rumor could spread fast), the owner would have only been too glad to sell them the field since Judas had already ‘defiled’ it by dying in there (either by strangulation or ‘swelling and bursting’). Under such circumstances the owner would probably not care in the least what the priests were up to, and the priests would frame it as doing the owner a favor, which in fact they were since Judas’ death made his property worthless in terms of trying to sell it to other Jews.
Your convolutions are not consistent with either of the two NT accounts.

I’m sorry, Paddy me boy, you can’t just ‘make it up as you go’. You are correct that the money could not be returned to the temple treasury. No one said that it was. ZECHARIAH - not Matthew nor Luke - describes a very different situation in which the same amount of money was donated to the treasury, and Matthew takes this as his text, falsely ascribing it to Jeremiah.

But weak paraphrases of OT material are not at all uncommon in the NT.

Nor is there any indication from Luke’s account, which was written long after the event, by an outsider, and probably based on unreliable hearsay, that Judas had any further dealings with the ‘potter’, i.e. the temple treasurer. Luke says only that with his ill-gotten gains Judas purchased a field, where he fell to his death. There is no mention of suicide. One assumes that he bought the field from the previous owner or his agent.

Bear in mind, we are talking about the two accounts, not necessarily what actually happened. Anyone following this thread can read both accounts for themselves and see that there is no basis for your elaborations whatever.

Similar difficulties occur when trying to reconcile the contradictory creation tales of Genesis 1 and Genesis 2, in Matthew and Luke’s vastly differing genealogies of Joseph, and so on and so on…

You can’t simply write your own imaginative amalgam of such accounts, contradicting them both, and say, ‘Here is what really happened’.
 
Your convolutions are not consistent with either of the two NT accounts.

I’m sorry, Paddy me boy, you can’t just ‘make it up as you go’. You are correct that the money could not be returned to the temple treasury. No one said that it was. ZECHARIAH - not Matthew nor Luke - describes a very different situation in which the same amount of money was donated to the treasury, and Matthew takes this as his text, falsely ascribing it to Jeremiah.

But weak paraphrases of OT material are not at all uncommon in the NT.

Nor is there any indication from Luke’s account, which was written long after the event, by an outsider, and probably based on unreliable hearsay, that Judas had any further dealings with the ‘potter’, i.e. the temple treasurer. Luke says only that with his ill-gotten gains Judas purchased a field, where he fell to his death. There is no mention of suicide. One assumes that he bought the field from the previous owner or his agent.

Bear in mind, we are talking about the two accounts, not necessarily what actually happened. Anyone following this thread can read both accounts for themselves and see that there is no basis for your elaborations whatever.

Similar difficulties occur when trying to reconcile the contradictory creation tales of Genesis 1 and Genesis 2, in Matthew and Luke’s vastly differing genealogies of Joseph, and so on and so on…

You can’t simply write your own imaginative amalgam of such accounts, contradicting them both, and say, ‘Here is what really happened’.
Hmm…good thoughts.

On a less serious note, what if all this is actually a conspiracy? What if the four Gospels and Acts actually were separate accounts of what happened in different parallel universes (for example, the events in Matthew happened at Parallel World no. 1 and Luke/Acts in world no. 3), copies of which somehow all ended up in our world! That explains their apparent contradictions!

This discovery will surely shake the foundations of Christianity! I wonder if we ever made a novel about it. Chances are it will make lots of $$. Another alternative is to break off and start a new denomination. 😃 :rolleyes:

(Sorry for the above. I’m just trying to loose the tension down a bit. :p)
 
Hmm…good thoughts.

On a less serious note, what if all this is actually a conspiracy? What if the four Gospels and Acts actually were separate accounts of what happened in different parallel universes (for example, the events in Matthew happened at Parallel World no. 1 and Luke/Acts in world no. 3), copies of which somehow all ended up in our world! That explains their apparent contradictions!

This discovery will surely shake the foundations of Christianity! I wonder if we ever made a novel about it. Chances are it will make lots of $$. Another alternative is to break off and start a new denomination. 😃 :rolleyes:

(Sorry for the above. I’m just trying to loose the tension down a bit. :p)
I liked the Earth-Two Flash much better because of the Mercury suit.
 
Matthew reports, but in the book of Acts we are told what Peter said. Perhaps Peter simply didn’t know the exact details and it was not the point of what Peter was saying. Peter may have been merely restating a traditional understanding of the death of Judas. Peter’s main point seemed to be fulfillment of prophecy and its relation to the need to find a twelfth apostle.

Peter denied Jesus, he also was initially opposed to the sacrifice of Jesus. If he is inaccurate about the details of the death of Judas then it seems that the message that God is telling us does not relate to the accuracy of these details. This fact in itself can point us to the what the important message really is.
 
Another important aspect that I think we need to understand about Scripture is that people in Scripture can speak in what is similar to expressions of the culture. I would think that Peter’s manner of speaking is likely based on immersion and faith in Jewish teaching and prophecy. Peter may be speaking of the death of Judas using symbolic language that relates to the meaning of actions and events without addressing the details.

Consider expressions that we have today, for example if a teen wins a gold medal in an Olympic sport that has never been won by a teen before, we might say he “paved the way” for other teens. This has nothing to do with the sport and certainly does not refer to literal “paving” of a road.

Sometimes, when referring to seemingly differing accounts of the resurrection or the death of Judas we might find that people seek some literal way to make the pieces fit. I think in general when we find ourselves doing this it is a clue that need to search for the true message of Scripture that may be using symbolic or poetic language to emphasize the real meaning. Consider the Book of Revelation. Surely we don’t interpret that literally, but the messages are there.

To understand Scripture I think we need to step back a bit and look at patterns and uses of symbolic, poetic language and language similar to parables. Jesus explained to the apostles why He spoke in parables. I think we should consider the wisdom that they drew from this and we may even see this methodolgy of Jesus in their own writings. Remember what Jesus told them that the purpose of parables is.

Scripture passages can have a “wavelength” so to speak and to understand them we need to be on that “wavelength”. This includes relating the passages to other Scriptures.
 
Since Luke wasn’t Jewish, that seems very unlikely.
What about the other prophecies and allusions to the Old Testament in Luke’s Gospel and Acts? Do you really mean that Luke cannot write anything about the OT or that he is unfamiliar with Jewish typology only because of his being a Gentile? Now you seem to deny the notion of divine inspiration.

More to the point, this account is not devised, but only reported by Luke. He only relates what Peter said about Judas’ death.
 
Please note that to acknowledge that scripture is free of errors is not the same as saying that EVERYTHING the bible says is true.

To Wit: The sky is not a beaten metal bowl with windows in it to let the rain in - which is what scripture “teaches”.

We are not necessarily being told the exact means of Judas’ death. Rather we are being taught that the wages of sin are death and he killed himself in his despair and his death was horrible.

The problem we have today is we don’t read for the same understanding that scripture was written. Today, we tend to read for modern “scientific-like” accuracy and expect things to be written that way. They weren’t written for literal “scientific” accuracy - they were written to convey deeper meaning and emotion. The significant amount of literal historical accuracy is a bonus.
No what you are saying is not true (I think this i what you are saying). The Church teaches that everything the sacred author asserts (the intended meaning of the author) is absolutley free from error. The Judas accounts cannot contradict each other, but must be reconciled. Some of he above explanatons do that.
 
No what you are saying is not true (I think this i what you are saying). The Church teaches that everything the sacred author asserts (the intended meaning of the author) is absolutley free from error. The Judas accounts cannot contradict each other, but must be reconciled. Some of he above explanatons do that.
Roger, your interpretations of what the Church teaches are bizarre to say the least.

The Church does not teach that any more than it teaches what you claim it teaches regarding the Jews.

The Church is well aware of the hundreds of factual gaffes in scripture.

None of those detract from the Bible’s message. It is the message, not the details, that is inerrant.
 
There seems to be different deaths of Judas.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judas_Iscariot

How can there be two different deaths of Judas in the bible? Shouldn’t there be only one?

IMHO, the manner of death may be the clue: Ahithophel the very wise counsellor of David went over to the rebellious Absalom - when he saw Absalom’s cause was doomed, he hanged himself. For Matthew, Jesus is the Davidic King.​

As for the death by bursting apart: Luke may have in mind Nadan the treacherous nephew of Ahiqar, who almost succeeded in causing the death of his wise uncle, whom the Book of Ahiqar presents as a counsellor of King Esarhaddon of Assyria; Nadan fails, & is lectured by his unbearably preachy uncle until he bursts open (for no obvious reason - boredom ?).

Luke is interested in the unpleasant things that happen to opponents of the Gospel: Herod Agrippa & Elymas are two examples in Acts - the death of Judas may be intended as the first in the series. Why the use of Ahiqar’s nephew ? The treachery of Nadan & Judas, and a possible Wisdom-theme in Luke-Acts, just as the Book of Ahiqar is an example of wisdom literature, might be why.

Or one evangelist - but which ? - may be giving the meaning of the death of Judas, while the other gives what happened. Or maybe there was no certainty as to how Judas had died by the time that one or both of them was at work.

What I find unconvincing is the idea that Judas’s death is described in two stages - it seems so artificial, as though it would not have been thought of unless concern for the inerrancy of the Bible required the two accounts to be harmonised so that both could be right.

Any use to you ?
 
Roger, your interpretations of what the Church teaches are bizarre to say the least.

The Church does not teach that any more than it teaches what you claim it teaches regarding the Jews.

The Church is well aware of the hundreds of factual gaffes in scripture.

None of those detract from the Bible’s message. It is the message, not the details, that is inerrant.

OTOH:​

Leo XIII, Encyclical Providentissimus Deus, 1893:

20. The principles here laid down will apply to cognate sciences, and especially to History. It is a lamentable fact that there are many who with great labor carry out and publish investigations on the monuments of antiquity, the manners and institutions of nations and other illustrative subjects, and whose chief purpose in all this is too often to find mistakes in the sacred writings and so to shake and weaken their authority. Some of these writers display not only extreme hostility, but the greatest unfairness; in their eyes a profane book or ancient document is accepted without hesitation, whilst the Scripture, if they only find in it a suspicion of error, is set down with the slightest possible discussion as quite untrustworthy. It is true, no doubt, that copyists have made mistakes in the text of the Bible; this question, when it arises, should be carefully considered on its merits, and the fact not too easily admitted, but only in those passages where the proof is clear. It may also happen that the sense of a passage remains ambiguous, and in this case good hermeneutical methods will greatly assist in clearing up the obscurity. **But it is absolutely wrong and forbidden, either to narrow inspiration to certain parts only of Holy Scripture, or to admit that the sacred writer has erred. For the system of those who, in order to rid themselves of these difficulties, do not hesitate to concede that divine inspiration regards the things of faith and morals, and nothing beyond, because (as they wrongly think) in a question of the truth or falsehood of a passage, we should consider not so much what God has said as the reason and purpose which He had in mind in saying it – this system cannot be tolerated. For all the books which the Church receives as sacred and canonical, are written wholly and entirely, with all their parts, at the dictation of the Holy Ghost; and so far is it from being possible that any error can co-exist with inspiration, that inspiration not only is essentially incompatible with error, but excludes and rejects it as absolutely and necessarily as it is impossible that God Himself, the supreme Truth, can utter that which is not true. **This is the ancient and unchanging faith of the Church, solemnly defined in the Councils of Florence and of Trent, and finally confirmed and more expressly formulated by the Council of the Vatican. These are the words of the last: "The Books of the Old and New Testament, whole and entire, with all their parts, as enumerated in the decree of the same Council (Trent) and in the ancient Latin Vulgate, are to be received as sacred and canonical. And the Church holds them as sacred and canonical, not because, having been composed by human industry, they were afterwards approved by her authority; nor only because they contain revelation without error; but because, having been written under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, they have God for their author."57 Hence, because the Holy Ghost employed men as His instruments, we cannot therefore say that it was these inspired instruments who, perchance, have fallen into error, and not the primary author. For, by supernatural power, He so moved and impelled them to write – He was so present to them – that the things which He ordered, and those only, they, first, rightly understood, then willed faithfully to write down, and finally expressed in apt words and with infallible truth. Otherwise, it could not be said that He was the Author of the entire Scripture. Such has always been the persuasion of the Fathers. “Therefore,” says St. Augustine, "since they wrote the things which He showed and uttered to them, it cannot be pretended that He is not the writer; for His members executed what their Head dictated."58 And St. Gregory the Great thus pronounces: "Most superfluous it is to inquire who wrote these things – we loyally believe the Holy Ghost to be the Author of the book. He wrote it Who dictated it for writing; He wrote it Who inspired its execution."59

21.** It follows that those who maintain that an error is possible in any genuine passage of the sacred writings, either pervert the Catholic notion of inspiration, or make God the author of such error. And so emphatically were all the Fathers and Doctors agreed that the divine writings, as left by the hagiographers, are free from all error**, that they labored earnestly, with no less skill than reverence, to reconcile with each other those numerous passages which seem at variance – the very passages which in great measure have been taken up by the “higher criticism;” for they were unanimous in laying it down, that those writings, in their entirety and in all their parts were equally from the afflatus of Almighty God, and that God, speaking by the sacred writers, could not set down anything but what was true. The words of St. Augustine to St. Jerome may sum up what they taught: "On my part I confess to your charity that it is only to those Books of Scripture which are now called canonical that I have learned to pay such honor and reverence as to believe most firmly that none of their writers has fallen into any error. And if in these Books I meet anything which seems contrary to truth, I shall not hesitate to conclude either that the text is faulty, or that the translator has not expressed the meaning of the passage, or that I myself do not understand."60

Pius XII, Encyclical Humani Generis, 1943:

[ For some go so far as to pervert the sense of the Vatican Council’s definition that God is the author of Holy Scripture, and they put forward again the opinion, already often condemned, which asserts that immunity from error extends only to those parts of the Bible that treat of God or of moral and religious matters. (http://www.papalencyclicals.net/Pius12/P12HUMAN.HTM)They even wrongly speak of a human sense of the Scriptures, beneath which a divine sense, which they say is the only infallible meaning, lies hidden. In interpreting Scripture, they will take no account of the analogy of faith and the Tradition of the Church. Thus they judge the doctrine of the Fathers and of the Teaching Church by the norm of Holy Scripture, interpreted by the purely human reason of exegetes, instead of explaining Holy Scripture according to the mind of the Church which Christ Our Lord has appointed guardian and interpreter of the whole deposit of divinely revealed truth.

Two recent(-ish) Popes are very clear that the Bible is inerrant - totally. And their position was re-affirmed in 1998 in the Commentary on the Concluding Formula of the ‘Professio fidei’:
    1. This new formula of the Professio Fidei restates the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed and concludes with the addition of three propositions or paragraphs intended to better distinguish the order of the truths to which the believer adheres. The correct explanation of these paragraphs deserves a clear presentation, so that their authentic meaning, as given by the Church’s Magisterium, will be well understood, received and integrally preserved.
    1. The first paragraph states: “With firm faith, I also believe everything contained in the Word of God, whether written or handed down in Tradition, which the Church, either by a solemn judgment or by the ordinary and universal Magisterium, sets forth to be believed as divinely revealed.” The object taught in this paragraph is constituted by all those doctrines of divine and catholic faith which the Church proposes as divinely and formally revealed and, as such, as irreformable. These doctrines are contained in the Word of God, written or handed down, and defined with a solemn judgment as divinely revealed truths either by the Roman Pontiff when he speaks `ex cathedra,’ or by the College of Bishops gathered in council, or infallibly proposed for belief by the ordinary and universal Magisterium.
  • These doctrines require the assent of theological faith by all members of the faithful. Thus, whoever obstinately places them in doubt or denies them falls under the censure of heresy, as indicated by the respective canons of the Codes of Canon Law.
    1. With regard to the nature of the assent owed to the truths set forth by the Church as divinely revealed (those of the first paragraph) or to be held definitively (those of the second paragraph), it is important to emphasize that there is no difference with respect to the full and irrevocable character of the assent which is owed to these teachings. The difference concerns the supernatural virtue of faith: in the case of truths of the first paragraph, the assent is based directly on faith in the authority of the Word of God (doctrines de fide credenda); in the case of the truths of the second paragraph, the assent is based on faith in the Holy Spirit’s assistance to the Magisterium and on the Catholic doctrine of the infallibility of the Magisterium (doctrines de fide tenenda).
    1. Examples. Without any intention of completeness or exhaustiveness, some examples of doctrines relative to the three paragraphs described above can be recalled.
  • To the truths of the first paragraph belong the articles of faith of the Creed, the various christological dogmas and marian dogmas; the doctrine of the institution of the sacraments by Christ and their efficacy with regard to grace; the doctrine of the real and substantial presence of Christ in the Eucharist and the sacrificial nature of the eucharistic celebration; the foundation of the Church by the will of Christ; the doctrine on the primacy and infallibility of the Roman Pontiff; the doctrine on the existence of original sin; the doctrine on the immortality of the spiritual soul and on the immediate recompense after death; the absence of error in the inspired sacred texts; the doctrine on the grave immorality of direct and voluntary killing of an innocent human being.
    All of which leaves those who notice the “gaffes” you mention in rather a bind :o. The question is: how “total” is total inerrancy ? Inerrancy is fine as a theory, but in practice it’s unworkable.
With regard to the thread, several explanations are offered which manage to harmonise the accounts - but, the harmonising explanations don’t agree; so we are back where we were. 🙂 Non-contradictory explanations of seeingly contradictory accounts are no good, if one does not know they are correct: the White House can be accounted for as a solar temple, but that doesn’t meant it is one; but archaeologists in the future may interpret it in that way, & not know they are wrong.
 
All of which leaves those who notice the “gaffes” you mention in rather a bind :o. The question is: how “total” is total inerrancy ? Inerrancy is fine as a theory, but in practice it’s unworkable.

With regard to the thread, several explanations are offered which manage to harmonise the accounts - but, the harmonising explanations don’t agree; so we are back where we were. 🙂 Non-contradictory explanations of seeingly contradictory accounts are no good, if one does not know they are correct: the White House can be accounted for as a solar temple, but that doesn’t meant it is one; but archaeologists in the future may interpret it in that way, & not know they are wrong.
I think that, in regard to the quoted matter, the key lies in the first and last paragraph.

In the first, Leo acknowledges - barely - that such gaffes exist. He then admonishes those who use such to demean the whole of scripture, as he should.

In the last, all of the matters listed are of faith, not fact. Everything inbetween is mostly rhetoric.

Leaving aside the fact that certain events in the Bible, as we have been discussing, are described differently by different writers, the idea that the Bible is accurate in matters of scientific fact is outdated by several centuries - at least.

If one denies that, he is left to conclude that every facet of science is in error, and if that were the teaching of the Church, it would be reflected in the Catholic school system, which of course it is not; on the contrary, Catholic schools have been in the forefront of science education for much more than a century, and Catholic universities, especially those of the Jesuits, are paragons of educational excellence in the USA and elsewhere, in theology and also in the physical sciences.
 
Judas hung himself, but since Passover was beginning and suicide is against the Jewish Faith (as well as the Christian Faith), no one was willing to take down his body and become defiled, unable to participate in the Passover. So his body hung there for several days, decomposing, until his abdomen burst open, and all his bowels spilled out. So the two accounts are of the same event.
 
There seems to be different deaths of Judas.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judas_Iscariot

How can there be two different deaths of Judas in the bible? Shouldn’t there be only one?
**Matthew’s gospel is probably closer to the truth where Judas committed suicide by hanging himself, since it was written closer to the events (perhaps about 50 years or less after the Ascension).

In the book of Acts, Judas “fell down, and burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed out.” Some have argued that after committing suicide by hanging, the body began to rot, slipped from the noose (or the noose loosened) and the body fell to the ground where it split open on the rocks and the insides spilled out. This is plausible and probably even true, so both accounts can be valid, but coming from different angles.

The decomposing tissues release green substances and gas, which make the skin green/blue and blistered, starting on the abdomen. The front of the body swells (abdomen), the tongue may protrude, and fluid from the lungs oozes out of the mouth and nostrils.This unpleasant sight is added to by a terrible smell as gases such as hydrogen sulphide (rotten egg smell), methane and traces of mercaptans are released. This process is hurried in hot climates.

There are two other oral traditions explaining the death of Judas.
An account was preserved by the early Christian leader, Papias: “Judas walked about in this world a sad example of impiety; for his body having swollen to such an extent that he could not pass where a chariot could pass easily, he was crushed by the chariot, so that his bowels gushed out.” In the Gospel of Judas, it is implied that the other Apostles stoned him to death for his perceived betrayal. Matthew’s account allows the author to present the event as a fulfilment of prophetic passages from the Old Testament books of Zechariah and Jeremiah.

Although some scholars believe that Matthew’s account was “made up”, I hold stubbornly to the opinion that the easiest explanation is a combination of the two accounts. Both accounts can be correct and are in keeping with the OT prophecy fulfilment.**
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top