Judas Gets It Twice!
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| You Judas! |
Now, no one denies that Judas Iscariot was a bad dude. Killing the son of God is bad enough, but as a character in a book, he should know that the author always has the last word. So, it’s not too surprising that Judas gets nailed twice. What makes this even more remarkable is that in both cases, he does it himself.
The first suicide of Judas is recorded in Matthew 27:5.
And throwing down the pieces of silver in the temple, he departed; and he went and hanged himself.
Now, in all fairness, the Bible does not say that Judas died from the hanging. Although, I think most people would assume that he did. In fact, if the hanging was not fatal, why bother mentioning it at all?
Acts 1:18 couldn’t leave this story alone. The writer of this book had to come up with an even better story - and it really is better, filled with gory details:
Now this man bought a field with the reward of his wickedness; and falling headlong, he burst open in the middle and all his bowels gushed out.
Apparently, the writer of Acts couldn’t resist finding a prophecy fulfilment in Judas' death, so he found an obscure scripture in Psalms and made the events fit the reference. As a bit of speculation, I wonder if this is where we get the expression, "bought the farm".
Some people have put forward the hypothesis that he hanged himself on a tree that had a branch overhanging a cliff. When he jumped off, the branch broke, and he fell, splitting himself open. This isn’t a bad story, except that it is pure speculation - there is nothing in the bible to indicate that it happened. As well, under this scenario, he would not "fall headlong". He would have fallen feet first.
Also, did you notice that he threw the silver pieces into the temple, but then he bought a field with the same silver pieces? That must have been rather embarrassing – making a big scene in the temple, and then having to go back and collect the silver pieces from the floor.
However this really happened, it is clear that God’s inerrant word of truth is a little confused.
What have we learned from the last four articles? Well, we have seen that no matter what kind of death a character suffers, there's a chance that they can come back and suffer another horrific death.
Above all, we mustn't question the Bible, for it is God's word. Who are we to question that?
