Judas hero or traitor??

Quite the conundrum.

Yet, how would Judas be able to perfectly time the event to G-d's plan?
God's timing is perfect. But when we (humans) attempt to take matters into our own hands, tragedy can happen (and normally does).
 
LOL. Are you in love with Judas, and what planet are you from? :)

You sure did a lot of deep thinking on the subject.
Ultimately spreading Christian love (even to Judas).

While I understand your point on skepticism about old literature, I don`t think it would be too wise to question a lot of things in the bible, although you make it very clear that you enjoy it.

If you didn`t know, I think you should know that the bible was put together by a handful of Christian authorities on orders of a Roman emperor.

You really cracked me up with this one though :D
I look forward to hearing more about your adventures.

No I am not in love with Judas. what the matter with spreading the love?even to Judas. Is this not what christians do.

Earth is where i'm from what about you?

Yes i did think hard and deep about this subject, It's only right. I take the word of God to heart. If I'm going to comment on anything to do with the Bible I will make sure i do my best to learn about the subject before i make any comment. What about you.?

Sorry I have to disagree with you. We all should question the Bible. I don't question the scriptures the word of God I do have (have questions about the bible without questions there would be no ansewers. Seek and you shall find. and Yes i do enjoy seeking Gods word (truth). And I do take it seriously.

Yes i do know that the bible was put together by a group of christians at the order of the roman emperor. I believe it was Consantine the roman emperor.

I am so glade I amuse you. According to you I crack you up. That's good I am kind of funny. I enjoy making people laugh. Glade I can help.

Stay tune for my next adventure. Comming soon to a theater near you.
 
It doesn't surprise me that I'm being corrected about something, and I respect your zeal for truth. There is nothing wrong about being wrong and putting your opinion into an open forum. It doesn't lead people astray. What really leads people astray is something else. Besides, I have you to correct me when I make mistakes; and you have me.

I was not trying to be rude to you. I was just trying to give you the fact according to what the Bible says.

I don;t know about zeal for the truth. I would say I enjoy seeking the truth.

No there's nothing wrong with being wrong. But when you state as if it were a fact, then you are leading people astray. If it is your opinion you should state it that way. This is my opinion. It's easy.

I'm not here to correct you. If I see something is false according to scripture then I will say so and back it up with scripture. In doing it that way you will know it is not my opinion, it is fact according to scripture.And scripture is God's word. Not mine. Then one can chose to believe it or not.
 
We all have the hero and betrayer in us. Judas is not a hero in this story. To say that God wanted or even commanded Judas to betray Jesus, or that Jesus gave him his marching orders or consent, is to say that God is really a puppetmaster and a cruel one at that.

The only way I can see out of that conclusion is that you believe both that God was demanding a sacrifice for atonement and that God can and will override our free will.

Lunamoth: God is in control of all things at all time. Jesus was sent here for a sacrifice for the sins of the world, for our sins. Without Jesus's death there would be no salvation. Yes Jesus told Judas to do what he must. Jesus the Son of God who take away the sins of the world. Jesus the Son of God who heald the sick made the blind see and raise the dead, He had to die. This was His end mission.

One more thing. God's will is always done. On earth as it is in heaven.
 
Winner_08 said:
But when you state as if it were a fact, then you are leading people astray. If it is your opinion you should state it that way. This is my opinion. It's easy.
I understand, however it works the opposite way. People occasionally emphasize that something is their opinion, however everything is always opinion. You can't have anything better than opinions. I should remain aware that whatever I say or think is my opinion. You must always assume it is whether or not I say it. I cannot think of any other way for things to work.

Winner_09 said:
If I see something is false according to scripture then I will say so and back it up with scripture. In doing it that way you will know it is not my opinion, it is fact according to scripture.And scripture is God's word. Not mine. Then one can chose to believe it or not.
Perception of Scripture changes as you get to know it better. A scriptural quote says very little to someone who is new but volumes to someone who has built up familiarity. Then later on it will say even more. You say something and back it up with Scripture, but it is still your opinion. Context changes in scale over time, and things you say and back up with scripture will appear to change as you learn. It is not the Scripture that is changing but your opinion of it, and you cannot have anything better than an opinion.
 
Hi Nick —
But Thomas that is the kicker. In Plato's cave we lack the grace of God.
I suggest that if Plato had heard the Parables of the Kingdom he'd have flooded the bathroom like Archimedes.

A Jesuit convert recounted the Sermon on the Mount to his one-time Buddhist master, and the old man shouted "But that's it! That's what I've been teaching all my life! That man was indeed illumined!"

The bit that Plato and the Buddhist master missed is that wasn't just a parable — it wasn't presenting a truth as a spiritual insight, it was presenting the truth as an Immanent Presence. Big difference.

To "Know thyself" is not to change it but rather to consciously experience it from a conscious human perspective. Change comes from the light allowing the experience.
Yes it does ... but our teaching holds that there is an ontological dimension of self that transcends selfhood — and that cannot be known by any means other means than the transcendent revealing Itself as something other than the 'self' which is human nature, yet accessible to it, by invitation only, which is how the nature can transcend itself in the first instance.

There is plausible deist argument — deus absconditus — that because God made us, there is no 'necessary' reason why He should elevate us to be like Him. (Other than love. That's the real 'kicker'.)

The 'God of the Philosophers' is not the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, as the saying goes. Their God remains an objective but unknown speculation, that's what St Paul was preaching to the Greeks on the Areopagus: "For passing by, and seeing your idols, I found an altar also, on which was written: To the unknown God. What therefore you worship, without knowing it, that I preach to you" (Acts 17:23). Our God is One whom reveals Himself as a subjective reality: "God, who made the world, and all things therein; he, being Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands" (Acts 17:24).
I came pre-empt certain comments, in light of the above, of the Church being a 'temple made with hands'. My response would be that the Church was founded by Christ, not man, received direct from Him, and is therefore a Revelation of Divine origin, and not a human philosophy, a philosophy 'made with human hands' and which is the cause of material temple.

Thomas
 
Thomas

The bit that Plato and the Buddhist master missed is that wasn't just a parable — it wasn't presenting a truth as a spiritual insight, it was presenting the truth as an Immanent Presence. Big difference.

It is Christendom and all secular religions that would appreciate the Sermon on the Mount as spiritual insight telling people what to do. Plato would have and Christianity does understand the sermon as indicating evolved human "being" beyond the restrictions of cave life
 
Hi Wil —

I still don't see the betrayal. Judas, the treasurer, trusted with the money, Judas the Escariot, a zealot? ready for war? sword ready? His leader, his master, his lord, told him to go and do what he must.
But what he did was what he decided to do, not what his master told him. It was Judas' decision to make the deal with Caiphas, not Christ's.

God, who made the world, and all things therein; he, being Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands;

He along with others was ready to see his king take over, he thought he was being clever, following the dictate of Jesus and getting 30 pieces of silver in the till in the bargain.
Yes. We always think we're being clever ... we have done ever since we thought we knew better, in the Garden. Judas thought his way a better way. Peter tried that at the Transfiguration, and got his head well and truly bitten off for it. You'd think Christ knew even then that man's ideas, better than God's, was going to cost Him a lot of anguish.

Same reason the ear was lopped off, the rest were ready (if you don't have sword sell your clothes and get one) same reason they brought a cabal (600 men) to arrest him, everyone was prepped for a fight.
Yep. Never occurred to any of 'em that there might be another way.

And that's why it had to end like it did. Not because God willed it that way, but because man did.

There is a discussion in the Fathers: If Adam and Eve had not sinned, would the Incarnation still be necessary? The answer was yes, as the Fathers preached, "God came unto man that man might come unto God" — not the soul, not the spirit, but the man.

So the Incarnation would be necessary because "that which is not assumed is not saved". At the Resurrection, nature, the physical world, will be glorified because all nature is in man — God is beyond nature, the angels are pure intellects, but man is intellect (angelic), rational (human), animal, fauna and flora — he is made of the stuff of which the universe is made, and in him the universe will become a true theophany.

Romans 8:22
"For we know that every creature groaneth and travaileth in pain, even till now."

Jesus fight ended in the garden, and then full realization on the cross, Father, is this what you saved me for.
Indeed.

Thomas
 
Dream said:
Didn't he know that a hanging is for those who are accursed by God? It was not enough that a man be condemned to death, because he must also be made an example of God's displeasure to the entire nation.
the specific verse you quote from deuteronomy 21 applies to blasphemers. it also says that the "hanging" (nobody mentions crosses, let alone crucifixion of a living criminal) takes place AFTER the execution, so the person is already dead. it also says that the hanging ends at nightfall, because we are made in the Divine Image and therefore one should not thereby disrespect a body which is also in the Divine Image. i'm not aware of the detail in the halakhah at this point, but bearing in mind the attitude the sages had to capital punishment i suspect that they didn't allow enough time for this to take place, thus effectively removing it. if anyone knows otherwise, please say.

b'shalom

bananabrain
 
Hi Juantoo —

I have heard it said that Judas did what he did in an attempt (in his own mind) to bring about Jesus' Messiahship *on earth*, but it backfired.
Jesus' going up to Jerusalem, for the third time (according to John) would have an inevitable result: "Thomas therefore, who is called Didymus, said to his fellow disciples: Let us also go, that we may die with him." (John 11:16).

His following had grown too big to be ignored, His reputation went before Him to Jerusalem, and a confrontation was going to happen. The trick for the Sanhedrin was to bring about His downfall before the Romans got nervy and stepped in with their hobnailed boots to settle the situation and calm everything down, and without causing a riot that would make the Romans even harder to placate.

Judas' idea was to bring about the confrontation on their terms — better the devil you know than the devil you don't, one could say — the art of victory is to keep the initiative. As a zealot, he was ready to spill blood to bring about the will of God. (As was that other zealot, Paul.) Judas ran out of patience with Jesus' 'go with the flow' attitude. But then Jesus knew things he didn't.

From this I have long thought Judas meant well (and certainly filled a role he was meant to play), but that he paid dearly for following his own path and trying to do things his own way.
Yep.

And my answer would be, if not Judas, then another way, but whatever, the motive would be the same, 'we' know better than God what's good for Him, and us.

As for whether or not Judas will rot in hell for eternity...I'll leave that up to G-d.
So do I. If there's no hope for him, there's no hope for me.

Treason, particularly of family and friends, is not to be viewed lightly. Yet, without the actions of Judas the whole stage would not have been set for Jesus' execution and subsequent resurrection.
And my answer would be, if not Judas, then another way, but whatever, the motive would be the same, 'we' know better than God what's good for Him, and us — and so would the outcome.

That Judas was chosen to fill the role he played is something of an honor, a dubious one perhaps, but just the same we remember his name almost as well as we remember that of Jesus himself.
I'm not sure he was chosen — I think that, by virtue of our fallen nature, that possibility was there, and he fell into it. He chose it, it was not chosen for him.

Thomas
 
But what he did was what he decided to do, not what his master told him. It was Judas' decision to make the deal with Caiphas, not Christ's.
He said who was to betray him would be the one he gave the bread to and then said..."Do quickly what you are going to do."

Any indication that he was not aware of what was going on and had no interest in interceding?

Only the gospel of John calls him a theif, the rest of the Gospels never have one negative word to say about Judas. No disciple blames him for anything. If they did wouldn't it have been significant enough to record?

This is as discussed before where we lack. We've got these days leading upto the cross and very little in the way of dialogue. A snippet of the day here and there. More soundbites than story. But it appears from what we have from the Gospels is Jesus knowing and telling Judas what to do and no one stopping him or speaking ill of him.

To me it says something.
 
He said who was to betray him would be the one he gave the bread to and then said..."Do quickly what you are going to do."

Any indication that he was not aware of what was going on and had no interest in interceding?
None whatsoever — but that does not mean the decision to act was His. In John, more than any other, Jesus talks of 'the hour' — the Passion.

Jesus no more intercedes according to His own will with regard to Judas than he intercedes according to his own will with regard to the Father in the Garden at Gethsemane (eg Luke 22:42). He could have stopped Judas. He could have refused the cup.

Only the gospel of John calls him a thief, the rest of the Gospels never have one negative word to say about Judas.
Matthew 10:4 calls him a traitor (et seq), Mark 3:19 does likewise, Luke 6:16 likewise, so does John throughout, and so does Peter in Acts 1, so does Paul in 1 Corinthians 11:23.

No disciple blames him for anything. If they did wouldn't it have been significant enough to record?
I suggest you look again.

We've got these days leading up to the cross and very little in the way of dialogue. A snippet of the day here and there. More soundbites than story. But it appears from what we have from the Gospels is Jesus knowing and telling Judas what to do and no one stopping him or speaking ill of him.
To me it says something.
Same to me ... we should cherish every word and act recorded for us, and plumb the very depths of their message and meaning (according to the 'Fourfold Sense of Scripture'), not explain them away.

Thomas
 
Of course Jesus knew what had to be done. He helped Judas do it. It was planned

John 13:

26Jesus answered, He it is, to whom I shall give a sop, when I have dipped it. And when he had dipped the sop, he gave it to Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon.
27And after the sop Satan entered into him. Then said Jesus unto him, That thou doest, do quickly.

John 17

12While I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name: those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition; that the scripture might be fulfilled.
 
the specific verse you quote from deuteronomy 21 applies to blasphemers. it also says that the "hanging" (nobody mentions crosses, let alone crucifixion of a living criminal) takes place AFTER the execution, so the person is already dead. it also says that the hanging ends at nightfall, because we are made in the Divine Image and therefore one should not thereby disrespect a body which is also in the Divine Image. i'm not aware of the detail in the halakhah at this point, but bearing in mind the attitude the sages had to capital punishment i suspect that they didn't allow enough time for this to take place, thus effectively removing it. if anyone knows otherwise, please say.

b'shalom

bananabrain
B: Nobody mentions crosses
D: Crucifixions were a special evil the Romans chose to demoralize Jews. The story goes that Jews were not permitted to handle the details of an execution, so they defaulted to the Romans when necessary. Like you say, crucifixion actually seems a death designed for its its anti-Jewishness (because of the tree involved and the strangling death). I think in Roman Palestine, execution for a Jew was synonymous with crucifixion -- perhaps just part of the times they lived in. Jesus' crucifixion would have had a lot to do with the fact that he was Jewish. A Roman citizen would never be crucified or tortured while it would be automatic for a Jew boy. Romans crucified many thousands of Jews during Maccabees dynasty. I notice from the story that two thieves were crucified along with Jesus, and it was not considered unusual.

B: Time in the day
D: You mean perhaps that Judas or Jesus wouldn't have had time left in the day to be executed and taken down? The NT says it was a day of preparation for a festival. Is that what you're talking about?
 
Matthew 10:4 calls him a traitor (et seq), Mark 3:19 does likewise, Luke 6:16 likewise, so does John throughout, and so does Peter in Acts 1, so does Paul in 1 Corinthians 11:23.
My bad, yes the gospel writers use the word παρεδωκεν verb - aorist active indicative - third person singular
paradidomi par-ad-id'-o-mee: to surrender, i.e yield up, intrust, transmit -- betray, bring forth, cast, commit, deliver (up), give (over, up), hazard, put in prison, recommend. But where do we see disciples speaking ill of him? And aren't the writers forshadowing somewhat, making sure we all know he is the bad guy before we finish the story?
 
I understand, however it works the opposite way. People occasionally emphasize that something is their opinion, however everything is always opinion. You can't have anything better than opinions. I should remain aware that whatever I say or think is my opinion. You must always assume it is whether or not I say it. I cannot think of any other way for things to work.

Perception of Scripture changes as you get to know it better. A scriptural quote says very little to someone who is new but volumes to someone who has built up familiarity. Then later on it will say even more. You say something and back it up with Scripture, but it is still your opinion. Context changes in scale over time, and things you say and back up with scripture will appear to change as you learn. It is not the Scripture that is changing but your opinion of it, and you cannot have anything better than an opinion.

facts are better than opinions (just my opinion).
 
Of course Jesus knew what had to be done.
I rather suggest Jesus knew what was to come about ... a close reading of Scripture shows He talks of the 'hour', but only as He draws closer does He know its precise nature.

He helped Judas do it.
That's not what the text says. I have said "do what you think necessary" but I cannot therefore claim the idea was mine, nor its actioning.

It was planned
By Judas. Not by Jesus.

Thomas
 
That's not what the text says. I have said "do what you think necessary" but I cannot therefore claim the idea was mine, nor its actioning.
the one that takes the bread will betray me, he gives the bread to Judas and says go on do what you must...

If I were to read all that literally I don't see how it could be any clearer.
 
winner08,
I`m not eager to go into a deep debate and my intents are not to attack you. I just want to make a point or point you in a direction.

No I am not in love with Judas.
I`m glad, for a moment I thought you got side tracked.

what the matter with spreading the love?even to Judas. Is this not what christians do.
actually I was complimenting you for excessive(my opinion) love towards Judas although its only right.

Earth is where i'm from what about you?
Some people think I seem space alien-like, but I am human and from earth..

Sorry I have to disagree with you. We all should question the Bible. I don't question the scriptures the word of God
I was thinking more on the lines of you questioning whether Moses really split the red sea, or Jesus really walked on water. I think its possible, but I just have to say, I feel strongly that you might be getting side tracked, and losing focus despite your intents which I think I understand.

Seek and you shall find. and Yes i do enjoy seeking Gods word (truth). And I do take it seriously.
Amen.

My response would be that the Church was founded by Christ, not man, received direct from Him, and is therefore a Revelation of Divine origin, and not a human philosophy, a philosophy 'made with human hands' and which is the cause of material temple.

This I must disagree strongly. The Church was founded by Christ, yes. The revelation of divine origin, we and Christ did the best we could. We are not him, we have our limits. The bible is our best attempt at preserving what Christ told us. But again whatever we do is not the equivalent to Christ. period. We are some really dumb folks, trying to make the best out of life at best. We are not perfect beings. Stop assuming so.

p.s. To question the parts of the bible that are not the direct words of Jesus and God, and a lot of things can go wrong when you translate from one language to another, you would know if you knew anything about different languages, and over the generations a lot of things can be misunderstood or lost (its just a natural fact that this happens), to question the book, its safe to say sometimes that can sometimes mean just questioning our forefathers. Lets get that common sense straight.

But I don`t think rewriting the bible that Judas was actually a good but ignorant guy, guided by God for a purpose, is an idea that the Christian majority is thrilled to hear about or a wise way for a Christian to spend his time with the book. Although most likely the truth, when you really think about it. You`re free to spend your time how you like, of course.
 
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