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Judas Iscariot (; Biblical Greek: Ἰούδας Ἰσκαριώτης Ioúdas Iskariṓtēs; Hebrew: יהודה איש קריות Yəhūda ʾĪš Qǝrīyyōṯ; died c. 30 – c. 33 AD) was—according to Christianity's four canonical gospels—a first-century Jewish man who became a disciple and one of the original Twelve Apostles of Jesus Christ. Judas betrayed Jesus to the Sanhedrin in the Garden of Gethsemane by kissing him on the cheek and addressing him as "master" to reveal his identity in the darkness to the crowd who had come to arrest him. Like Brutus, his name is often used synonymously with betrayal or treason. The Gospel of Mark gives no motive for Judas's betrayal but does present Jesus predicting it at the Last Supper, an event also described in all the other gospels. The Gospel of Matthew 26:15 states that Judas committed the betrayal in exchange for thirty pieces of silver. The Gospel of Luke 22:3 and the Gospel of John 13:27 suggest that he was possessed by Satan. According to Matthew 27:1–10, after learning that Jesus was to be crucified, Judas attempted to return the money he had been paid for his betrayal to the chief priests and hanged himself. The priests used the money to buy a field to bury strangers in, which was called the "Field of Blood" because it had been bought with blood money. The Book of Acts 1:18 quotes Peter as saying that Judas used the money to buy the field himself and, he "[fell] headlong... burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed out." His place among the Twelve Apostles was later filled by Matthias. Due to his notorious role in all the gospel narratives, Judas remains a controversial figure in Christian history. His betrayal is seen as setting in motion the events that led to Jesus's crucifixion and resurrection, which, according to traditional Christian theology brought salvation to humanity. The Gnostic Gospel of Judas—rejected by the proto-orthodox Church as heretical—portrays Judas's actions as done in obedience to instructions given to him by Jesus, and that he alone amongst the disciples knew Jesus's true teachings. Since the Middle Ages, Judas has sometimes been portrayed as a personification of the Jewish people, and his betrayal has been used to justify Christian antisemitism. Historicity Although Judas Iscariot's historical existence is generally widely accepted among secular historians, this relative consensus has not gone entirely unchallenged. The earliest possible allusion to Judas comes from the First Epistle to the Corinthians 11:23–24, in which Paul the Apostle does not mention Judas by name but uses the passive voice of the Greek word paradídōmi (παραδίδωμι), which most Bible translations render as "was betrayed": "...the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread..." Nonetheless, some biblical scholars argue that the word paradídōmi should be translated as "was handed over". This translation could still refer to Judas, but it could also instead refer to God metaphorically "handing Jesus over" to the Romans. In his book Antisemitism and Modernity (2006), the Jewish scholar Hyam Maccoby suggests that, in the New Testament, the name "Judas" was constructed as an attack on the Judaeans or on the Judaean religious establishment held responsible for executing Jesus. In his book The Sins of Scripture (2009), John Shelby Spong concurs with this argument, insisting, "The whole story of Judas has the feeling of being contrived ... The act of betrayal by a member of the twelve disciples is not found in the earliest Christian writings. Judas is first placed into the Christian story by the Gospel of Mark (3:19), who wrote in the early 70s CE." Most scholars reject these arguments for non-historicity, noting that there is nothing in the gospels to associate Judas with Judeans except his name, which was an extremely common one for Jewish men during the first century, and that numerous other figures named "Judas" are mentioned throughout the New Testament, none of whom are portrayed negatively. Positive figures named Judas mentioned in the New Testament include the prophet Judas Barsabbas (Acts 15:22–33), Jesus's brother Jude (Mark 6:3; Matt 13:55; Jude 1), and the apostle Judas the son of James (Luke 6:14–16; Acts 1:13; John 14:22). Life Name and background The name "Judas" (Ὶούδας) is a Greek rendering of the Hebrew name Judah (יהודה, Yehûdâh, Hebrew for "praise or praised"), which was an extremely common name for Jewish men during the first century AD, due to the renowned hero Judas Maccabeus. Consequently, numerous other figures with this name are mentioned throughout the New Testament. In the Gospel of Mark 3:13–19, which was written in the mid-60s or early 70s AD, Judas Iscariot is the only apostle named "Judas". Matthew 10:2–4 shares this portrayal. The Gospel of Luke 6:12–19, however, replaces the apostle whom Mark and Matthew call "Thaddeus" with "Judas son of James". Peter Stanford suggests that this renaming may represent an effort by the author of the Gospel of Luke to create a "good Judas" in contrast to the betrayer Judas Iscariot. Judas's epithet "Iscariot" (Ὶσκάριωθ or Ὶσκαριώτης), which distinguishes him from the other people named "Judas" in the gospels, is usually thought to be a Greek rendering of the Hebrew phrase איש־קריות, (Κ-Qrîyôt), meaning "the man from Kerioth". This interpretation is supported by the statement in the Gospel of John 6:71 that Judas was "the son of Simon Iscariot". Nonetheless, this interpretation of the name is not fully accepted by all scholars. One of the most popular alternative explanations holds that "Iscariot" (ܣܟܪܝܘܛܐ, 'Skaryota' in Syriac Aramaic, per the Peshitta text) may be a corruption of the Latin word sicarius, meaning "dagger man", which referred to a member of the Sicarii (סיקריים in Aramaic), a group of Jewish rebels who were known for committing acts of terrorism in the 40s and 50s AD by assassinating people in crowds using long knives hidden under their cloaks. This interpretation is problematic, however, because there is nothing in the gospels to associate Judas with the Sicarii, and there is no evidence that the cadre existed during the 30s AD when Judas was alive. A possibility advanced by Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg is that "Iscariot" means "the liar" or "the false one", from the Hebrew איש-שקרים. C. C. Torrey suggests instead the Aramaic form שְׁקַרְיָא or אִשְׁקַרְיָא, with the same meaning. Stanford rejects this, arguing that the gospel writers follow Judas's name with the statement that he betrayed Jesus, so it would be redundant for them to call him "the false one" before immediately stating that he was a traitor. Some have proposed that the word derives from an Aramaic word meaning "red color", from the root סקר. Another hypothesis holds that the word derives from one of the Aramaic roots סכר or סגר. This would mean "to deliver", based on the Septuagint rendering of Isaiah 19:4—a theory advanced by J. Alfred Morin. The epithet could also be associated w.... Discover the John Byron Scot Mcknight popular books. Find the top 100 most popular John Byron Scot Mcknight books.