Why Did Judas Act so Strangely?

I mean,first he betrayed Jesus for money,and was very determined to carry this on.

Next, we see a total swift of behavior, he gives up the money (the very reason for betrayal!) and desperately kills himself.

What really happened to determine this outcome?

Asked by blacktiti89

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14 Comments
  1. Hi Blacktiti89

    Your question is one of the many reasons why I want someone to invent a time machine that works. I will be a passenger.

    You know, Jesus would not have been arrested when he was, or crucified, if Judas had not done what he did when he did. And Jesus knew exactly what Judas was going to do, so if he didn’t want it to happen, why didn’t he just tell all the other Apostles and get them to grab Judas and lock him up until the Passover was gone? He’d have had another year to minister to people if they had. But some things are inevitable, and Judas followed where God led him, and he did what he had to do .. and people hate him for it. But why .. Judas helped to set all of humanity free. We should be thanking him.

    Guilt is a horrible thing, and Jesus death was a horrible thing, and Judas couldn’t stand the pain of it all and so he committed suicide, or did he .. it seems first he hung himself to death, and then he got down off the tree and disemboweled himself in a field? Umm…. but its there in the bible, in Matthew and Acts. It’s up to you which one you believe?

    One of the confusing stories of the bible.

    Love & Peace
    Ama

  2. Hi there BT!

    I had learned that it was pre-ordained that Judas would be the traitor. In order for the resurrection of Jesus to happen, Jesus first had to be arrested. The action of Judas assured that. Kind of weird, and I believe Judas has been wrongly and unfairly blamed. Jesus knew Judas was going to betray him, but allowed it to happen. It HAD to happen! Without Judas, there would be no Christianity, and the world would have suffered greatly. Sad he killed himself. I think he understood why Jesus let him do it, but it was too much to bear. Hence the suicide. I believe Judas is not in Hell, but with his friend, Jesus. By the way, that’s also where the term ‘kiss of death’ came from.

    Keith

  3. None of it makes sense, I believe the story was concocted.

  4. Hi blacktiti89

    Great question!

    Some say Judas was possessed by the devil. Its possible, as Satan works closest with those who are closest to God. So, the devil jumps in and manipulates Judas into betraying Jesus then, once Jesus has been captured, Judas’ mind returns to normal and he suddenly realises what has happened. Alas, its too late to save Jesus so, in remorse for having acted badly whilst in a possessed state, Judas becomes consumed with guilt and so takes his own life.

    I beleive that without Judas we wouldn’t not have Christianity simply because it was Judas who was the catalyst for Jesus becoming a martyr. Had Jesus not been cruisifed, but grown old, would he have become such an influencial idol as he is today?

    God works in mysterious ways so maybe Judas was given a very important role to play in order to guarantee that Jesus would be remembered for thousands of years to come, instead of disappearing into obscurity like so many others.

    AJ
    x

    • AJ,
      We have two different ideas, but wow how the end result is the same. :) I just love this group of people, I really do! This IS a place of learning and fellowship – of all kinds.

      Keith

      • LOL! That’s the fun of thinking ‘outside the box’. And I agree with you that Judas is in the Light, with Jesus and his other chums, not in hell. Judas did his job well.

        AJ
        x

  5. it may be similiar to the story of magbeth.you get me?

    • Who is Magbeth, Luna .. do you mean the Scottish story ..? Macbeth, where he killed the king and she went mad? Shakespeare wrote that one long after Jesus was dead. He might have loosely based it on the story, but .. people killing each other for power is a common theme in human history.

      Love & Peace
      Ama

      • Poor MacBeth! That was one hen-pecked man! It was all his wife’s doing of course, for she was the power-mad one. Like a little devil sitting on his shoulder Lady MacBeth was, always whispering in MacBeth’s ear. A nasty piece of work if you ask me.

        The three wierd sisters cracked me up though … hubble, bubble, toil and trouble … (cackle! cackle!)

        Blimey! Thats taken me straight back to me school days (studied MacBeth for Eng. Li.t O level).

        AJ
        x

        • Oh how my class groaned when we learned we had to read MacBeth for year 10 English, AJ, but I quite enjoyed it. :-) All that drama, all that blood – “Is this a dagger I see before me?” ..??

          (hehe .. or cackle cackle)
          Love & Peace
          Ama

  6. Judas was possessed by Satan. It says that Lucifer went into Judas, in the Bible. But, when Judas realized what he had done he killed himself.
    Here is actual scripture: Satan Entered into Judas”

    On the night of the Last Supper, Luke tells us in Luke 22:3-6 that “Satan entered into Judas. . . . He went away and conferred with the chief priests and officers how he might betray [Jesus] to them. And they were glad, and agreed to give him money. So he consented and sought an opportunity to betray him to them in the absence of a crowd.” Later he led the authorities to Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane and betrayed Jesus with a kiss (Luke 22:47-48). With that, Jesus’ death was sealed.

    • Yes, according to Luke, Judas was not in charge of his own body when ‘it’ went before the priests and condemned Christ to them. I can easily understand how Jesus would forgive him for that, even if he couldn’t forgive himself. Another reason for all of us not to condemn Judas as well. He was another Job, used as a participant/victim of God’s own plan.

      Love & Peace
      Ama

  7. Here is why Judas killed himself. s erroneously read into those verses, to the Eleven!) and was seen of them (cp. 1 Corinthians 15:5, Acts 1).

    In Matthew 27:5 it is said about Judas, “And he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, and departed, and went and hanged himself.” This is always understood to mean that Judas went and killed himself immediately following this event. But there is no mention of such a time element. From Acts 1:18, the words spoken by Peter in the days between the ascension and Pentecost, it appears that Judas only killed himself during that period of time on his own field which he had purchased with the “reward of iniquity” (this reward of iniquity cannot have been the 30 pieces of silver which he had received from the high priests for his betrayal, because he had thrown those into the Temple, according to Matthew 27:5!). Also, we should note that the words translated “hanged himself” can be translated “was choked up in himself”, and be understood as describing how he now, apparently feeling sorry in some way, was emotionally under quite some pressure. But, this term does not (and from considering the other passage in Acts 1, it cannot) mean, that Judas then already killed himself by strangling himself (“hanged himself”).

    The record in Acts 1 mentions at first that Jesus was together with those 12 apostles he had chosen. These were the original 12 apostles, including Judas (cp. Luke 6:13-16). These were obviously together with him until shortly before or perhaps even during his ascension. Only immediately after Jesus’ ascension we notice a change in what is happening in the words of the two men (angels) who now spoke to the apostles and addressed them as, “Ye men of Galilee …” (Acts 1:11) These words are remarkable because Judas came from Kerith in Judea; he was the only one of the original 12 apostles who was not from Galilee. He obviously must have left the place of the ascension right around this time. When the apostles who were left and who then returned to Jerusalem are named in the following record, Judas Iscariot is missing for the first time.

    Judas was again in the group of the apostles and disciples during the 40 days in which Jesus showed himself alive. It is quite remarkable to see the great willingness Jesus had to forgive and the great love with which Jesus walked. The promises Jesus made to the apostles included Judas, but it was Judas who was seemingly not willing to receive and acknowledge the forgiveness available to him and to change his life; instead he was caught more and more in self-condemnation and self-pity which finally drove him to the decision to kill himself

  8. The problem for me, Carri, is we can all read anything we like ‘between the lines’. If 1Corinthians (54-57BCE, Paul), Matthew (said to be written late in the first decade, Matthew) and Acts (date debated but also probably late in the first decade, authorship unknown) were all written around the same time period, and by the same person, I would be happy with the interpretation, but they weren’t .. so using bits of them to tell the ‘whole’ story is like taking Red Riding Hood, Goldilocks and Job and saying the devil is either a wolf or a bear, or Goldilocks .. since she did eat all the porridge. In Acts 1:18 it reads “(Now this man acquired a field with the reward of his wickedness; and falling headlong, he burst open in the middle and all his bowels gushed out.)” The () are in my bible, and that’s very explicit. The writer of Acts attributes the purchaser as Judas, but in Matthew 27:6-8 it reads “But the chief priests, taking the pieces of silver, said “it is not lawful to put them into the tresury, since they are blood money. After conferring together, they used them to buy the potter’s field as a place to bury foreigners. For this reason that field is called the Field of Blood to this day”. So unless Judas was a chief priest, which seems unlikely since he was a follower of Jesus at the time .. we have another contradiction from the bible, and Judas did not buy the field and die on it. We are back to him hanging himself on the tree.

    I haven’t looked at the timing of his death, but then, I haven’t had breakfast yet. LOL

    Thank you, I love reading what you write, even if I don’t agree with it. :-)

    Love & Peace
    Ama

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