[Note: The following is the prepared text to a sermonette given to the Portland congregation of the United Church of God on Sabbath, December 9, 2023.]

One of the key biblical rules of biblical interpretation that comes from the Bible is that the scripture cannot be broken; the Bible does not contradict itself. When there is an apparent contradiction in the Bible, it means that the two verses or passages that are being pitted against each other are not being correctly presented or are not correctly understood, and there is a wide variety of insight about the Bible that can be gained from examining apparent contradictions that are not really so when they are understood in detail.

Today I would like to examine one such example that was asked of me by a young person in our congregational circuit. There are two passages in question that deal with the death of Judas Iscariot, and the two accounts of his demise are often viewed as being in contradiction to each other. Although this is an exceedingly unpleasant story, and one we do not tend to cover often because of its unsavory details, it is a part of scripture, and since it is an example that is often used by those who are enemies of the Bible and disinclined to believe and follow the scriptures, it is worthwhile for us to understand and, if possible, to be able to explain how an apparent contradiction in the accounts of Judas Iscariot’s death after he betrayed Jesus Christ are to be properly understood.

The first account of Judas’ death is told in Matthew 27:1-10. Matthew 27:1-10 reads; “When morning came, all the chief priests and elders of the people plotted against Jesus to put Him to death. And when they had bound Him, they led Him away and delivered Him to Pontius Pilate the governor. Then Judas, His betrayer, seeing that He had been condemned, was remorseful and brought back the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, saying, “I have sinned by betraying innocent blood.” And they said, “What is that to us? You see to it!” Then he threw down the pieces of silver in the temple and departed, and went and hanged himself. But the chief priests took the silver pieces and said, “It is not lawful to put them into the treasury, because they are the price of blood.”  And they consulted together and bought with them the potter’s field, to bury strangers in.  Therefore that field has been called the Field of Blood to this day. Then was fulfilled what was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet, saying, “And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the value of Him who was priced, whom they of the children of Israel priced, and gave them for the potter’s field, as the Lord directed me.””

As is common when we look at the Gospel of Matthew, the details of the story that are included here focus on the fulfillment of biblical messianic prophecies, including the price of Jesus Christ’s betrayal being 30 pieces of silver, and its use by a corrupt priesthood to buy a potter’s field because they had a no refund policy on betrayals of the innocent. It should be noted here that even though we are not used to thinking of Judas Iscariot in a particularly sympathetic way, that this passage indicates that it was not Judas’ intent for Jesus Christ to be condemned. Though other New Testament writers (most notably John) consider Judas to have been a thief and a person lacking in financial integrity at least, it cannot be said of him that he wanted Jesus Christ to suffer condemnation. Presumably, at least from what we can gain from various nonbiblical sources as well as what is implied here, Judas assumed that Jesus Christ would show His power and establish His kingdom rather than submit to the humiliating punishment of crucifixion, and apparently Judas thought that he could induce Jesus Christ to establish the earthly establishment of the Kingdom of God while also profiting from it. That was not to be, but this particular telling of the story makes the priests out to be worse than the despairing Judas.

We find the second passage about the death of Judas Iscariot in Acts 1:15-20. Acts 1:15-20 gives a more vivid account of Judas’ end, and it reads: “And in those days Peter stood up in the midst of the disciples (altogether the number of names was about a hundred and twenty), and said, “Men and brethren, this Scripture had to be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit spoke before by the mouth of David concerning Judas, who became a guide to those who arrested Jesus; for he was numbered with us and obtained a part in this ministry.” (Now this man purchased a field with the wages of iniquity; and falling headlong, he burst open in the middle and all his entrails gushed out.  And it became known to all those dwelling in Jerusalem; so that field is called in their own language, Akel Dama, that is, Field of Blood.) “For it is written in the Book of Psalms: ‘Let his dwelling place be desolate, and let no one live in it’; and, ‘Let another take his office.’”

Let us note that the main point of the passage we just read from is to indicate that Judas’ place as an apostle needs to be taken by someone else, because Judas had betrayed Jesus Christ and the rest of the disciples. We should note that it was not Judas’ death that required a replacement, for no replacement of apostles is shown in the future when James the brother of John of Zebedee is killed later on in Acts, but Judas’ betrayal that required that his place as being over one of the twelve tribes be filled by someone else who was loyal. It is interesting to note that while the passage in Matthew focuses on the actions of the priests, here, those actions are ascribed to Judas, who is said to have purchased the grounds on which he died through the wages of his betrayal of Jesus Christ for the famous 30 pieces of silver. And Judas is not said to have died by hanging, but rather that his body fell headlong and his guts burst out. It is also interesting that Luke, quoting Peter, uses another passage that was fulfilled by the death of Judas and his replacement as an apostle.

Let us note, though, that when we properly combine these two accounts, we do not get two contradictory accounts at all, but instead two complementary ones that focus our attention on different details and indeed on different participants in the betrayal of Jeus Christ. Matthew focuses on the role and the behavior of the priests and shows Judas’ remorse and that his betrayal did not intend to lead to Jesus’ crucifixion. Luke’s account in Acts, though, makes the actions of the priests as if they were Judas’ agents while he retained overall responsibility for those deeds, and points to the reality that Judas’ betrayal of Jesus Christ meant that his office in the leadership of the early church necessarily became vacant and that his spot in God’s Kingdom would have to be taken up by someone who would be loyal to God and not to his own selfish interests. The two accounts, when put together, give us a great deal of depth and point out that our responsibility for the consequences of our actions does not always intend on our intentions, but rather on how those behaviors work themselves out in the course of our lives.

Let us therefore paint the picture of Judas’ demise by combining the accounts of Matthew and Acts together. Upon the condemnation of Jesus Christ, Judas was distraught that Jesus Christ had not used His power to save Himself and establish His kingdom, and that instead of pushing Jesus Christ to inaugurate His rule, instead he had sold out his Lord and Master for 30 pieces of silver. Deeply remorseful, he sought to return the wages of his iniquity, but the priests did not accept a refund of their payment for his betrayal, so the money (and what was bought with it) still counted as his own. Judas, depressed and overwhelmed with grief, went to an area known as the potter’s field, probably full of pits where clay had been dug out, and attempted to hang himself, but he did not die from the hanging, but the rope apparently broke and he fell down headlong and his guts burst out. The priests then used Judas’ money to buy the place where he had died, and it became a burial place for those who could not be buried in consecrated ground, such as those who like Judas had committed suicide. This gives us a reasonably complete picture of Judas’ death from the complementary details that we are given in the two accounts.

What is the importance of looking at the biblical accounts in such a fashion as we have done today? The Bible does not always or even often give us all of the relevant information in one place, but frequently requires us to look here a little, there a little, in order to piece together the full information that the Bible contains on a particular matter. Having to deal with multiple truthful but not complete accounts of various matters serves at least two worthwhile purposes for us. First, it requires us to develop the habits of a wise and able scholar in examining multiple accounts and seeing how they fit together in a larger and more complex manner than we might initially think. No one observer or account is going to provide every worthwhile detail about a given matter, and it is through developing a fondness and appreciation for multiple perspectives that we get a more complete picture of what is going on in the bible and in the world around us. In addition to this, the presence of multiple accounts, from different perspectives, with different points of emphasis also requires us to look at the scripture through the eyes of faith in its overall veracity, in that we overcome the human temptation to pit one passage of the Bible against another, but instead to see how different accounts give us a more complete picture than we would gain from any of the accounts alone. Hopefully this is an approach that we all can use in our Bible study to better understand the Bible and appreciate the complexity of what it has to say to us and to humanity at large.