Did Judas Get a Bum Rap?

(RNS) He is the Benedict Arnold of the Bible, a man synonymous with treachery and betrayal. For 30 pieces of silver, Judas Iscariot handed Jesus over to the authorities and sparked events that led to the crucifixion. The New Testament accounts label him a thief, a turncoat, and the "son of perdition." But could it be that Judas has gotten a bum rap? Was he--gasp!--misunderstood?

What was Judas Iscariot really up to? Is it possible that he was motivated not by greed or betrayal, but by love? Was his suicide an admission of guilt, or perhaps, a sign of his loyalty to his fallen Messiah? "I'm not saying Judas is a saint, but we owe him an enormous debt for having helped Jesus to accomplish God's will," argues William Klassen, a retired professor of New Testament at the University of Waterloo in southern Ontario and author of "Judas: Betrayer or Friend of Jesus." "Why the church has turned against him so terribly badly is a mystery to me, and it also means that the church still hasn't understood the meaning of Christ's death."

The questions surrounding Judas' life and legacy are twofold. Some are historical, and the few available details are found in the four Gospels, which were not written as historical documents. The others are theological, and remain as mysterious and profound as the Easter story itself. Was Judas used by God, and if so, did God forgive him? The details of Judas' life, like most of the 12 apostles, are sketchy.

He was called by Jesus, but we don't know his qualifications. John's Gospel says he was entrusted as "keeper of the money bag," but also that he dipped into it. It appears that Jesus knew that Judas would ultimately turn on him.

Some scholars say he was an outsider from the beginning. Klassen said the word "Iscariot" indicates he was probably from the village of Kerioth in southern Judea, while the other apostles were drawn from Galilee, in the north. He was perhaps a Zealot, hopeful that Jesus would usher in a political revolution that would free the Jewish people from the Romans.

In some ways, we know more about his death than his life. Matthew's Gospel records his guilt-ridden suicide by hanging, while in Acts, Judas is disemboweled in a field purchased with his "blood money." "The historical figure of Judas is just as opaque, just as difficult to discover, as the historical figure of Jesus," said L. Michael White, director of the Institute for the Study of Antiquity and Christian Origins at the University of Texas at Austin. "The Gospels are not historical documents, they're theological documents," White said. "They're trying to express faith, and the Judas character functions differently within each of those."

Pop culture has its own opinions. In Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Jesus Christ Superstar," Judas is the likable--and curiously, black--protagonist. Martin Scorsese cast him as Jesus' closest friend in "The Last Temptation of Christ," while Terrence McNally's controversial "Corpus Christi" play paired Judas and Jesus as gay lovers.

It's not an easy part to play. Larry Cunard, a heavy equipment salesman from Fort Myers, Fla., has played Judas four times in a massive Easter drama at First Assembly of God. Cunard, 53, says he takes a "lot of ribbing" from his friends, but "somebody has to do it." "I like to think they picked someone who was strong in spirit so he wouldn't succumb to the role after the play is over," he said with a laugh.

Judas remains most infamous not for who he was, but for what he did. Action, however, begs a motive, and this is where the story gets interesting. Klassen said Judas has been a victim of bad translation, that he did not "betray" Jesus but rather "handed him over" to the authorities. And when Jesus cries "woe unto that man" who betrays him, Klassen said Jesus was foretelling that Judas would be maligned by history. "He certainly didn't betray Jesus," Klassen said. "Jesus knew what was coming. When they met in the garden (before Jesus was arrested), he didn't say, `Hey, betrayer,' he said, `Hey, friend."'

Maybe Judas, frustrated and confused by Jesus' talk of his impending death, was trying to push Jesus into action. If Jesus truly was the Messiah, surely he had nothing to fear from the Jewish high priests, or the Roman governor.

Bart Ehrman, chairman of the religious studies department at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, theorized that maybe all Judas was guilty of was "spilling the beans" about Jesus' true intentions. "Jesus ends up being put on trial and condemned to death for calling himself the king of the Jews," an act of treason, Ehrman said. "That's interesting because Jesus never actually called himself that. Is it possible that Judas actually gave some insider information to the authorities so they can have a reason to kill him?"

Judas receives the harshest treatment in John's Gospel. There, he is portrayed as a Satan-possessed thief. Kim Paffenroth, a professor of religious studies at Iona College in New Rochelle, N.Y., and author of "Judas: Images of the Lost Disciple," said Judas--whose name literally means "Jewish man"--eventually came to represent all Jews in this account.

"You can't say that the Gospel of John caused (Christian notions of anti-Semitism), but I'd say maybe it planted the seeds for it," he said. Whatever his motivation, Judas remains a type of theological Rorschach test. Looking at him, it's easy to ask what he says about us, and maybe more important, what he says about God.

The Rev. Ray Anderson, a professor of practical theology at the evangelical Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, Calif., takes a sympathetic view of the Judas story. If Jesus had encountered Judas after his death, Anderson knows how the conversation would go. "Your sin of betrayal did not put me on the cross," Jesus would say. "I put myself there."

Anderson is the author of "The Gospel According to Judas." It eventually wound up in the hands of Erik Menendez, who was convicted with his brother, Lyle, in the 1989 murder of their parents. Anderson met with Menendez, and said Judas opened a window for forgiveness. "If there had never been a Judas, Jesus still would have been on the cross," Anderson said. "We need to see Judas as a person who represents the terrible possibility of betrayal, but also the depths of God's forgiveness and grace."

The Rev. Alan Schreck, chairman of the theology department of the Franciscan University of Steubenville, Ohio, said Judas is an uncomfortable mirror that we hold up to ourselves. "Even when confronted with the purest example of the love of God, Judas shows us the depth of our sin," Schreck said. "It's still possible for a person to deny or betray the love that we see in Jesus Christ."

Anderson calls betrayal a "psychic wound" because it is impossible to betray someone you don't know. "It strikes at the very heart of love," he said. "But because it is a sin against love, the love can forgive it. The grace of God is big enough to forgive Judas."