THE EASTER STORY: Part one

Every Easter, I present to my readers the story of Jesus with respect to his trial, his death and his resurrection. I also describe the people in his life and the places where this all occurred. 

My wife and I spent three weeks in the old city of Jerusalem. Nazareth, Bethlehem and at the Sea of galilee.

Amongst other occupations,  I am also a historian. I have written three books in which I described many historical events beginning in 1933 and ending in 1951. In the first volume of the book, WHISTLING IN THE FACE OF ROBBERS, it has  324  pages.

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In that book, I described what it was like to live in the Great Depression in the 1930’s in which millions of people world-wide were homeless and hungry. I was born in that era. I also described the beginning of World War Two when Hitler attacked Poland and the five years that followed including the event when Japan attacked Hawaii and the Philippines and when the Americans subsequently entered the war in Europe and in the South Pacific I also described other events such as disasters and what the cost of living was like during those years etc.

 In Volume two of WHISTLING IN THE FACE OF ROBBERS. it comprises  of 847 pages in  which I continued  to describe the events of the Second world war when it extended to North Africa, most of the Far East and the Pacific. Near the end of the book, I described the death of Hitler and the surrender of Germany and Japan and the executions of the war criminals along with other events not related to the war.

In my book THE COURIER, I described much of the war taking place in Europe and the conspiracy to kill Hitler by the generals  of his army. The book has 316 pages. Much the book deals with Hitler and his closest followers and the last years of their lives.    

I am very careful when I write about historical events.

Now I am going to tell you about Judas Iscariot who was a close follower of Jesus. 

DID JUDAS REALLY BETRAY JESUS?

I am going to answer that question right now. He did not betray Jesus at all. I will explain later why he didn’t betray Jesus. But first, I will give you some background information about this particular disciple of Jesus. I should point out however that Judas Iscariot should not be confused with Judas Thomas (Saint Thomas the Apostle), or with Judas Thaddaeus (Saint Jude Thaddaeus), who were also members of the Twelve Apostles.

Judas Iscariot was one of Jesus’ twelve chosen disciples. As the group's treasurer, he was in charge of the group’s money bag. When necessities had to be purchased, it would be him who purchased the items.

Scripture tells us that Judas betrayed Jesus for 30 pieces of silver, the standard price paid for buying a slave. But did he do it out of greed, or to force the Jesus to overthrow the Romans, as some scholars suggest? It was none of these reasons.

Judas’ legacy went from being one of Jesus' closest friends to becoming a man whose first name has come to mean traitor.  As an example, when goats are being led to the slaughter house, another goat that has previously been in the slaughter house and not slaughtered is placed at the head of the column of goats who willingly follow that particular goat to their deaths. That is why that goat is called the Judas goat. The same method can apply to other animals being led into the slaughter house.

The Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke state that Jesus sent out "the twelve" (including Judas) with power over unclean spirits and with a ministry of preaching and healing.  Judas clearly played that was an active part in this apostolic ministry alongside the other eleven followers of Jesus.

In John's Gospel, Judas's outlook was differentiated from the others and for this reason, many of Jesus' disciples abandoned Judas because of their difficulty in accepting his form of teachings. 

Jesus later asked the remaining eleven if they would also leave him. Simon Peter (the senior of all the disciples) spoke for the twelve: "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life." They all but two (Mark and Judas (one  of the other disciples whose name was also Judas) later abandoned Jesus and fled out of Judea because of their fears that they too would be the next to be executed like Jesus was going to be executed.

Further, later when Peter was asked if he was a follower of Jesus, three times he denied that he was. He made that statement out of fear for his own life.

The Gospel of Matthew directly states that Judas Iscariot betrayed Jesus for a bribe of "thirty pieces of silver by identifying him with a kiss to arresting soldiers of the High Priest Caiaphas, who then turned Jesus over to Pontius Pilate's soldiers.

According to the Gospel of John 13:27: When Jesus and his disciples were eating their final meal in a room that they had rented for that purpose, Jesus told his disciples that one of them was going to betray him.  Soon after,  Jesus took a piece of bread, dipped it into the sop (soup) and gave it to Judas. While Judas was placing the piece of the bread into his mouth, Jesus said to him, “What you (have to) do, do quickly.”

What Jesus wanted Judas to do was his part of their plan that Jesus was going to use to decide once and for all, the issue of him being or not being the expected Messiah. 

Incidentally, some people have actually read other peoples’ minds but this is very rare. I am convinced that Jesus couldn’t read other peoples’ minds because on one occasion, he asked one of his disciples if he thought that he (Jesus) was the Messiah. If he could read minds, he wouldn’t have asked that question.

As far as Jesus was concerned, Judas was a close friend and the one man that Jesus could trust to play his part in the plan. Since Judas was more or less alienated from the others because of his own form of teaching the good word, it would be easier to convince the others that it was Judas who betrayed him.

Jesus didn’t want the others to think less of him with him  deliberately placing himself and possibly them also in mortal danger.

Further, Judas kept pestering Jesus to prove that he was the expected Messiah and when Jesus told him of his plan, Judas went along with it, even though he wasn’t too happy that his friend, Jesus would suffer terribly before the army of angels (if they came at all) would rescue him and prove to everyone that he really was the Messiah everyone was hoping for. That is the reason why Judas was a willing partner to the plot.

In the Gospel of Mark 14:21 it says, .Jesus said it would have been "better for this man" (Judas) had he "never been born.” 

Mark didn’t say that at the time of the crucifixion of Jesus. He said it many years later. Mark was the only surviving disciple as the others were all martyred. Mark and the other ten disciples  had no idea at all that Jesus had intended to bring  about his death by his own volition and that Jesus had asked Judas to make it possible for Jesus to determine once and for all if he was really the expectant Messiah.

Many religious scholars have considered it to be unlikely that the early Christian church would have invented the story o the  betrayal of one of Jesus’ disciples since it would appear to reflect badly on Jesus. 

However, in the Sixteenth Century, the committee of learned men set up by King James to rewrite the Christian Bible decided that it was better to blame someone else for Jesus crucifixion rather than place the blame on Jesus. To them, there was no evidence that Jesus chose the route he undertook to determine if he really was the expectant Messiah.

In his book The Passover Plot (1965), British New Testament scholar Hugh J. Schonfield suggested that the crucifixion of Christ was a conscious re-enactment of Biblical prophecy and that Judas acted with the full knowledge and consent of Jesus in betraying him to the authorities. Admittedly, his book has been variously described as actually groundless, based on little data and wild suppositions.  However, I am not convinced that his suppositions were wild at all. His suppositions and mine also are based purely on logic.

In Matthew 27:3-10 it says; When Judas, who had betrayed him, saw that Jesus was condemned, he was seized with remorse and returned the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and the elders. "I have sinned," he said, "for I have betrayed innocent blood." "What is that to us?" they replied. "That's your responsibility." ⁵So Judas threw the money into the temple and left. Then he went away and hanged himself. The chief priests picked up the coins and said, "It is against the law to put this into the treasury, since it is blood money." So they decided to use the money to buy the potter's field as a burial place for foreigners. That is why it has been called the Field of Blood to this day. Then what was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet was fulfilled: "They took the thirty pieces of silver, the price set on him by the people of Israel, ¹⁰and they used them to buy the potter's field, as the Lord commanded me."

It is unfortunate for Judas Iscariot  that he was  later described as the man who wrongfully betrayed Jesus by kissing him on the cheek  so that the priest’s guards could arrest him.

Tomorrow, I will tell you about the trials Jesus had attended.