Judas Iscariot & the Myth of Jewish Evil [Hardcover]

As a Jew who has always retained a sidelong curiosity about Christianity, particularly Christian origins, I have found the works of Hyam Maccoby to be the most illuminating, of all the books on the topic I have read. It has always been a subject of intellectual curiosity for me how a religious community claiming to find its historical origin in my faith could have deviated so radically from the religious practices of Judaism and even become an institutionalized source of hostility against it. All those questions and more are answered in "Judas Iscariot and the Myth of Jewish Evil". This book is best seen as a concluding title in a sequence of books about Christian origins by Hyam Maccoby after "Revolution in Judaea: Jesus and the Jewish Resistance" and "The Mythmaker: Paul and the Invention of Chrisianity". While I found Maccoby's writing to be stimulating and brilliant, I have no doubt there will be some pious Christians who take offense. One of the things I love about Maccoby's work is that unlike so very many other books I've read on the subject, Maccoby exhibits no apologetic reflex. As a non-Christian, Hyam Maccoby, is that rarest of rare birds: a brilliant, learned Biblical and Classical scholar who has no compunction about using that formidable intellect of his to dismantle the basic Christian story. How many books like that do you see on the market? Nevertheless, I can appreciate that what is so appealing to me may be very insulting to others. Dedicated Christians may not want to see their faith analyzed in so unsparing a way. At the last, Maccoby draws a red line between the character of Judas Iscariot in the Gospel Passion Play and the phenomenon of anti-semitism in history culminating with the Holocaust in modern times. I doubt if many Christians will appreciate being saddled with a burden of such extraordinary guilt. In "Judas Iscariot and the Myth of Jewish Evil" Hyam Maccoby has written a controversial book, perhaps deliberately so. He means to force to the surface, contentious issues, stemming from remote antiquity, which many of us might rather not discuss or even fancy don't constitute a problem anymore if ever they did. Many will undoubtedly view this book with hostility; all that can be reasonably asked of any potential reader is that he or she keep an open mind.

Hyam Maccoby here continues his analysis of the origins of Christianity and the roots of antisemitism. This volume is probably his weakest attempt at history, but it is worth reading at least for its remarks on the nature and importance of myth.

Maccoby's historical thesis is that the traitorous Judas of the gospels was a sheer invention -- but one nevertheless "spun off" from a real person: the Judas of history was the brother of Jesus. And yes, Maccoby has to perform some remarkable hat tricks in order to pull this off.

Whether or not one accepts his historical reconstruction, though, Maccoby has helpful things to say about the role of myth in antisemitism. He does make a strong case that the character of Judas has served (as his name suggests) as a stand-in for the Jews in Christian thought and culture. And he makes some extremely pertinent remarks about the "fundamentalism" of certain writers on the nature of myth (e.g. Rudolf Bultmann, Joseph Campbell), noting well that myths are not beyond criticism either.

Not Maccoby's best book, then, but still very much worth reading.

Hyam Maccoby is obviously correct to state that Judas never "betrayed" Jesus. This view is eminently defensible from the New Testament itself.

1) Jesus obviously had foreknowledge that Judas was going to inform the authorities where to find him. First of all, if we assume that as the Son of God and the Second member of the Holy Trinity, Jesus is God and therefore knows everything, OF COURSE he then must know what Judas is up to.

2) The Gospels themselves say that Jesus knew. In Matthew, when Judas kisses Jesus and asks, "Is it I?" Jesus tells him, "Go, do what you must."

3) It is therefore logical to suppose that Jesus actually SENT Judas to inform the authorities. Think about it. They've just had the Last Supper. This is Jerusalem in the 1st Century; not a lot of night life. After dining on a holiday, there was nothing else to do but go to bed inside the city, more or less where they had supper. But instead, Jesus and the disciples leave the city and go to the Mount of Olives. Question: How would the authorities know to look for Jesus there? For surely, Jesus WANTED the authorities to find him. Either in his capacity as the sacrificial Lamb of God, knowing he's going to be arrested, tried, and crucified, wanting to go through with it because of his love of mankind, or in his capacity as Messiah, wanting to battle with the Romans in order to usher in the Age of the Messiah -- either way, he can't get it going unless he confronts the authorities, and he can't do that if they don't know where to find him. So OF COURSE he needs someone to TELL them -- and that someone is Judas.

4) Now consider who Judas really is. He's the only disciple with a "surname." But the "surname is no surname; it's a STREET name. It's like being named "Mack the Knife."

What does it mean? "Is" - "Ish," Hebrew/Aramaic for "man." And "S-cariot" is a blend of Latin and Hebrew. In Latin, a "sicarius" means "dagger." (It is from this word that we get the words "cigar" and "cigar-ette' ('little cigar') since both have the general shape of a dagger.) And in Hebrew, the "iot" ending is used with plural feminine nouns, so "sicarius" the dagger becomes "sicar-iot" the daggers.

Judas Iscariot then is "Judas the Daggerman," or "Judas, Man of Daggers."

5) This is significant because Josephus records that during this time, there was a group of assassins within the party of the Zealots who frequently picked off stray Romans by stabbing them to death -- with sicarii! In fact, that's what they were called -- The Sicarii.

Judas was in this class of Jewish patriot.

6) So how could it possibly be that THIS Judas, of ALL people, could possibly have turned over his beloved master to the very people he hated the most?

The answer must be he didn't know what he was doing.

Jesus sends him to tell the authorities where to find him. Judas gladly does so, because he thinks the Messianic Revolt as foretold by Zechariah and Joel is going to occur this very evening. He PRETENDS to the authorities to be a turncoat in order to embellish the verisimilitude; this is why he accepts their payments of 30 pieces of silver.

He leads the authorities to Jesus, but to his shock, horror, and dismay, instead of ushering in the Age of the Messiah, Jesus is meekly arrested, and the whimper of te revolution is over before it truly began.

Judas knew what would happen next -- Jesus was going to be executed, probably on the cross.

In great despair, he throws back the pieces of silver, and then hangs himself in grief.

The suicide is the key to the story. If Judas had truly and cravenly "betrayed" Jesus, then why the waterworks afterward? Why the grief and despair?

But if Judas didn't know what was going to happen, then all is clear and understandable. He killed himself because it went terribly wrong, and he felt horrible guilt about his unwitting role.

I go into this and more in my booklet, "A Scientific Determination of the Exact Time and Date of the Death of Jesus of Nazareth." Please go to www.romaband.com/james for more details.

Thank you.

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