According to Christian tradition, today - the day between Good Friday and Easter - would be the day Judas Iscariot killed himself. I want to take this moment to think about this one of the many interesting figures from the Bible. When I make references to scripture, I'll cite the New English Translation - I really appreciate the version's scholarly approach with the depth of the footnotes they provide to describe the rationale for translations form the Greek and Latin of the earliest manuscripts.
Judas was probably the most infamous villain in Western tradition until Hitler - Dante puts Judas at the very center of Hell, in the jaws of Lucifer, in The Inferno. Judas, for "thirty silver coins," betrays Jesus to the high priests (Matthew 26:15). Today would be the day Judas, after witnessing Jesus die at "Golgotha" (Mark 15:22), committed suicide either by hanging himself (after returning the money to the priests, Matthew 27:3-5) or by disemboweling himself in a field he bought with the blood-silver (Acts 1:18). Why he commits suicide is made clear in Matthew as he proclaims he had "sinned betraying innocent blood," before rushing out to hang himself, throwing the silver in the temple. Why he betrayed Jesus in the first place is not.
Why would Judas betray Jesus? Scriptures make a couple of claims: Matthew and Mark (14:10) say Judas was motivated by greed - the silver the priests offered - while Luke literally says, "Satan entered Judas" (22:3). Discounting demonic possession (because it's strictly supernatural and impossible to address reasonably), is greed really a convincing explanation as to why Judas would betray someone he spent years literally following and devoting his life to?
Judas Iscariot was a human being with the same capacity of reason, complex calculus of emotions. and all-too-fragile psyche we all experience today. There has to be more behind his betrayal than just greed. Everything from this point is pure conjecture on my part.
Judas was a Jew living under Roman rule. As such, there are two things he knew and experienced with reasonable certainty: 1. he had to be familiar with the story of Abraham and his son Issac; and, 2. he experience persecution under the Roman and probably believed that the messiah prophesied in Issac would be a politically revolutionary figure for the Jews.
Judas had to have know the story of Abraham sacrificing Isaac - it's the story that establishes the lineage of the "chosen people." Yahweh (that's what I'm calling OT God because the temperaments between this version of God and the NT God are completely different) commands Abraham to sacrifice his son (sound familiar?). Abraham is just about to like the sacrificial pyre with his son on it, before he's interrupted by an angel and sees a ram to sacrifice instead. Yahweh rewards Abraham's faith by pronouncing Abraham and Issac's progeny as his chosen people - the Jews.
Judas might have felt desperate. He spent years of his life pursued and persecuted, first by the Romans, then by the high priests after he began following Jesus. His desperation might have created delusions in his mind (perhaps this is "Satan" as noted in Luke?). What if he thought he was undergoing an extreme test of faith from Yahweh much like Abraham did? Abraham was commanded by Yahweh to sacrifice his beloved son, Isaac; Judas might have thought he was commanded to sacrifice his beloved teacher, Jesus. Judas took steps in earnest to "sacrifice" his teacher, much like Abraham did his son.
Judas probably hoped for divine intervention to prevent the end of which he completed in devout faith. Perhaps he expected Plagues to attack the Romans, he probably expected Jesus to reveal himself as the messiah and miraculously save himself from crucifixion. But instead, he watched as three men simply died on that hill over the course of the day. Could you imagine his surprise? Can you imagine his disappointment? Can you imagine his grief in realizing that he was the reason for his beloved teacher's apparent death?
What we're told about Judas during Jesus's last months of his life is sparse. If we try to flesh out a more human picture of this Judas Iscariot, his story, during Jesus's last months, becomes a tragedy of Sophoclean proportions. Forces and pressures acting on a faithful, but desperate figure, leads him to act in earnest to betray someone he loves dearly. Overcome by grief and without a seeming direction he kills himself. The most tragic thing is that Judas might have been right. Judas's betrayal and Jesus's subsequent death was completely necessary for Jesus to prove without a doubt to the rest of the disciples that he was indeed the messiah. Had Judas not committed suicide so quickly, and was alive for Jesus's resurrection, he might have been proved vindicated.
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