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Which makes the name a bit of a misnomer - Judas knew what he was doing.

tgv 3y ago
So: ad agencies?
13of40 3y ago
I think the analogy would be that Jesus really was magic, but Judas was blind to it and living in a material state of mind where taking the 30 pieces of silver made more sense than continuing to follow some weirdo. If Judas was a true believer he would have realized that the wine and hookers he could buy with that would be less than useless compared to what he would get in heaven.
- Tabular-Iceberg 3y ago
  If what Solzhenitsyn said about the line between good and evil is true, then it’s fully plausible that Judas could be a true believer but still betray Jesus. Same with Peter’s denial.
  - mistrial9 3y ago
    not familiar with that (yet!) but.. I think Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment also touches on very gray areas and their cycles and consequences.
- krapp 3y ago
  My reading of it is that Judas was a "true believer" in the sense that he came to doubt that Jesus was actually the Messiah, because so much of what Jesus did contradicted the popular ideal of what the Messiah represented. From Judas' point of view he was sending a heretic and cult leader to their justly deserved end. But the whole narrative was written after the fact to justify Christian claims of being the legitimate heirs to God's covenant and condemn the Jews as a people for "betraying Jesus" so expecting any degree of nuance beyond "Satan made him do it because Jews are greedy" is likely expecting too much.
  - explaininjs 3y ago
    This doesn’t explain him becoming overcome with guilt, returning the money, and hanging himself after the fact. And the entire message of the New Testament is to offer the Jews salvation and explain how their old ways were wrong. The New Testament explicitly condemns absolutely nobody, instead offers salvation to absolutely everybody, which the only condition being that they ask for it. This is in stark contrast to the old testament, in which only the Jews would be saved and all else are condemned. Not to mention the New Testament explicitly states there is no Jew or Gentile in the body of Christ. The distinction is entirely abolished. And Jesus calls Judas a friend, and says he could avoid this all if he wanted to but he must do it to fulfill the scriptures. All in all it seems like you are reaching for a reason to say the New Testament is anti-Jew, when it is truly not against anyone (except perhaps those unwilling to love God and their neighbor).
    - krapp 3y ago
      This isn't something I made up, nor is it even controversial[0]. Antisemitism was a common cultural and political element of the early Church and its establishment of self-identity as separate from Judaism, and the belief (sometimes codified into Church doctrine) that the Jews were cursed by God for their rejection of Jesus as the Messiah, and the villification of Judas as the symbol of that curse is almost as old as the Church itself[1]. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitism_and_the_New_Testament https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitism_and_the_New_Testa... [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitism_in_Christianity#Church_Fathers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitism_in_Christianity#C...
      - explaininjs 3y ago
        Certainly you will be able to find people saying anything if you look. But you can't present a wiki page where some guy "asserted" something was true and use that to justify your claim that it "isn't even controversial". People will use anything to find a reason to dislike other people. You can be a part of perpetuating those malcontentments, or you can look at the entire rest of the New Testament which at every turn denounces condemnation and emphasizes love above all else.
simion314 3y ago
>Which makes the name a bit of a misnomer - Judas knew what he was doing. Judas's story is a big point in supporting my atheism , like you had a dude following a God for years, witnessing extreme miracles and still the guy had doubts that the person was a God and at the same time this Gods would want me to believe based only on that old,censored book that contradicts itself with reality and morality 100 times. I would have censored this story too if I was there.
- thinkingemote 3y ago
  One might say that the existence of a doubter or rejector lends the story authenticity. After all we have doubters and people who betray for money today in all walks of life. What's even more noteworthy about miracles is the report that some of those who had the miracle applied to, who were healed even some of them didn't believe or even say thanks! The point of the miracle maybe was not really to make people believe... it's a mystery to me.
  - lelanthran 3y ago
    >> Judas's story is a big point in supporting my atheism , > One might say that the existence of a doubter or rejector lends the story authenticity. The story? Certainly! Evidence of that specific god? Not at all (it's actually the opposite). Let me put it this way: You get told a story about how someone, $LEADER, had millions of people following his proposal to get rich, hanging on his every word, believing his every utterance, because he claimed to have the people's interest at heart. Believable? Maybe. Then you get told that one guy from $LEADER's inner circle, who saw every thing that $LEADER did, and heard everything that $LEADER said, stopped believing that $LEADER was, in actual fact, capable of doing what he said he could do. Believable? Sure, much more than before. But .. that still doesn't provide any evidence that $LEADER was, in fact, who he claimed to be, nor that what he claimed was true, nor that he believed what he claimed to be true. In fact, it's just the opposite - we now have more reason to believe the story, but disbelieve the claims of $LEADER. Replace $LEADER with SBF and the context with cryptocurrencies.
  - simion314 3y ago
truculent 3y ago
Did Jesus have to die for our sins? And was Judas's betrayal not an integral part of his crucifixion?
dang 3y ago
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38009329 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38009329.

tgv 3y ago

So: ad agencies?

I think the analogy would be that Jesus really was magic, but Judas was blind to it and living in a material state of mind where taking the 30 pieces of silver made more sense than continuing to follow some weirdo. If Judas was a true believer he would have realized that the wine and hookers he could buy with that would be less than useless compared to what he would get in heaven.

Tabular-Iceberg 3y ago
If what Solzhenitsyn said about the line between good and evil is true, then it’s fully plausible that Judas could be a true believer but still betray Jesus. Same with Peter’s denial.
- mistrial9 3y ago
  not familiar with that (yet!) but.. I think Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment also touches on very gray areas and their cycles and consequences.
krapp 3y ago
My reading of it is that Judas was a "true believer" in the sense that he came to doubt that Jesus was actually the Messiah, because so much of what Jesus did contradicted the popular ideal of what the Messiah represented. From Judas' point of view he was sending a heretic and cult leader to their justly deserved end. But the whole narrative was written after the fact to justify Christian claims of being the legitimate heirs to God's covenant and condemn the Jews as a people for "betraying Jesus" so expecting any degree of nuance beyond "Satan made him do it because Jews are greedy" is likely expecting too much.
- explaininjs 3y ago
  This doesn’t explain him becoming overcome with guilt, returning the money, and hanging himself after the fact. And the entire message of the New Testament is to offer the Jews salvation and explain how their old ways were wrong. The New Testament explicitly condemns absolutely nobody, instead offers salvation to absolutely everybody, which the only condition being that they ask for it. This is in stark contrast to the old testament, in which only the Jews would be saved and all else are condemned. Not to mention the New Testament explicitly states there is no Jew or Gentile in the body of Christ. The distinction is entirely abolished. And Jesus calls Judas a friend, and says he could avoid this all if he wanted to but he must do it to fulfill the scriptures. All in all it seems like you are reaching for a reason to say the New Testament is anti-Jew, when it is truly not against anyone (except perhaps those unwilling to love God and their neighbor).
  - krapp 3y ago
    This isn't something I made up, nor is it even controversial[0]. Antisemitism was a common cultural and political element of the early Church and its establishment of self-identity as separate from Judaism, and the belief (sometimes codified into Church doctrine) that the Jews were cursed by God for their rejection of Jesus as the Messiah, and the villification of Judas as the symbol of that curse is almost as old as the Church itself[1]. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitism_and_the_New_Testament https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitism_and_the_New_Testa... [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitism_in_Christianity#Church_Fathers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitism_in_Christianity#C...
    - explaininjs 3y ago
      Certainly you will be able to find people saying anything if you look. But you can't present a wiki page where some guy "asserted" something was true and use that to justify your claim that it "isn't even controversial". People will use anything to find a reason to dislike other people. You can be a part of perpetuating those malcontentments, or you can look at the entire rest of the New Testament which at every turn denounces condemnation and emphasizes love above all else.

simion314 3y ago

>Which makes the name a bit of a misnomer - Judas knew what he was doing. Judas's story is a big point in supporting my atheism , like you had a dude following a God for years, witnessing extreme miracles and still the guy had doubts that the person was a God and at the same time this Gods would want me to believe based only on that old,censored book that contradicts itself with reality and morality 100 times. I would have censored this story too if I was there.

thinkingemote 3y ago
One might say that the existence of a doubter or rejector lends the story authenticity. After all we have doubters and people who betray for money today in all walks of life. What's even more noteworthy about miracles is the report that some of those who had the miracle applied to, who were healed even some of them didn't believe or even say thanks! The point of the miracle maybe was not really to make people believe... it's a mystery to me.
- lelanthran 3y ago
  >> Judas's story is a big point in supporting my atheism , > One might say that the existence of a doubter or rejector lends the story authenticity. The story? Certainly! Evidence of that specific god? Not at all (it's actually the opposite). Let me put it this way: You get told a story about how someone, $LEADER, had millions of people following his proposal to get rich, hanging on his every word, believing his every utterance, because he claimed to have the people's interest at heart. Believable? Maybe. Then you get told that one guy from $LEADER's inner circle, who saw every thing that $LEADER did, and heard everything that $LEADER said, stopped believing that $LEADER was, in actual fact, capable of doing what he said he could do. Believable? Sure, much more than before. But .. that still doesn't provide any evidence that $LEADER was, in fact, who he claimed to be, nor that what he claimed was true, nor that he believed what he claimed to be true. In fact, it's just the opposite - we now have more reason to believe the story, but disbelieve the claims of $LEADER. Replace $LEADER with SBF and the context with cryptocurrencies.
- simion314 3y ago

truculent 3y ago

Did Jesus have to die for our sins? And was Judas's betrayal not an integral part of his crucifixion?

dang 3y ago

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38009329 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38009329.