Here is what I was talking about (Tony should remember this)
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Judas death….
We have one scripture in Matthew that has thrown us off regarding Judas death and we have concluded he took his life prior to the crucifixion … but that is not so according to the Word…..
The Author ....(that would be God) has him alive up until the ascension.
The first thing to remember when it comes too apparent contradictions… is that “there are no contradictions in the Bible”. Errors in transmission, deliberate forgeries, mistranslation, or misunderstanding are all causes for what appears, as apparent contradictions.
Mat 27:5 seems to indicate that Judas hanged himself before the crucifixion.
And he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, and departed, and went and hanged himself.
Because of this one verse in
Matthew we have always thought that Judas immediately went out and hanged himself, but the verse in
1Co 15:5-7 and the records (together) in both
Luk 24:33-36 and
Jhn 20:20-24 in addition to
Act 1:2-
10 show Judas being present after the resurrection, which is a notable or apparent contradiction.↓
1Co 15:4-7
....4.)And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures: 15:5 And that he was seen of Cephas, “then of the twelve”
And↓…These two accounts are of the same event. (I am not printing all the verses to save space
.)
Luk 24:33-36 …. 33.)
And they rose up the same hour, and returned to Jerusalem, and found the eleven gathered together, and them that were with them,
Jhn 20:20-24…. 24.)
But Thomas, one of the twelve, called Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came.
It was Thomas not Judas who was absent.
The record in
Act 1:2-
10 I will get into in a moment, but first I wish to clarify what may be a misunderstanding.
Because God is perfect, so also is His word in its original form. So when we run across something that doesn’t fit or appears to contradict itself, we must look in one of the above four categories; in this case it has to be
“misunderstanding” of the words
“hanged himself” in
Mat 27:5.
The word translated
hanged himself in the King James version is
apanchomai from the Greek word
apanchô it is used only once in the New Testament.
When there is a lack of supporting biblical scripture from which to garner information in defining a word, extrabiblical or historical writings may be considered ....not as God breathed... but to render some clarity of it’s use.
(1.) In classic literature it means to “strangle” or “to choke” and is used figuratively to mean “to choke with anger” or “grief”
(2.) The Expositor’s Greek Testament makes note of
Grotius, who suggests that
apanchô points to death by grief… rather than literal choking.
This is correct only to the extent that Judas did not die immediately in Matthew 27, but he was extremely grieved over the betrayal.
(3.)This figurative usage is also verified in the
classical writings Aristophanes
(1.) Henry G. Liddell and Robert Scott. A Greek – English Lexicon, rev. by Henry S. Jones {1843; 9th ed., Oxford Press} 1940 p.174
(2.) W. Robertson Nicoll, The Expositor’s Greek Testament, 6 vols. {London Hodder and Stoughton, 1897} 1:323.
(3.) Aristophanes Vespae 686.
This seems to be what this word
“hanged himself” suggest and would fit with the emotional torment and grief that Judas would be going through. I would hope that none of you have had to endure such grief …I have ...(not from betrayal) and I can understand the incapacitation from grief that Judas may have felt after betraying not just a friend, but also someone who you now realize was the redeemer for Israel.
There is a greater depth to his betrayal culturally that we must also understand in order to fully grasps the agonizing grief that was taking hold of Judas; and that is “
the covenant of salt.”
(( salt covenant and additional information below))
Cont'd
