NO reputation remake planned for Judas: Vatican

[emad]

No reputation remake planned for Judas: Vatican


By Tom Heneghan, Religion Editor
PARIS (Reuters) - Despite reports to the contrary, the Roman Catholic Church is not planning to rehabilitate Judas Iscariot, the Biblical figure who betrayed Jesus and gave his name to generations of traitors, a Vatican official has said.

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The Times of London reported last week that Vatican historian Walter Brandmueller wanted to rehabilitate Judas and present his act as "fulfilling his part in God's plan".

The story sparked lively chatter on the Internet. The Toronto Star daily asked: "Ready to rethink the fink (villain)?"

"This news has no foundation," Brandmueller, head of the Pontifical Committee of Historical Sciences, said.

"I can't imagine where this idea came from," he told the Rome-based Catholic news agency Zenit this week.

http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=worldNews&storyID=2006-01-20T173758Z_01_L20392775_RTRUKOC_0_US-RELIGION-VATICAN-JUDAS.xml&archived=False

[joeybee12]

1. Yeah, why waste time on someone who didn't exist...

...my understanding is that he showed up in the gospels quite late--nedeed a character to flesh out the story line.

[papau]

2. In the gospels & at the beginning of Acts-but those Christains were liars

whenever they relate stuff about Jesus and those around him.

Now who proved that again ?? - I seem to have forgot just who proved that and how they proved it - or is it one of those things atheists must believe on faith (using the usual "It hasn't been proven to my satisfaction" spin).

[joeybee12]

3. I've been reading stuff by Bart Ehrman and Morton Smith...

...probably where I picked that up. Yeah, enough discrepancies to show that it's not true at all. They sort of came up with the idea of Jesus as the Redeemer, and then worked backwards, changing events, aspects of his life, sayings, etc., to fit this role.

[The Pain]

4. let's try and be respectfull of other people's religions....

Judas was a rebel at his time.
he saw Jesus as a returning king to drive out the Romans with a sword.
When it became obvious that jesus would do nothing like that, he grew bitter, later betraying him to the faracies (I know I spelled it wrong). Upon doing that he had a bit of a revelation about what he did, and committed suicide. The bible was written in past tense, so all accounts were written after jesus's death. ok, let's say a friend of yours kills your best friend. When you write your autobiograghy, are you going to give the murderous friend a shining review?
That is why little is mentioned about Judas, but he was a long time desciple.

And there are conflicting stories that he too had a gospel (book in the bible) but the church threw it out since heh, he kinda killed the star.

Also I believe This thread is about the roman catholics deciding against writing an article, not "hey let's make fun of other people's religions in extremely bitter sounding posts!"
I mean hell, this thread sounds like a Freeper's post about Islam "it's all made up, what idiots!"

[joeybee12]

5. Didn't mean to be respectful..just pointing out the historical evidence

that Judas probably didn't exist..

And please don't be disrespectful of my interpretation of all this.

[papau]

6. discrepancies? - I posted the work on Lincoln - choosing 4 out of 200

bio's at random - and then looking for "discrepancies" - and then finding twice as many as found in the Gospels using the Ehrman/Smith/et.al criteria - is very easy to do - and more or less proves the value of "discrepancies".

Judas is an unsettled and unsettling "story" as it forces nature of God and free will questions that - for me - come into focus via the Rabbi's When Bad Things Happen to Good People By Harold S. Kushner (1981)and how well that view maps to what we know about quantum mechanics - but that is just me - and is just one of many ways of thinking about the topic.

The "discrepancies" are indeed there - after Saint Matthias replaces him I suspect he was not followed nor was much attention paid to him. The Gospel of Matthew says he hanged himself; the Acts of the Apostles (1:18)says that he "purchased a field with the reward of iniquity; and falling headlong, he burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed out". My guess is that these were good faith reports about someone no-one cared about anymore. Again the Lincoln bio test proves rather easily that "discrepancies" don't mean a damn thing as to whether something is real of not.

Free Will and how God acts questions run into Jesus condemning his betrayer in Matthew 26, and then a question as to the options on the nature of the Jesus/Judas relationship.

Jesus did not foresee the betrayal by Judas.
He was unable to prevent it.
He allowed Judas to betray him.
Judas was an informed accomplice in Jesus' planned destiny.

The Problem of Natural Evil by Bertrand Russell and Three Versions of Judas, a short story by Jorge Luis Borges are an interesting read on ideological contradictions between Judas' actions and his supposed eternal punishment, and indeed argues with Aquinas's Summa Theologiae, which differentiates between foreknowledge and predestination, and argues that the omnipotence of the divine is not sufficient grounds for eliminating the existence of free will.

The modern church goes with Jesus on the cross saying "Father forgive them, they know not what they do," and the concept that repenting of ones actions and getting to heaven applies to Judas, but that the Church does not know if Judas repented, and therefore does not know about Judas' eternal punishment, if any.

By the way, the joke of a film -IMO - called "The Last Temptation of Christ" is not based on Church/Bible teachings.