The Rehab of Judas

May 27, 2008

Everyone on the planet gets a chance at rehab, no matter what they’ve done. Judas Iscariot, the so-called “Traitor Apostle” is no exception. I remember sitting in a West End London Theater in 1973 with my family as we watched the mega-hit, “Godspell”. In that recounting of the gospel story of Jesus, Judas is cast as a misunderstood maladroit that just wanted everyone to get along…except the Romans of course.

Later that summer, Weber’s “Jesus Christ, Superstar” made it onto the movie screens. In that retelling, Judas is a sympathetic worrier, best friend type, who is actually made the scapegoat of the entire thing by being tricked into thinking Jesus wants him to be the Betrayer.

In 2006, National Geographic published an article on the newly translated “Gospel of Judas”, an ancient Egyptian manuscript that tells a different story of Judas. They released the translation at the same time as a special documentary and a website splash. All of the media told the same story. Judas was Jesus’ best friend who volunteered to be the scapegoat. Jesus liked him better than the rest and as everyone knows, only a good friend will do your dirty work if you need something done.

As soon as the television special ended, many Coptic scholars downloaded the original document and the translation. Most of them were appalled. Listen to this description in the Chronicle-Review concerning April DeConick, a professor of biblical studies at Rice University:



In subsequent months, it has been shown that this Gospel could not possibly have been written by Judas, for it refers to events in the second century. In fact, no one ever claimed it was written by Judas. It was penned by a group of Gnostics around 150 A.D. and their purpose was to show that Judas was not actually a man, but a spirit force sent to guide Jesus through his spiritual path. In the last year, no one talks much more about this Gospel or the books written to laud it, for it stands as a monument to what the media can do to historical truth.

So why does everyone from Andrew Lloyd Weber to Harvard University want to paint Judas in a better light? As with anything, there is no one theory that stands for all. But here is my take on it. People feel uncomfortable with anyone being the worst bad guy in any situation. Except for the most cruel and hate-filled people of history (Hitler, Genghis Khan, Frank Burns) we react with a certain amount of sympathy for those who mess up but still have much in common with us.

Judas is painted in the Bible as greedy, opinionated, wanting the Romans to be overthrown, and impatient with Jesus’ program. He also doesn’t like others to be in the spotlight apparently. I can survey my life in the last ten years and see greed, a bevy of opinions, wanting megachurches to be overthrown, and impatient with Jesus’ program for my life. In fact, I’m not sure I don’t resemble Judas more than I care to admit, even on a bad day.

However, believe it or not, Judas is not painted as just a Betrayer in the Bible.  He actually repented of it later and gave the money back. No, the Bible shows that Judas was destroyed by the belief that he could never come back to God. Think about this: Both Judas and Peter let Jesus down big time. Peter ends up being the leader in the church and Judas has his intestines littering a field. But they both committed equally heinous crimes against their friendship with Jesus. What was the difference?

Judas hung himself because he believed the lie that it could never change. Peter jumped in the water, swam to shore and somehow came back to his friend. This is the difference. Give up hope and there is not much God can do. Keep the door open to God, no matter how badly you fail, and God can still get his stuff done with you.

If we really rehab Judas, he would be Peter.



  1. Could it also be that people want to show anything which puts the Bible in a bad light? I mean, if it could be proven from Archeology that the Bible was wrong, then this could lend credence to the Bible being a useless book. That is what so many people want to believe anyway.

  2. I think most people know they make pretty bad mistakes sometimes and want to know they can be forgiven, and want the Bible to spell that out. The lie that Judas believed caused him to take his life, and the depression he must have labored under fogged his thinking. The lie was very strong if Judas could see no way to forgiveness after all the time he spent in Jesus’ company. He was alone in his misery, and that is also dangerous. Harder to fight a lie alone than with someone else.

  3. Nice new look to the blog site, by the way.

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