Download Judas Iscariot and the Myth of Jewish Evil ePub

In this book Maccoby makes some illuminating points on Judas (greek for Judah) as a stand-in for the jewish people, and somehow actually rehabilitates Judas. Bonus material includes: deconstructing the attonement myth that requires a betrayer or "black christ" in Judah, rehash of medevil passion plays and some interesting composites made from anomalous judas/brothers/apostles material in the NT.

I read this in a day, being only a ~160pg book. Some missed opportunities here that were a disappointment include: parallels to "the kiss" to the kissing of the Torah scroll (ie kissing you goodbye) and more elaboration of the role of evil and human sacrifice in Judaism. Maccoby really does not delve into this material where the Advarsary is considered helpful, including the "evil" inclination which can derive good. Obviously, these additudes have developed alongside Christian's identification of the Jews as evil anyway, a pariah people. A comparison between the nature or role of evil in Judaism vs. Christianity's switch against the Jews would have made the book more significant. The collective blood libel ('let his blood be upon us and our children' - Matt 27:22) of deicide and other remarks against Jews (such as Jesus accusing the Jews of devil worship John 8:44) does not begin with Judas. Judas was just an accessory character, probably a symbolic one.

Another thing is his exageration of anti-semetism today. In America in the 21st century, you have jews as vice-presidential nominations, senators, etc. in every civic and professional role. Great strides have been made in the judeo-christian dialogue since WWII, and the role of Judas has been made more innocous. Many Christians may even be shocked at the association between Judas and the Jews. But Maccoby is right that such themes still resonate in our culture - and of course played a hand in the manifestations of non-religious political movements such as fascism and communism. As he said there are differences between a "catholic" atheist and a "jewish" atheist due to their religious/societal orientations.

This book is for Maccoby fans only. Despite my disagreement with some of the material, his brilliance is obvious. Its always interesting to read a talmud scholar's dissections of the NT. Even if you don't agree (and I'm not saying I don't mind you) you must like the way he turns the picture upside down and backwards!

Hyam Maccoby is obviously correct to state that Judas never "betrayed" Jesus. This view is eminently defensible from the New Testament itself.

1) Jesus obviously had foreknowledge that Judas was going to inform the authorities where to find him. First of all, if we assume that as the Son of God and the Second member of the Holy Trinity, Jesus is God and therefore knows everything, OF COURSE he then must know what Judas is up to.

2) The Gospels themselves say that Jesus knew. In Matthew, when Judas kisses Jesus and asks, "Is it I?" Jesus tells him, "Go, do what you must."

What kind of "betrayal" is it if the object of the betrayal knows exactly what is going to happen?

If Jesus didn't want to be "betrayed" then, after telling Judas to tell the authorities to find him in the Garden of Gethsemane, ALL JESUS WOULD HAVE TO DO TO THWART THE "BETRAYAL" IS SIMPLY NOT SHOW UP.

3) It is logical to suppose that Jesus actually SENT Judas to inform the authorities. Think about it. They've just had the Last Supper. This is Jerusalem in the 1st Century; not a lot of night life. After dining on a holiday, there was nothing else to do but go to bed inside the city, more or less where they had supper. But instead, Jesus and the disciples leave the city and go to the Mount of Olives. Question: How would the authorities know to look for Jesus there? For surely, Jesus WANTED the authorities to find him. Either in his capacity as the sacrificial Lamb of God, knowing he's going to be arrested, tried, and crucified, wanting to go through with it because of his love of mankind, or in his capacity as Messiah, wanting to battle with the Romans in order to usher in the Age of the Messiah -- either way, he can't get it going unless he confronts the authorities, and he can't do that if they don't know where to find him. So OF COURSE he needs someone to TELL them -- and that someone is Judas.

More to the point -- if the object of the exercise is to get himself arrested in order to get on with the task of dying on the cross and thereby atoning for the sins of all mankind, then why even bother going to the Garden for the confrontation with and arrest by the Temple authorities?

Why not just dispatch Judas to tell the authorities to find and arrest Jesus in the same room where they'd just held the Last Supper? Or, why just just turn himself in to the Temple authorities and save everybody the bother of having to come and get him?

4) Now consider who Judas really is. He's the only disciple with a "surname." But the "surname is no surname; it's a STREET name. It's like being named "Mack the Knife."

What does it mean? "Is" - "Ish," Hebrew/Aramaic for "man." And "S-cariot" is a blend of Latin and Hebrew. In Latin, a "sicarius" means "dagger." (It is from this word that we get the words "cigar" and "cigar-ette' ('little cigar') since both have the general shape of a dagger.) And in Hebrew, the "iot" ending is used with plural feminine nouns, so "sicarius" the dagger becomes "sicar-iot" the daggers.

Judas Iscariot then is "Judas the Daggerman," or "Judas, Man of Daggers."

5) This is significant because Josephus records that during this time, there was a group of assassins within the party of the Zealots who frequently picked off stray Romans by stabbing them to death -- with sicarii! In fact, that's what they were called -- The Sicarii.

Judas was in this class of Jewish patriot.

6) So how could it possibly be that THIS Judas, of ALL people, could possibly have turned over his beloved master to the very people he hated the most?

The answer must be he didn't know what he was doing.

Jesus sends him to tell the authorities where to find him. Judas gladly does so, because he thinks the Messianic Revolt as foretold by Zechariah and Joel is going to occur this very evening. He PRETENDS to the authorities to be a turncoat in order to embellish the verisimilitude; this is why he accepts their payments of 30 pieces of silver.

He leads the authorities to Jesus, but to his shock, horror, and dismay, instead of ushering in the Age of the Messiah, Jesus is meekly arrested, and the whimper of the revolution is over before it truly began.

Judas knew what would happen next -- Jesus was going to be executed, probably on the cross.

In great despair, he throws back the pieces of silver, and then hangs himself in grief.

The suicide is the key to the story. If Judas had truly and cravenly "betrayed" Jesus, then why the waterworks afterward? Why the grief and despair?

But if Judas didn't know what was going to happen, then all is clear and understandable. He killed himself because it went terribly wrong, and he felt horrible guilt about his unwitting role.

As it happens, I have recently (as of August 2015) published a book on this and other subjects, "Calculating the Dates of the Birth and Crucifixion of Jesus." It is currently available as an Amazon Kindle book.

Thank you.

Another great study by Hyam Maccoby. Glad I found it! Things are not always as they seem to be nor what they are that we've been told.

Hyam Maccoby here continues his analysis of the origins of Christianity and the roots of antisemitism. This volume is probably his weakest attempt at history, but it is worth reading at least for its remarks on the nature and importance of myth.

Maccoby's historical thesis is that the traitorous Judas of the gospels was a sheer invention -- but one nevertheless "spun off" from a real person: the Judas of history was the brother of Jesus. And yes, Maccoby has to perform some remarkable hat tricks in order to pull this off.

Whether or not one accepts his historical reconstruction, though, Maccoby has helpful things to say about the role of myth in antisemitism. He does make a strong case that the character of Judas has served (as his name suggests) as a stand-in for the Jews in Christian thought and culture. And he makes some extremely pertinent remarks about the "fundamentalism" of certain writers on the nature of myth (e.g. Rudolf Bultmann, Joseph Campbell), noting well that myths are not beyond criticism either.

Not Maccoby's best book, then, but still very much worth reading.