Vatican moves to clear Judas’ name

Proposed ‘rehabilitation’ of the man who was paid 30 pieces of silver to identify Jesus to Roman soldiers in the Garden of Gethsemane, comes on the ground that he was not deliberately evil, but was just ‘fulfilling his part in God’s plan, the London Times reports

...............

Christians have traditionally blamed Judas for aiding and abetting the Crucifixion, and his name is synonymous with treachery. According to St Luke, Judas was “possessed by Satan.”

According to the London Times, a campaign led by Monsignor Walter Brandmuller, head of the Pontifical Committee for Historical Science, is aimed at persuading believers to look kindly at a man reviled for 2,000 years.

Mgr Brandmuller told fellow scholars it was time for a “re-reading” of the Judas story. He is supported by Vittorio Messori, a prominent Catholic writer close to both Pope Benedict XVI and the late John Paul II.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3199362,00.html

exonerate Libby, Rove and Delay??????????????????????????????:wow:

?

The Bible, as noted in the article, also says that Satan entered into him.

The is nothing more than some idle academics talking to each other, and will carry no weight of any kind.

?

JUDAS AND THE HISTORICAL JESUS


All Posts in this link show a lack of knowledge about the Historical Jesus and the Historical Biblical Times......as opposed to the book called The Bible that was written 80 to 100 years after the time of Jesus by men who were simply writing stories with at most 2nd and 3rd hand tellings. You will all benefit from reading two books The Holy Blood and The Holy Grail and most specially addressing clearly why indeed Judas was merely playing a part in playin out the Messiah Prophesy that Jesus was conducting - The Messianic Legacy. Both listed as non-fiction in all Libraries and dense with Reseach and Data...all fully accepted THEOLOGICAL Research and Understandings about the real Historical Jesus and his times. Last I looked the book called The Bible didn't have a Bibliography at the back !! Like Scriptures of other religions - like the Gita of Hinduism (I'm a Hindu), the Bible is a Mythology of Morality Stories....and infact now Theological Reseach has discovered all the inaccuracies of the Bible versus the Historical Facts in Mega amounts.......and the Church knows these and even studies the details of discoveries like the Other Gospels, the Nag Hammadi Scrolls, the Dead Sea Scrolls etc in seminary but they carefully shield their congregation from all such knowledge because all such knowledge would make them - the Church completely the ones who for centuries have carefully crafted falsities to keep themselved in power and keep the followers ignorant. All the prooved falsehoods including Judas and the Jews being made to be the bad guys was a totally Church created fabrication....one out of their own needs to be in the first place. That's why the ignorant lay people are so befuddled when a mere fiction like the Da Vinci Code comes out - that nonetheless contains enough morsels from real reasearch that their Church knows fully but they dont.

sounds like an affirmation from the church that free will is an illusion

or predestination- Someone had to be Jesus, someone had to be Judas

Seems to undermine the "free will" talk some religionists engage in.

like how many angels can stand on the head of a pin.

then there is no limit to what we can get away with!

Personally I always figured God made some sort of special dispensation for him because he had to do what he had to do. I figured he got to live like in a heaven ghetto or something.

the gospels very clearly condemn Judas. Jesus himself is quoted as saying: "These things must come to pass, but woe be to him by whom they come to pass." There are other condemnations, too.

Now, if you leave behind the idea that the gospels are divinely inspired and look at them as eyewitness accounts, a different possibility presents iteslf. Jesus says to Judas at the last supper "What you have to do, do quickly." And Judas gets up and leaves the room to turn Jesus in to the authorities.

There's something wrong with the traditional interpretation of that exchange. If you were planning to betray someone close to you and you were busted at the last minute, would you just calmly get up and go ahead with your plan? If you were Jesus, would you expose a betrayer in this matter-of-fact way and let him walk out with no comment? It doesn't ring true. Anyone who saw an exchange like this would reach the conclusion that Jesus and Judas had a prearranged plan, and Jesus was just giving the go-ahead.

If the accounts of the last supper have any basis in fact, it sounds to me as if Jesus arranged to have himself turned in. And if that's true, Judas should be exonerated from the charge of betrayal.

All Posts in this link show a lack of knowledge about the Historical Jesus and the Historical Biblical Times......as opposed to the book called The Bible that was written 80 to 100 years after the time of Jesus by men who were simply writing stories with at most 2nd and 3rd hand tellings. You will all benefit from reading two books The Holy Blood and The Holy Grail and most specially addressing clearly why indeed Judas was merely playing a part in playin out the Messiah Prophesy that Jesus was conducting - The Messianic Legacy. Both listed as non-fiction in all Libraries and dense with Reseach and Data...all fully accepted THEOLOGICAL Research and Understandings about the real Historical Jesus and his times. Last I looked the book called The Bible didn't have a Bibliography at the back !! Like Scriptures of other religions - like the Gita of Hinduism (I'm a Hindu), the Bible is a Mythology of Morality Stories....and infact now Theological Reseach has discovered all the inaccuracies of the Bible versus the Historical Facts in Mega amounts.......and the Church knows these and even studies the details of discoveries like the Other Gospels, the Nag Hammadi Scrolls, the Dead Sea Scrolls etc in seminary but they carefully shield their congregation from all such knowledge because all such knowledge would make them - the Church completely the ones who for centuries have carefully crafted falsities to keep themselved in power and keep the followers ignorant. All the prooved falsehoods including Judas and the Jews being made to be the bad guys was a totally Church created fabrication....one out of their own needs to be in the first place. That's why the ignorant lay people are so befuddled when a mere fiction like the Da Vinci Code comes out - that nonetheless contains enough morsels from real reasearch that their Church knows fully but they dont.

and their meaning distorted in order to protect orthodoxy.

However, for someone who criticizes believers for their credulity, you seem to have swallowed an awful lot speculation yourself. I enjoyed Michael Baigent's book on the Dead Sea Scrolls --it's extremely valuable. "The Holy Blood and The Holy Grail," however an requires an enormous leap of faith. Not that there was a medieval group believing in Jesus' survival, marriage to Mary M, and move to France or Spain, but that this would convince anyone that it actually happened.

There are indeed many other gospels. There are many texts in the Nag Hammadi library. Ninety percent of the material is fictitious. The question is to determine which part is most likely to be genuine.

The most reliable and demythologized picture of Jesus is probably the one held by the Ebionite movement, which is a descendant of the group founded by Jesus' family and closest followers. Because that movement came to suppressed as a heresy, good sources are hard to come by. But by reading between the lines from secondary sources like Eusebius, Josephus, Epephanius, and Hegesippus you can come to a general understanding of what the Ebionites believed and how they differed from the gentile church.

Would anyone who heard Saddam Hussein and the United States Ambassador to Baghdad having a discussion reach the conclusion that the United States Ambassador to Baghdad and Saddam Hussein had a prearranged plan to invade Kuwait and the US Ambassador to Baghdad was just giving the go-ahead?

done by Andrew Lloyd Weber in his rock opera "Jesus Christ Superstar" (A Top Ten movie IMO)

From Jesus Christ Superstar:

Judas:

Christ!
I know you can't hear me
But I only did what you wanted me to
Christ!
I'd sell out the nation
For I have been saddled
With the murder of you
I have been spattered
With innocent blood
I should be dragged
Through the slime and the mud
I have been spattered
With innocent blood
I should be dragged
Through the slime and the mud

I don't know how to love him
I don't know why he moves me
He's a man
He's just a man
He's not a king
He's just the same
As anyone I know
He scares me so!
When he's cold and dead
Will he let me be?
Does he love me too?
Does he care for me?
Ohhhhh...

My mind is darkness now
My god I am sick
I've been used
And you knew
All the time
God I'll never ever know
Why you chose me for your crime
For your foul bloody crime
You have murdered me!
You have murdered me!

JUDAS AND THE HISTORICAL JESUS


All Posts in this link show a lack of knowledge about the Historical Jesus and the Historical Biblical Times......as opposed to the book called The Bible that was written 80 to 100 years after the time of Jesus by men who were simply writing stories with at most 2nd and 3rd hand tellings. You will all benefit from reading two books The Holy Blood and The Holy Grail and most specially addressing clearly why indeed Judas was merely playing a part in playin out the Messiah Prophesy that Jesus was conducting - The Messianic Legacy. Both listed as non-fiction in all Libraries and dense with Reseach and Data...all fully accepted THEOLOGICAL Research and Understandings about the real Historical Jesus and his times. Last I looked the book called The Bible didn't have a Bibliography at the back !! Like Scriptures of other religions - like the Gita of Hinduism (I'm a Hindu), the Bible is a Mythology of Morality Stories....and infact now Theological Reseach has discovered all the inaccuracies of the Bible versus the Historical Facts in Mega amounts.......and the Church knows these and even studies the details of discoveries like the Other Gospels, the Nag Hammadi Scrolls, the Dead Sea Scrolls etc in seminary but they carefully shield their congregation from all such knowledge because all such knowledge would make them - the Church completely the ones who for centuries have carefully crafted falsities to keep themselved in power and keep the followers ignorant. All the prooved falsehoods including Judas and the Jews being made to be the bad guys was a totally Church created fabrication....one out of their own needs to be in the first place. That's why the ignorant lay people are so befuddled when a mere fiction like the Da Vinci Code comes out - that nonetheless contains enough morsels from real reasearch that their Church knows fully but they dont.

We know, we know. And my I add, a big DUH!!

somebody to do this. Finally, I'll be able to sleep again.

Besides being one of the most laughable illustrations of the lengths to which Christian apologists will go so that there are no contradictions in their alleged infallible scripture (yea, he hung himself, but see, the rope he used was cheap so it broke and THEN he fell headlong and burst asunder, and his bowels gushed out, yeah, that's it!) - the story of Judas' death is (in the Acts version) one of the more grisly stories in the bible. (There are plenty of others, such as the story of a man directed by god to stab the shit (literally) out of a evil fat king in Judges 3:22)

But the way Acts tells the Judas story - 'he fell headlong' - which some manuscripts replace with 'he swelled up' and burst asunder (just like that guy's head in the movie Scanners), and 'his entrails gushed out' just strikes me as really gross, even for the bible. It's the grossest thing in that part of the bible since the cannibalism and vampirism discussed at the story of the last supper.

But hey, they had to give the guy his just deserts, to keep up the good story telling.

Now that he is being cleared, I wonder if they will give him a kinder, gentler death.