Quote:
Q: Matthew 27:5 says that Judas died by hanging himself. But Acts 1:18 sats that falling headlong, he burst open in the middle and all his entrails gushed out. Well, what was the mode of death? Hanging, or falling headlong? The accounts obviously are contradictory!
A: The usual resolution to this objection is to point out that it is possible for a person to hang himself and to fall headlong. For instance, if Judas hung himself from somewhere high on the city walls, or from an upper branch of a tall tree, and overestimated how much rope he would need, he could jump with the noose around his neck, intending to be killed by hanging, but in the resultant scene, though he would still have a rope around his neck, the medical cause of death would be from the bodily trauma of the impact with the ground.
Yet, Matthew doesn't say that Judas merely attempted to hang himself (but failed). It says that he hanged himself. Thus, the "usual resolution" is very flimsy (and that's an understatement).
Quote:
Another hypothesis is that Judas hanged himself someplace high, so that after he was hanged, there was yet a considerable distance between the corpse and the ground. Then the branch broke, or the rope broke, and the corpse plummeted to the ground, resulting in the scene described in Acts.
On the surface, that wouldn't be difficult to imagine as a possibility. However, it would make little sense for the author of Acts to mention something that happened to a key character's corpse while totally ignoring his death. What historian would do that?
Quote:
The solution I favor, though, is slightly different: the phrase that is translated in the NKJV and most other English translations as falling headlong (or the equivalent of that) in Acts 1:18 isnt a phrase that one would typically use to describe a man falling down. Its prhnhs genomenos. Genomenos is just the ordinary Greek word for becoming; the interesting term is prhnhs (that is, pre-nes, with two long es and the accent on the second syllable). Employed as medical jargon, it is capable of meaning swelled up, as a footnote in the English Standard Version renders it.
Yet even the ESV doesn't use "swelled up" in the text, does it? I've looked at several major translations, and every single one of them translates it as "falling" (or another derivative of "fall"), most including "headlong."
A literal translation would be "becoming headlong." What would be the most typical method of "becoming headlong"? Would it not be falling?
The Greek term "prhnhs" (or "prenes") is defined by Strong's and Vine's as "headlong." In addition, Strong's indicates that "prenes" comes from the root "pro," which means "in front of." Now, "in front of" makes sense as a root for "headlong," but it does NOT make sense as a root for "swelling up." In addition, the Vine's listing makes no mention of the "swelling up" alternative in the definition, but relegates it to a post-definition note, saying that some suggest it as an alternate meaning (this is done in a way clearly suggesting that the Vine's editors did not consider "swelling up" to be a very strong possibility). It seems that the whole "swelling up" alternative is suggested for no other reason than to try desperately to reconcile these contradictory passages.
Quote:
Thus, Lukes parenthetical note in Acts 1:18 describes not Judas hanging, but the after-effects of it.
I agree that it doesn't describe the hanging, but neither does it say anything about describing post-hanging events. The passage is describing Judas' death, not a post-death corpse event.
Quote:
Judas corpse swelled up with gases, and as a result his guts spilled out upon the ground below.
The text says nothing about gases, and the "swelled up" argument is highly suspect, as already noted.
Quote:
The term prhnhs is so much more fitting to describe a swollen corpse than a swollen living person
No, "prhnhs" describes being "headlong."
Quote:
it seems likely that Lukes initial readers (already familiar, like Theophilus, with some of the background about Jesus and the early church) understood that Luke was describing Judas corpse.
The typical reader of Acts would much more likely think that it's describing Judas' death than pointing out a post-death event while totally ignoring the actual death.
Quote:
A semi-related sub-point: the early church writer Eusebius of Caesarea (who wrote c. 300-330) mentioned a statement that had been made by Papias, a much earlier writer. It is not unusual to find references to Papias writing in the 130s, but Robert Gundry has made a very good case (in his thick commentary on the Gospel of Mark, as I recall) for assigning to Papias a date some 20-30 years earlier. So, although Papias writings are fragmentary, they are extremely early as patristic evidence goes.
Papias -- writing in Asia Minor -- probably correctly understood the term prhnhs to refer to swollenness, but may have misunderstood it to refer to a living person, and on the basis of that combination of right-definition-plus-wrong-application, he composed a short description of Judasenormous swollenness and manner of death. Because Papias works are so fragmentary, it is difficult to discern whether Papias actually intended for his description of Judas to be taken literally, or as hyperbole, or as some kind of abstract parable-profile. Its not even clear, when Papias refers to Judas body, if he intended to describe Judas at a point when he was living or dead (though since this is preceded by a statement about how Judas walked about in this world, at first glance he seems to have a living Judas in mind; on the other hand, the reference to Judas impious walk might easily be figurative). However one interprets Papias, though, his comments seem at least a little bit relevant because he describes Judas as swollen-up.
A translation of Eusebius quotations of Papias comments about Judas can be found online www.earlychristianwriting...apias.html . The relevant statement is Judas walked about in this world a sad example of impiety; for his body having swollen to such an extent that he could not pass where a chariot could pass easily, he was crushed by the chariot, so that his bowels gushed out.
Yeah, you've mentioned this odd Papias comment before. Frankly, I don't know why you'd place so much stock in one claiming that Judas was swollen to the point of being larger than a chariot. You may as well get your information from the National Enquirer.
Anyway, keep in mind that these very texts you're trying to reconcile here also contain two other inconsistencies (who bought the field and the reason for naming the field), thus adding to the case that these accounts are not credible.
Clearly, I find your arguments here to be quite weak.
Take care......
"As for the truth, it seems like we just pick a theory." -- Emily Saliers of Indigo Girls
