Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] For many years I thought that Paul knew about the betrayal of Jesus by Judas Iscariot and I had good reason. He seems to refer to him in 1 Corinthians 11, 23, 24 for I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus, on the night when he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, this is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.
[00:00:25] And that translation is from the nrsv.
[00:00:29] Since Paul indicates that the last Supper happened on the night that Jesus was betrayed, then that settles it, right?
[00:00:36] So it would be a relatively big deal for one thing, because otherwise Paul says almost nothing about the events of Jesus lifetime. That seems weird to people, but just read all of his letters. Paul never mentions Jesus healing anyone, casting out a demon, doing any other miracle, arguing with Pharisees or other leaders, teaching the multitudes, even speaking a parable, being baptized, being transmitted figures, going to Jerusalem, being arrested, put on trial, found guilty of blasphemy, appearing before Pontius Pilates on charges of calling for the King, the Jews being flogged, etc etc etc.
[00:01:06] It's a very, very long list of what he doesn't tell us about. And it's a very interesting question why?
[00:01:13] There are several explanations that I've explored on the blog before, but for now I don't want to go into the question of why, but the question of what specifically. One of the things that Paul doesn't tell us is that Jesus was betrayed by Jesus, but he does allude to it in this passage.
[00:01:29] I always thought so for years and years. And then I looked into it and read what other scholars have said about it and they convince me. I don't think this is a reference to Judas betrayal.
[00:01:40] But why not?
[00:01:42] The passage comes out and says that Jesus had his last supper on the night that he was betrayed. So Paul is referring to Judas betrayal, right? Well, probably wrong. Betrayed is almost certainly the wrong translation of the Greek for the passage.
[00:01:58] The term Paul uses here in Greek is paradidomi. That word literally means handed over, and it's a relatively common word in Paul. He uses it 15 times in the undisputed epistles. In fact, he uses it one of the time in this same verse. I also delivered paradidomi to you. He uses it one other time earlier in the chapter, in chapter 11, verse 2. I hand it over paradidomy to you, the traditions that you received.
[00:02:25] In neither of these instances obviously does it mean betray, and that's true of the other occurrences in Paul's letters.
[00:02:34] But could it mean that at least with respect to the handing over of Jesus?
[00:02:38] It's possible, of course. But the one other time Paul uses paradidomy with Jesus as the object, it's about how God handed over Jesus to his fate. That's in Romans 4:25 and is clearly not betrayed.
[00:02:51] Most likely, then, that is also what Paul means in 1 Corinthians 11:23. He's not referring to the night on which Judas betrayed Jesus, for which he would probably have used prodidomi, but to the night on which God handed Jesus over to his fate. This is probably not then a reference to the betrayal of Judas Iscariot.
[00:03:13] In fact, there is another passage in Paul that may suggest that he did not know about the tradition of the betrayal of Judas at all.
[00:03:19] In 1 Corinthians, chapter 15, Paul's intent on explaining whether believers in Jesus will be physically raised from the dead at the end of time.
[00:03:26] In large part, his reason is that Jesus himself was physically raised from the dead. It was not some kind of bodiless spiritual resurrection that Jesus experienced, but a bodily, physical one. The evidence is that Jesus actually appeared bodily to people afterward.
[00:03:41] Paul gives a list of people in 1 Corinthians 15, 5, 8.
[00:03:47] First he appeared to Cephas, then to the 12, then he appeared to more than 500, then he appeared, and so on. But wait a second. Why does Paul say that he appeared to the 12?
[00:03:58] In the Gospels, Jesus only appears to the 11.
[00:04:02] Judas was no longer with them. He'd left the group, and in Matthew he'd committed suicide. Paul, however, says that he appeared to all 12. Does Paul not know about Judas?
[00:04:14] There are two standard views of the matter. One is that Paul is using the 12 here in a technical sense to refer to the closest disciples of Jesus known as the 12. Whether or not there were actually 12 of them.
[00:04:26] That probably is the most common interpretation. And if it seems weird, realize that we do something similar sometimes using a number that's not exact to describe a group. For example, those of you who are college football fans are very familiar with the conference known as the Big Ten, which has, you know, 18 teams.
[00:04:45] The other way to interpret the passage may be more plausible.
[00:04:48] Paul refers to Jesus appearing to the twelve because he thinks that he did appear to all twelve disciples who were still faithful to him. If this is the case, then Paul would not know about a betrayal of Jesus by Judas Iscariot.
[00:05:02] You might wonder how he wouldn't know, and so do I.
[00:05:05] Maybe he did know but maybe he didn't. If he didn't, it could simply be because he didn't know much about the details of Jesus life and death.
[00:05:14] The reason that it seems implausible to a lot of historians who've looked into the matter is that we know that Paul spent two weeks meeting with Jesus disciple Peter during a stay in Jerusalem three years after Paul's conversion. You find that in Galatians, chapter one.
[00:05:28] Surely Peter would have told him lots of stories about the death of Jesus and of his life. No. I mean, they surely weren't just talking about the weather.
[00:05:37] It makes sense. On the other hand, Paul and Peter may well have had their hands full talking about other things, such as how to convert Gentiles to the new faith, this being Paul's principal concern, and over whether these converts would have to begin to adhere to the Jewish law. Paul thought absolutely not. Most of the other apostles thought absolutely. So there were a lot of things for Peter and Paul to talk about.
[00:06:01] Even so, you would think that Peter would mention the important events surrounding Jesus death, but we'll never know.
[00:06:08] What we can say for certain is that if Paul knew about Judas Iscariot, he says nothing about him in his writings.
[00:06:14] And in the one passage where it appears to refer to him, turns out he didn't.
[00:06:19] So did he know or not? And if he did not, how could he not? And if he did, why doesn't he ever mention or even allude to it?
