The ideology of Judas and his betrayal of Jesus

Judas betrayed Jesus because his ideology clouded how he saw the Messiah

Judas betrayed Jesus. Then filled with remorse, he went and hanged himself. He obviously was not expecting Jesus to be arrested, or for things to go the way they did. His name is the traitor.
But why would he do this?
He had walked with Jesus for three years. He had heard the teaching and seen the miracles. He was part of the inner circle.
He betrayed Jesus for 30 pieces of silver, which was a good chunk of change, but it wasn't all that much. It wasn't for the money. And it is clear from the Biblical stories, the outcome was not what Judas expected.
It even seems that Jesus was egging him on in some ways.
The religious leaders wanted rid of Jesus, and they were looking for a way to make that happen. They were also well aware of the politics of the situation. It would be a public relations nightmare if they did anything to him. They needed someone to “lay the charge.” They needed an excuse, and they wanted the hated Romans to do the deed so they would appear innocent.
If it was one of his own disciples who betrayed him, that was even better, so they were happy to pay whatever price was needed. It seems Judas did what God wanted in some ways, it wasn't necessary for it to be him. That doesn't get him off the hook.
He still betrayed Jesus. But the question remains. Why? What could his motivation really have been?
It's always intrigued me, what happened after the betrayal.
Judas and many others of the day wanted Jesus to overthrow Rome. They wanted the Messiah to come, but they had formed the idea that the primary duty of the Messiah was to overthrow Rome and set up the kingdom of Israel again. Since that was what they wanted, and indeed that is part of the Old Testament prophecy, they had no room for any other kind of Messiah. Their anti-Rome ideology colored everything they saw, including how they saw the Messiah.
Judas may have thought his action would set the wheels in motion. Jesus would be arrested, he would call down angels out of heaven to rain fire on Rome, and would then lead the revolution. Judas' dreams for his country would be realized, and of course, he would no doubt hold a high position in Jesus kingdom. He may have even thought he was doing what Jesus wanted.
He heard the teachings of Jesus. Maybe he even heard Jesus tell them that he would be crucified and that he had come for that purpose. He might have even heard Jesus say blessed are the poor, turn the other cheek and so forth.
But Judas was blinded by ideology. He had an agenda and the Messiah was going to fulfill that agenda. He came to Jesus with preconceived notions as to who the Messiah would be, so it was hard for him to see the real message.
Thinking beyond the betrayal itself. How did Judas get to this point? How did his ideology affect his actions? How did his ideology cause him to miss the message? Is there a message here for us today? How does ideology affect how you perceive the world?

Reading the bible as a story

There are hundreds of stories on the Bible, and the entire thing is a story in itself.  Some people have taken the NIV and rearranged it a little bit, to put it in chronological order. It is fitted together as one long novel. Verses and chapters are left out, so there are no distractions.
This book can be read by an individual as a novel. It can also be used as a small group study. There is a study guide and so forth, but the greatest value of this is the story itself.
It has been around awhile, and can be had for very little money. Click on the photo for more information about getting "the story."

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What if Jesus had been married?

A recent discovery is raising questions as to whether Jesus was married. There doesn't seem to be much debate over the issue in Christian circles, and any controversy there is, seems to be mostly with the media.
A couple of years ago historian Karen King of Harvard Divinity School  translated eight lines from an inscription on a piece of stone from the fourth century. The writing is Coptic, and it seems to be a dialogue between Jesus and his disciples. In it, Jesus refers to his wife, who is Mary.

King believes the piece of stone is legitimate in being dated to the fourth century. She has been careful to point out that even if the writing is authentic, it does not mean Jesus was married.
The bible does not say one way or the other. Some later writings have suggested he was married, but those have been widely discredited as historical documents. Some have argued that surely it would have been mentioned in the bible if he had been married, but arguing from silence is not a sound way of investigating history.
Church tradition holds that Jesus was not married, was a virgin, and of course had no children.
Some of this may be due to Greek cultural influence, which was dominant when Jesus lived, and for awhile after. Greek philosophy held that sex was basically evil and that this sort of thing could not be mixed with spiritual things, let alone the son of God.
Another problem arose when early Christians were trying to figure out their theology. The whole question of whether Jesus was totally human, totally God, or some combination, took a couple hundred years to hash out. How Jesus could both is still a controversy today in some circles.
Perhaps it was thought that since Jesus was God, if he had children, his children would have been super-human beings.
That too is conjecture. As the church finally settled on orthodoxy, it decided that Jesus was fully human and fully God at the the same time. As a fully human being he could have been married and had children who would have been fully human as well, and would not be super human at all.
He may not have been married, or he may have been. Traditions develop, but there is no way to know for sure. From a theological perspective, it should not matter.

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