Inspite of there being two Judas' in Jesus' group, the name "Judas" has been widely used to designate "traitor". Judas is the person who would sell or give up a person, an ideal, a country, anything or anyone that should be held precious and be protected, for money or any other sort of social advantage. I guess we all know - or at least all Christians and those who grew up around Christians - the story about Judas' betrayal, how he helped identify Jesus among the crowd by kissing HIm, for which he got paid 30 pieces of silver. Now, I admit that I don't know much about the Bible, nor I really sit down and read it or study it, but there are things that pique my curiosity from time to time, and this morning this was one of them: why did Judas need to identify Jesus?
According to what I know - and I can be mistaken - the point about the kiss was to identify Him. Prior to that point, Jesus had spent three years doing miracles, like walking on water, turning water into wine, feeding the people, raising the dead, healing and then held these massive speeches, which by today's standards could be compared to conferences. Add to it He met with pharisees, made a scene at a synagoge - the bashing of the merchants - people went to look for Him in different matters, He toured around... sure, they didn't have facebook, twitter or youtube in that time, but I would say that He pretty much stoof out, and if the ill could identify Him enough to know who's robe do they need to touch to get healed, how come an organized group planning to take him down had to pay out someone from the inside to identify Him? Not to mention He just had a feast with his closer followers. So really, why the identifying?
For those who dare to ask, there's no question that the Bible is full with contradictions and holes. One part say A and the other says B over the same matter. Then it's also "open for interpretation", but only by a handful of people authorized to do such interpretation. Then again religion is often used by Churches and Governments to manage the people, so yes, interpretation and truth should always be dozed properly to avoid people so start thinking about themselves, and Hyne forbid! question authority. Well, grabing hold of this seeming flaw in the narrative, one can start questioning the whole narrative, the whole book and the message. The ancient gods, for instance, were immortal, powerful, but not exent of flaws. Not that they made mistakes, but they did had their quirks and short comings, temper issues and similar. The image the Bible gives - or tries to give - of God is that of a perfect god.
For the believer the perfect god is a source of comfort, for no matter how things go, God knows best because He's perfect. But then, is God really perfect?
I'm not implying that God might be imperfect, but certainly the image of the perfect god the Bible and churches paint is cracking. So maybe God isn't perfect but He's above such adjectives. He's natural, fluent, consequent... like Mother Nature.
Christianity has built up a religion and an image of God that's not natural and not human- not nature-friendly. God makes you one way only to demand you to become - by your own effort - into something else. Like nature creating a elm and demanding it produce pears. Church has been about the deforming of the human and everything around it: deny your God given nature and become something pleasing to Church and Society, which are presented as God; hack the God created forest to build a church to please God. Strive to be perfect, even though the only one perfect is God, but you have to seek (and fail) to be just like Him.
If God made us to His image, doesn't that mean that there's a meeting point among us, and thus, the adjectives of perfection and imprefection don't apply to any of us?
Hn, questions plague my head.
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