Judas' suicide

My wife was reading the Bible last night.. She was reading the book of Acts. She came across Acts 1:19 about Judas' suicide. She asked me, "I thought Judas Hung him self, What does "falling headlong" mean?"

Act 1:18 Now this man purchased a field with the reward of iniquity; and falling headlong, he burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed out.

Mat 27:5 And he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, and departed, and went and hanged himself.

This was my answer:

You were asking about how Judas Iscariot killed himself in the Bible because of the 2 different descriptions (Matthew 27:5 and Acts 1:18) do they contradict? We read the Bible through our Western glasses and we have to remember that the Bible is wrapped up in a culture. Our Western culture says "hanging = rope around the neck." The Middle Eastern culture is quite different. If someone were to be "hanged" or "hang themself" they would stand on something (i.e. rock, stool, etc.) and leap onto a sharpened steak or spear so the body was quite literally HANGING from the pole. That is why Luke says that Judas' guts were poured out on the field and thats why Matthew says Judas hanged himself. They are saying the same thing. We just don't understand that as readers because we fail to unwrap the culture that the Bible comes in. What we need to steer away from is the "Old West" or "Western" backdrop for Judas' suicide.

I wanted to post this because I thought it was interesting and another good example of the idioms and culture of that time and how America mistranslates the Bible.

JYM

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