judas escariot, the man who betrays jesus. the question is why? does judas know what he s doing? does judas resent jesus or is he just disillusioned or is he just confused? we don t know what made judas do what he did. i can imagine a lot of different motives. in the gospel of matthew judas betrays jesus for 30 pieces of silver. for me green doesn t work as a motive because judas spent the last one to three years traipsing around galilee presumably for mow money so why is this person all of a sudden greedy?
anyone who would choose to write a gospel of judas was certainly making a conscious decision to pick a figure whom wasn t accepted by the orthodox church. the judas character in the gospel of judas is not a great deal different from judas as we see him on the pages of the new testament. judas has always been a complicated character. ambiguity around judas and the fascination has always been there. there s no way that the gospel writers would have made up a character in jesus inner circle who would have betrayed jesus. he s not just kind of a mythical person. judas, obviously, is someone who is going through a lot of conflict. he s a real person with real emotions. he s a person who had great hopes in jesus.