Who was Judas Iscariot?
When they lived First century, in Galilee and Judea; he died in Jerusalem in the same week as the crucifixion, between the years 30 and 33.
In short
Judas Iscariot was one of the twelve apostles, the one who kept the common purse, and the one who handed Jesus over to the authorities for thirty silver coins. The Gospels always identify him by that act. About his end, Matthew 27 and Acts 1 carry different accounts, and the New Testament never reconciles them.
- Written by
- Maria Luisa Navarro Schmitt
- Reviewed by
- Raphael Navarro Schmitt
- Published on
- Reading time
- 13 min read
Almost everything said about Judas comes from outside the Gospels: that he had red hair, that he was envious, that he was trying to force Jesus to reveal himself, that he had been condemned from the start, that he could not have acted otherwise. None of that is in the text. What is there is little, and much of it is said in passing, inside narratives that are telling something else.
This page gathers what the four Gospels and the book of Acts say, in the order they say it, and handles carefully the point where the accounts part company. It is a real point: the two descriptions of the death of Judas do not match, and stitching one to the other — which almost every piece of material does — is a reading choice, not a fact of the text. Here the two stand side by side.
The name, and his place among the twelve
Judas was a common name — there was another Judas among the twelve, and John has to distinguish the two. It is the second name that is disputed. "Iscariot" may mean "man of Kerioth", a place in Judea, which would make him the only non-Galilean apostle; some link it to the Latin word for dagger, associating him with an armed group. None of the proposals is certain, and the text does not explain.
He appears in all four lists of the twelve, always at the end and always with a label attached: the one who betrayed him, the one who handed him over. That is not neutral. The Gospels were written decades later, by communities that already knew the ending, and none of them can name Judas without also naming what he did. There is no sentence in the New Testament about Judas before the betrayal.
The fourth Gospel adds two details the others do not carry. Judas looked after the group’s common purse and — in the narrator’s assessment, made in hindsight — helped himself from it. It is the only piece of information about his character the text offers, and it comes from a single author.
2Now the names of the twelve Apostles are these: the First, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother,
3James of Zebedee, and John his brother, Philip and Bartholomew, Thomas and Matthew the tax collector, and James of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus,
4Simon the Canaanite, and Judas Iscariot, who also betrayed him.
The list of the twelve. Note the position and the label: Judas is the last name, and the only one that comes with a clause about what he will do later. Compare with the lists in Mark, Luke and Acts — they all do the same.
4Then one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, who was soon to betray him, said,
5“Why was this ointment not sold for three hundred denarii and given to the needy?”
6Now he said this, not out of concern for the needy, but because he was a thief and, since he held the purse, he used to carry what was put into it.
Judas’s objection about the expensive ointment is reasonable in itself, and the narrator dismantles the motive behind it in a comment of his own. It is the only accusation of character in the entire New Testament, and it comes from one evangelist.
The handing over, the price and the kiss
Matthew says Judas went to the chief priests on his own initiative and asked what they would give him; they settled on thirty silver coins. Luke puts the initiative elsewhere, saying Satan entered him before he went to talk to the authorities. Mark does not mention the sum, and says the offer of money came afterwards. All three agree on the essentials: he offered himself, and what was missing was an occasion without a crowd.
What Judas sold was not secret information about who Jesus was — he preached in public. It was the place and the hour at which an arrest could be made without a riot. That is why the arrest scene happens at night, in a garden, and why the point of the agreed sign is to indicate which of the men there was the wanted one.
At supper, Jesus announces that one of those present will hand him over. In Matthew, Judas asks whether it is him and gets an ambiguous answer. In John, Jesus gives him a piece of dipped bread and tells him to do quickly what he is going to do, and none of the others at the table understands what is happening. And at the arrest comes the gesture that stuck: he comes close to kiss, and Luke records the question Jesus asks about a kiss being used to hand over the Son of man.
14Then one of the twelve, who was called Judas Iscariot, went to the leaders of the priests,
15and he said to them, “What are you willing to give me, if I hand him over to you?” So they appointed thirty pieces of silver for him.
16And from then on, he sought an opportunity to betray him.
The negotiation, in three verses. The text does not say why he went, and that absence is the gap that almost every piece of material about Judas fills on its own account.
26Jesus responded, “It is he to whom I shall extend the dipped bread.” And when he had dipped the bread, he gave it to Judas Iscariot, son of Simon.
27And after the morsel, Satan entered into him. And Jesus said to him, “What you are going to do, do quickly.”
28Now none of those sitting at table knew why he had said this to him.
29For some were thinking that, because Judas held the purse, that Jesus had told him, “Buy those things which are needed by us for the feast day,” or that he might give something to the needy.
30Therefore, having accepted the morsel, he went out immediately. And it was night.
The supper scene in the fourth Gospel. Note the detail that nobody at the table understood what Jesus meant — the other eleven assume he has gone out to buy something.
47While he was still speaking, behold, a crowd arrived. And he who is called Judas, one of the twelve, went ahead of them and approached Jesus, in order to kiss him.
48And Jesus said to him, “Judas, do you betray the Son of man with a kiss?”
The kiss, and the only sentence Jesus addresses to Judas that night according to Luke. It is a question, and the text leaves it unanswered.
What Matthew tells next
Matthew is the only evangelist who continues the story after the arrest. He says that Judas, seeing that Jesus had been condemned, regretted what he had done and brought the thirty coins back to the temple authorities, saying he had sinned by betraying innocent blood. The answer he gets is one of the coldest sentences in the New Testament: they tell him it is not their problem.
It is worth holding on to that detail, because it disappears from almost every popular version of the story. In Matthew’s account, Judas repents and states out loud that the man he handed over is innocent — the most direct declaration of innocence any character makes before the crucifixion comes from him.
The money stays with the priests, who decide not to put it into the temple funds, since it was blood money, and use it to buy a potter’s field as a burial ground for foreigners. That is how Matthew explains the name of the place: field of blood, because of the money it was bought with.
3Then Judas, who betrayed him, seeing that he had been condemned, regretting his conduct, brought back the thirty pieces of silver to the leaders of the priests and the elders,
4saying, “I have sinned in betraying just blood.” But they said to him: “What is that to us? See to it yourself.”
The remorse and the return of the money. The passage is rarely quoted and it changes the portrait a good deal: the man who handed him over is also the one who tells the authorities, to their faces, that the prisoner is innocent.
6But the leaders of the priests, having taken up the pieces of silver, said, “It is not lawful to put them into the temple offerings, because it is the price of blood.”
7Then, having taken counsel, they bought the potter’s field with it, as a burying place for sojourners.
8For this reason, that field is called Haceldama, that is, ‘The Field of Blood,’ even to this very day.
In this version it is the priests who buy the field — and the name of the place comes from where the money came from. Hold on to both points: both come back different in Acts.
Two accounts that do not fit together
The other account is in Acts 1, inside a speech by Peter before a gathering of about a hundred and twenty, ahead of the choice of a replacement. He tells the end of Judas in two sentences, and they do not match Matthew at three checkable points.
First, the field. In Matthew, Judas gives the money back and it is the priests who buy the ground; in Acts 1:18 the one who acquires the field is Judas himself, out of the wages of wrongdoing. Second, the name of the place. In Matthew the field is called field of blood because it was bought with blood money; in Acts, because of what happened to him there, and the news went round Jerusalem. Third, the death itself: Matthew 27:5 says Judas took his own life, and Acts 1:18 describes his end in other terms.
On that third point one more thing has to be said, and it belongs to this site specifically. How far the two accounts differ about the manner of death depends on which edition you read. The Catholic Public Domain Version, which follows the Latin Vulgate, renders the Greek participle in Acts 1:18 as a hanging, which brings it close to Matthew; the King James Version and most translations made from the Greek render it as a headlong fall, which does not. Both editions are published on this site, so the difference is visible by opening the same verse twice.
This page does not reproduce those two verses, as an editorial decision — they describe a death, and nothing that can be said about Judas depends on repeating here how it is narrated. Anyone who wants to check will find both in the corresponding chapters, and that is exactly what we recommend to anyone studying the subject.
The point that matters is that the divergence exists, is visible to the naked eye and is not resolved by the New Testament. The two texts were preserved side by side in the same canon, by communities that had access to both. Picking one and presenting it as "what happened" is the most common procedure in content about Judas, and also the least honest — because it hides from the reader something they would find on their own at the first careful reading.
16“Noble brothers, the Scripture must be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit predicted by the mouth of David about Judas, who was the leader of those who apprehended Jesus.
17He had been numbered among us, and he was chosen by lot for this ministry.
The opening of Peter’s speech. Note the framing: he is not reporting an event, he is arguing that the vacancy has to be filled — and it is inside that argument that the end of Judas is mentioned.
19And this became known to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that this field was called in their language, Akeldama, that is, ‘Field of Blood.’
20For it has been written in the book of Psalms: ‘Let their dwelling place be desolate and may there be no one who dwells within it,’ and ‘Let another take his episcopate.’
The explanation of the field’s name in this version, and the citation from the Psalms that supports the replacement. Compare the reason for the name with the one Matthew 27:8 gives: two different explanations for the same place name.
What the New Testament says — and does not say — about his fate
There are hard sentences about Judas, and they are worth reading as they stand. At supper, Jesus says that it would have been better had that man never been born. In the fourth Gospel he is called a devil in a scene long before the passion and, in the prayer of chapter 17, the son of perdition. And the prayer in Acts 1 says he turned aside from the ministry to go to his own place.
And there is what the text does not do. None of those sentences is a verdict on his eternal fate, and the New Testament nowhere declares Judas condemned in those words. Christian traditions have debated the question for centuries without reaching a consensus; the Catholic Church, which canonises people by name, has never declared by name that anyone is lost, including him. A site that speaks to Catholics and Protestants at the same time has no business deciding that for either.
There is also a question that comes up every time the subject does: if it was written, could Judas have done otherwise? The New Testament states both things in the same breath — that the Son of man goes the way already written about him, and woe to the one through whom he is handed over — and does not explain how they fit. That combination is a first-order theological problem, discussed since the earliest centuries, and no honest page is going to settle it in a paragraph.
24Indeed, the Son of man goes, just as it has been written about him. But woe to that man by whom the Son of man will be betrayed. It would be better for that man if he had not been born.”
25Then Judas, who betrayed him, responded by saying, “Surely, it is not I, Master?” He said to him, “You have said it.”
The two claims appear together: what is written comes to pass, and the one responsible remains responsible. The text does not reconcile them, and the whole discussion about Judas lives on that tension.
25to take a place in this ministry and apostleship, from which Judas prevaricated, so that he might go to his own place.”
26And they cast lots concerning them, and the lot fell upon Matthias. And he was numbered with the eleven Apostles.
The prayer before the drawing of lots, with the phrase usually read as a verdict. Worth noting that it is ambiguous in the original and that the passage is dealing with a vacancy to be filled, not with judgement.
What the text does not say
Biblical figures gather layers of tradition that Scripture does not support. Telling the two apart does not diminish the story — it gives back what is actually written.
What is commonly said
There is one story of how Judas died, told in full by Matthew.
What Scripture says
There are two accounts, in Matthew 27 and Acts 1, and they diverge on who bought the field, on why the field carries that name, and on the description of the death. No New Testament author tries to fit one into the other, and the harmonised versions in circulation are later reconstructions, made by readers rather than by the text.
What is commonly said
Judas betrayed out of greed, and the thirty pieces of silver were a fortune.
What Scripture says
Greed is one evangelist’s explanation — John, who mentions the common purse — and the other three do not offer it: Matthew gives no motive, Luke attributes it to Satan, and Mark simply narrates. As for the amount, thirty silver pieces is the sum Exodus 21:32 fixes as compensation for a slave killed by an ox, and Matthew’s choice of the number works as a scriptural citation, not as a market valuation.
What is commonly said
Judas never repented.
What Scripture says
Matthew 27:3-4 says the opposite in plain words: he saw the condemnation, regretted it, brought the money back and declared before the priests that he had handed over innocent blood. What the text narrates next is their refusal to have anything to do with it.
What is commonly said
Judas wanted to force Jesus to reveal himself as a political Messiah, and the plan went wrong.
What Scripture says
No New Testament text credits him with that plan or any other. It is a modern hypothesis, popularised by novels and films, with the advantage of making the character comprehensible and the defect of having no line of support in Scripture.
What is commonly said
The Bible declares that Judas is damned.
What Scripture says
The New Testament carries severe sentences about him, and none of them is a declaration about his eternal fate. Christian traditions have differed for centuries over how to read them, and the Catholic Church, which declares by name that someone is in heaven, has never declared the reverse by name about anyone.
Where this person appears
71Jesus answered them: “Have I not chosen you twelve? And yet one among you is a devil.”
72Now he was speaking about Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon. For this one, even though he was one of the twelve, was about to betray him.
The first mention of Judas in the fourth Gospel, long before the passion. The narrator identifies who Jesus was talking about, and does it in hindsight — as every mention of Judas in the New Testament does.
14Then one of the twelve, who was called Judas Iscariot, went to the leaders of the priests,
15and he said to them, “What are you willing to give me, if I hand him over to you?” So they appointed thirty pieces of silver for him.
16And from then on, he sought an opportunity to betray him.
The negotiation with the priests, and the amount. Three verses, without a word about motive.
47While he was still speaking, behold, a crowd arrived. And he who is called Judas, one of the twelve, went ahead of them and approached Jesus, in order to kiss him.
48And Jesus said to him, “Judas, do you betray the Son of man with a kiss?”
The kiss in the garden, with the question Jesus asks and the text leaves unanswered.
3Then Judas, who betrayed him, seeing that he had been condemned, regretting his conduct, brought back the thirty pieces of silver to the leaders of the priests and the elders,
4saying, “I have sinned in betraying just blood.” But they said to him: “What is that to us? See to it yourself.”
The remorse, the return of the coins and the declaration of innocence. This is the passage the popular version of the story usually skips entirely.
6But the leaders of the priests, having taken up the pieces of silver, said, “It is not lawful to put them into the temple offerings, because it is the price of blood.”
7Then, having taken counsel, they bought the potter’s field with it, as a burying place for sojourners.
8For this reason, that field is called Haceldama, that is, ‘The Field of Blood,’ even to this very day.
The purchase of the field by the priests and the explanation of the name. First of the two accounts of what became of the money.
16“Noble brothers, the Scripture must be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit predicted by the mouth of David about Judas, who was the leader of those who apprehended Jesus.
17He had been numbered among us, and he was chosen by lot for this ministry.
Peter’s version, inside a speech about replacing the apostle. Second of the two accounts, and the starting point for comparing with Matthew 27.