Judas
Subtitle: the most hated name in history
By: Peter Stanford
Publisher: Counterpoint
Published: 2015
Language: eng
Number of pages: 311
ISBN-13: 9781619027091
Description: In this fascinating historical and cultural biography, Peter Stanford deconstructs that most vilified of Bible characters-- Judas Iscariot, who famously betrayed Jesus with a kiss. Beginning with the Gospel accounts, Stanford explores two thousand years of cultural and theological history to investigate how the very name Judas came to be synonymous with betrayal and, ultimately, human evil. But as the author points out, there has long been a counter-current of thought that suggests that Judas might in fact have been victim of a terrible injustice : central to Jesus' mission was his death and resurrection, and for there to have been a death, there had to be a betrayal. This thankless role fell to Judas; should we in fact be grateful to him for his role in the divine drama of salvation? "You'll have to decide," as Bob Dylan sang in the sixties, "Whether Judas Iscariot had God on his side." An essential but doomed character in the Passion narrative, and thus the entire story of Christianity, Judas and the betrayal he symbolizes continue to play out in much larger cultural histories, speaking as he does to our deepest fears about friendship, betrayal, and the problem of evil.
Notes: Originally published in UK by Hodder & Stoughton with title: Judas :the troubling history of the renegade apostle.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 283-299) and index.
Table of contents: title: The field of blood, Jerusalem; title: Judas : the evidence. What's in a name? ; The twenty-two : Judas in the Gospels ; The Garden of Gethsemane, Jerusalem ; Life after death : how Judas lives on ; A good betrayal? : The Gospel of Judas; title: Judas : Satan's tool. The making of the medieval Judas ; Devilish visions in Volterra ; Bags of money : Judas and the original merchant-bankers ; An East Anglian journey in the company of the arch-traitor; title: Judas : God's agent. How Judas became an Enlightenment hero ; The Judas myth and modern anti-Semitism ; Giving Judas a second glance ; Three contemporary versions of Judas; title: Sir Laurence Whistler's Judas window, Dorset.