50 Fun Facts About Judas Iscariot

For how many pieces of silver did Judas agree to betray Jesus, according to Matthew?

Mark also says he was paid, but only Matthew gives the amount.

How did Judas identify Jesus to the crowd that came to arrest him?

The gospels' Greek verb, kataphileo, implies an emphatic, ostentatious kiss.

In which garden was Jesus arrested after Judas's kiss?

The kiss came after the Last Supper and led directly to the arrest by the Sanhedrin's police.

Which two gospels suggest that Judas was possessed by Satan when he betrayed Jesus?

Mark and Matthew instead frame the betrayal as done in exchange for payment.

According to Matthew, how did Judas die?

He first tried to return the silver to the priests, who refused it as blood money.

How does the Book of Acts say Judas died?

Peter says Judas bought the field himself with the money, and there is no sign of remorse.

What name was given to the plot of land bought with Judas's silver?

Its Aramaic name, Akeldama, is rendered Aceldama in the King James Bible.

What did the priests intend the field bought with the blood money to be used for?

It had been a potter's field, and Matthew presents the purchase as fulfilling prophecy.

Who was chosen to fill Judas's place among the Twelve Apostles?

About 120 disciples nominated two candidates and then cast lots.

Who was the losing candidate when lots were cast to replace Judas?

Peter had proposed the vote to the assembled disciples after praying for God to show his choice.

What is the most widely accepted meaning of the epithet 'Iscariot'?

The fourth gospel supports it by calling Judas the son of Simon Iscariot; rival theories link it to the Sicarii assassins.

The name Judas is a Greek form of which Hebrew name, meaning 'praise'?

It was hugely popular in the first century thanks to the hero Judas Maccabeus.

Which gospel says Judas kept the disciples' money bag and used to steal from it?

The same gospel never mentions the thirty pieces of silver.

In the fourth gospel, what did Judas say had been wasted on Jesus instead of given to the poor?

The evangelist adds that he only said it because he wanted the money for the purse he pilfered.

Which prophet does Matthew name for the thirty pieces of silver, though the passage matches Zechariah?

Jerome and Calvin both concluded it was simply an error.

In Exodus 21:32, thirty pieces of silver was the compensation price for what?

Zechariah calls the same sum a handsome price, which some scholars read as sarcasm.

Which coins are the leading candidates for the silver pieces paid to Judas?

Their 94% silver made them the coin accepted for temple dues.

Which early Church Father recorded that Judas swelled so grotesquely he could not pass down a street?

He wrote around 100 AD that the stench of the death site lingered a century later.

In the apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus, what miracle convinces Judas that Jesus will rise again?

His wife had mocked him that Jesus could no more rise than the bird on her spit.

Which Christian writer cited Matthew and Acts clashing on Judas's death as a reason to reject strict inerrancy?

Augustine's harmonisation was that the rope snapped and the fall burst his body.

The Gospel of Judas, which casts the betrayal as obedience to Jesus, belongs to which tradition?

Irenaeus denounced it as heresy in 180 AD.

In which language is the only surviving copy of the Gospel of Judas written?

It is part of the Codex Tchacos, radiocarbon dated to 220-340 CE.

Which magazine gave the Gospel of Judas dramatic worldwide exposure in April 2006?

April DeConick later argued the translation was badly flawed, notably rendering daimon as spirit.

After whom is the Codex Tchacos, containing the Gospel of Judas, named?

Frieda Nussberger-Tchacos bought it in 2000; by then it had crumbled into over a thousand pieces.

Which heterodox sect, according to Irenaeus, revered Judas as an instrument of Divine Wisdom?

They saw his betrayal as a victory over the material world of the Demiurge.

Which day of the week before Easter is nicknamed 'Spy' day because Judas's betrayal is mourned then?

Eastern Orthodox hymns that day contrast Judas with the woman who anointed Jesus.

In Dante's Inferno, who gnaws on Judas for eternity at the centre of Hell?

Brutus and Cassius, Caesar's assassins, hang from the other two mouths.

What is the name of the innermost zone of Dante's ninth circle, reserved for traitors to their lords?

Its sinners are fully encased in ice and cannot speak.

What is Judas clutching in Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper?

It may signify the silver, and he is the only figure leaning back into shadow.

Whom did Leonardo threaten to use as the model for Judas when the friars said he worked too slowly?

He had been wandering the streets of Milan looking for a criminal's face.

How is Judas often distinguished in Last Supper paintings?

Some artists instead gave him a dark halo, as in a stained-glass window at Yeovil.

What hair colour is Judas traditionally given in Spanish culture and by Shakespeare?

It mirrored the Renaissance habit of depicting Jews with red hair as a negative trait.

Which Baroque painter's 1602 canvas The Taking of Christ is among the most famous depictions of the kiss?

It shows the arrest by torchlight in Caravaggio's signature dramatic shadow.

In the 13th-century English ballad Judas, who is blamed for the betrayal?

It is one of the oldest surviving English ballads.

Which Argentine writer's story Three Versions of Judas appears in Ficciones (1944)?

Its narrator doubts the canonical story and invents alternatives.

Which 1970 Rice and Lloyd Webber rock opera centres much of its plot on a disillusioned Judas?

It began life as a concept album before reaching the stage.

In Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita, who orders Judas assassinated?

Pilate, racked with regret after the crucifixion, turns his anger on the informer.

Who played Judas in Martin Scorsese's 1988 film The Last Temptation of Christ?

Scorsese said his Judas represented violence and the strong arm, but that's not the right way.

Which two men wrote and staged the play Judas on Broadway in 1929?

Rathbone, later Sherlock Holmes on screen, played Torvald in two radio versions of A Doll's House too.

How does Edward Elgar's oratorio The Apostles explain Judas's motive?

Elgar's Judas hopes to trigger the establishment of the kingdom on earth.

Cercis siliquastrum is linked to Judas by a legend that probably arose from a mistranslation of what?

Legend says its white flowers blushed pink with shame when Judas died on its branches.

In stockyards, what job does a so-called 'Judas' animal do?

Its own life is spared; one Iowa stockyard goat was reportedly trained with cigarettes.

Which historian called Judas's betrayal 'about as historically certain as anything else in the tradition'?

He argues Judas revealed not Jesus's location but his secret claim to be the Messiah.

Which Catholic theologian's Mysterium Paschale argues Jesus was not betrayed but handed himself over?

He rests the case on the Greek verb paradidonai, meaning a handing over of self.

Which 1965 book by Hugh J. Schonfield argued Judas acted with Jesus's full knowledge and consent?

Critics called the theory 'factually groundless'; it cast the crucifixion as a staged re-enactment of prophecy.

The betrayer's first name was hugely common among 1st-century Jewish men because of which hero?

That popularity is why so many other figures called Judas appear across the New Testament.

Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg proposed that 'Iscariot' meant what, from a Hebrew phrase?

C. C. Torrey suggested an Aramaic form with the same meaning, though most scholars prefer 'the man from Kerioth'.

Which philosopher's essay The Problem of Natural Evil is listed among reflections on Judas?

It sits alongside Origen's Commentary on John and Borges's 'Three Versions of Judas' in the philosophical literature.

The earliest known mention of the Gospel of Barnabas is a 1634 manuscript by a Morisco found where?

That late medieval gospel claims Judas, not Jesus, was crucified after angels lifted Jesus out through a window.

In Charles Kugler's animated short Judas Iscariot, Judas is depicted as what animal?

The short, announced for a 2026 release, follows the story of Christ from Judas's own perspective up to the crucifixion.