Question:  Dear Greg,

            I am having a major dilemma.  I found a web site about atheism and found something that made me stumble.

            This is what it said:

            In Matthew 27:5, Judas threw down the pieces of silver in the temple, he departed and he went and hanged himself.

            But in the Acts of the Apostles 1:18, Judas kept the silver the purchased a field with it; he went into it and falling headlong, he burst open and all his bowels gushed out.

            That is a contradiction.  He cannot have both left the money in the temple and purchased a field with it.  He cannot have both hanged himself and threw himself face down into a field and exploded.  One account MUST be false.  Which one should you believe?  Why should you be placed in this position of having to choose between scriptures as to which one is true and which one is false?

            What do these scriptures really mean?  Was it a different Judas or what happened?  Please help.

            Michelle

Answer:  Dear Michelle,

            You seem to have fallen for a clever attempt to make the Bible seem to contradict itself.  Note your statement, “He (Judas) cannot have both left the money in the temple and purchased a field with it.  He cannot have both hanged himself and threw himself face down into a field and exploded.  One account MUST be false.”  Incorrect assumption.  The logic is faulty.

            Matthew says that Judas hanged himself (Matthew 27:5) and Acts says that he fell and his body burst open (Acts 1:18).  You assume that this is a contradiction, as the truth must be either/or.  But the truth could be both/and.  Which it is.  These passages are complementary.  Judas hung himself, his body then fell, burst upon impact, and his intestines gushed out.  This is exactly what a criminal investigator would expect from someone who hanged himself on a tree over a cliff, with sharp, jagged rocks below.

            You cite Matthew 27:5, that Judas threw the pieces of silver (the blood money for betraying Jesus Christ) in the temple, and then say that he could not have purchased a field with it (Acts 1:18 says that Judas bought a field with the money).  But if you simply continue reading in Matthew 27 you will find (verse 7) that the priests used Judas’ money to buy the potter’s field.  Judas’ blood money was used to buy the field (the “Field of Blood”).  Thus it was Judas’ field, not the priest’s.  The money did not belong to the priests by law, they had not “earned” it—Judas had.

            God doesn’t place us in the position of choosing one biblical account over another—we humans do that.  Humans often do that in a vain attempt to distance themselves from the authority of God.  If we can prove that the Bible is flawed, then God, the divine author is flawed, and we have our justification to not follow him.

            In Christ,

            Greg Albrecht