Judas

by Susan Gubar

" Judas is a dark journey through the murderousness of Christian Anti-Semitism, culminating in the mass slaughter of more than a and their associated European butchers. Lucid, study is close to definitive on the fictive figure of Judas."―Harold Bloom

Genres: Religion, History, Nonfiction, Biography, Historical

453 pages, Hardcover

First published January 31, 2009

About the author

Susan D. Gubar (born November 30, 1944) is an American author and distinguished Professor Emerita of English and Women's Studies at Indiana University. She is best known for co-authoring, with Sandra M. Gilbert, a standard feminist text, The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination (1979) and a trilogy on women's writing in the 20th century.

Reviews

[Peter]

Ik vond het een leuk idee om de vorm van biografie te kiezen. Ik heb de eerste twee hoofdstukken gelezen, voornamelijk over de vier evangeliën en nu ben ik tevreden.
Opmerkelijk:
Hoe later een evangelie, hoe meer verwijzingen naar Judas en hoe misdadiger zijn rol.
Hoe later een evangelie, hoe duidelijker het antisemitisme.
De conclusie van de auteur: Hoe later, hoe meer de scheiding tussen joden en christenen opspeelde. Judas symboliseert volgens de auteur de permeabiliteit tussen beide geloven. Hij gaat heen en weer tussen het laatste avondmaal (soms neemt hij deel, soms niet (Johannes)) en de tempel en hogepriesters.

Mij viel op dat de NL bijbelvertaling 1951 niet helemaal consequent is: Bijna overal Marcus wordt gezegd: overgeleverd (en niet zoals in de Engelse vertaling verraden), alleen op één plaats: "die hem verried". Er zijn enkele kleine verschillen tussen de NL vertaling en de Engelse die de interpretatie van Gubar in het NL niet versterken.

[Tiffany · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well it wasn't what I thought it was when I picked it up.

But as someone who loves Art History I learned quite a lot about the paintings and windows that deal with Judas. There is no answer for the complexities of the Bible when dealing with Judas. At least not in this life.

I was also intrigued just how much Anti-Semantic was picked up and used because of the Judas. I was extremely surprised by some of the theories that he was a hero, and Jesus was the weak one. I don't agree with that myself, but it was something I had never thought of.

Probably not the best book to read if you aren't in the right state of mind. There's a chapter dealing with suicide and if it's OK or not according to the Gospel. I think the author's quote of, "The Dark Night (Composed in 1584-85), "that they truly bear within themselves every reason for being rejected and abhorred by God." is what describes Judas best. Something we can all at one point relate to at some point in our lives. If you're in a dark place... this chapter will take you down deeper into despair.

Judas stands for the reasoning best described in "Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you." (Luke 6:27-28).

[Al Bità · Rating 4 out of 5]

Can one write a ‘biography’ of a fictional character originating from a supposedly single incident as depicted in four or five contradictory fictional narratives? I would think not; except, perhaps in fictional theories of what might have been the motivational factors in the incident recorded. The fictional character is Judas, the apostle who ‘betrayed’ Jesus with a kiss in the Garden of Gethsemane. Gubar takes this incident and examines the many interpretations found throughout art. literature, theology, paintings, drawings, films etc associated with this event. So this book is more a disquisition on the uses this incident has been put to use throughout history, up to the present day. In this sense, this is a kind of ‘cultural biography’ of how an idea was used and played around with by thinkers, artists and creative people over the last 2000 years or so. Some biblical commentators believe Judas did not exist, but was made up. As an atheist, I believe even the original sources are fictions made up by various people, each with different agendas to push.

In the earliest narrative, Mark, after the betrayal (motivated by the waste of money in buying expensive perfumes for Jesus which could have been used instead for the poor), Judas simply disappears from the narrative; in Matthew (same motivation re the perfume, but here Judas seeks out the high priests and asks what they will give him (Judas) if he hands over Jesus to them (30 pieces of silver)), Judas repents his act, throws the money back at the high priests, and commits suicide by hanging himself from a tree; in both Luke and John the devil enters Judas for the betrayal, and afterwards he again simply disappears from the narrative; in Acts (aka Luke 2) Judas’ death is referred to in an aside as being the result of falling headlong, his body bursting, and his innards spilling out (so not necessarily a suicide). In Mark and Matthew, the betrayal is with a kiss; in Luke, Judas approaches Jesus to kiss him but apparently this does not occur; in John, there is no mention of a kiss at all. These are the meagre elements one has to work with; but what a wonderfully rich, complex set of ideas have arisen from the imaginations of creative thinkers!

The major use of Judas from the early days of the second century CE was to use him as an example of the ‘perfidious Jew’, a symbol for all Jews who denied Christianity and who were responsible for killing God: a focus, therefore, of an extended, vicious and persistent anti-semitism which is still with us today. [I have always felt that the origins of antisemitism comes from the Old Testament itself in the way the Jewish people are consistently portrayed there by the priests as being stubborn, devious, untrustworthy, always sinning against Yahweh, and provoking Him to rain disasters aplenty on them.] Others, such as in the recently discovered Gnostic Gospel of Judas, present Judas as being someone worthy of respect. If it hadn’t been for Judas, there would have been no passion, and no redemption! Judas has no choice: he is doing the will of Yahweh. Still others see Judas and Jesus as mirror images of each other; there are suggestions that Judas wand Jesus were twins; Islam considers that since God would not permit one of his prophets (Jesus) to suffer such an ignominious death as crucifixion, and that in fact, since Judas and Jesus were identical twins, Judas was mistaken for Jesus, as Judas was the one who was actually crucified, while Jesus made his escape. There are many other interlocked ‘biographies’ examined.

By the time we get to the Enlightenment, and to the modern interpretations of artists, playwrights and novelists, we have Judas as heroic; Judas as mistaking Jesus’ claims for Messiahship, so that the ‘betrayal’ was supposed to be in fact the starting point for the revolution expected by the Messiah, and that, with Jesus’ rejection and submission to the Temple soldiers, it was he who actually betrayed Judas’ love and trust. My favourite interpretation was that Jesus and Judas were lovers (he is the only one Jesus calls ‘friend’ and the only apostle who actually is allowed to kiss him (in Mark and Matthew). It is also this ‘aspect’ which still allows representations of two men kissing to be actually permitted and displayed in Christian churches!

I am only touching on some of the issues covered by Gubar. All of them might prove ‘shocking’ or even blasphemous (and some interpretations certainly raise questions of free will, the uselessness of the story being in any way useful on moral and ethical issues, etc. etc.) But these are shocking only insofar as one considers these interpretations within the conflicting and contradictory elements of what are considered sacred writings by the credulous. Gubar is aware of these sensitivities, and prefaces both the book and each of its seven chapters with extensive ‘spoilers’ in rather literary analyses, so as (in my opinion) to numb some of the more sensitive souls to the actual contents. To this end I would argue that the book is overwritten — one does get the feeling that we are reading the same things over and over again…

Guber’s ‘resolution’ of the Judas/Jesus duality by saving metaphysical interpretations for the last (so that the two can no longer be separated from each other, but combined represent the ‘paradox’ that is humanity) and suggesting that, in the end, there can only be the paradox, is vague comfort for believers in sacred scriptures.

[S D · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fascinating book that explores Judas as depicted in artwork and popular media throughout history, and how he's been tied with the Jewish people in Christendom, but ends up feeling simultaneously too long and too short. Things are repeated constantly and it feels like I'm depths here and there in short spurts. It does too much and not enough, but I'm still walking away feeling I've learned something.

[Robert Collette · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm not sorry I read it, but for my next read I'll be sure to choose something a little easier on the head...

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gubar has written a comprehensive cultural biography of Judas, a history of the changing perception of him through the centuries, the different symbolic roles his image has played. He is, of course, "the disciple who handed over Jesus". These six words are probably all that can be said with certainty about the historical Judas. Everything else about him is questionable, is dependent upon the meager accounts of his character and deeds given in the gospels - and unfortunately each evangelist presents a different Judas. And their accounts are incapable of being reconciled together, made into a coherent narrative. For example, in one Judas returns the "blood money" and hangs himself; in another, he spends this money buying a field, but falls and bursts, disemboweling himself. Course, Gubar recognizes that the evangelists were not historians. She is fully conversant with the latest Biblical scholarship. Does not intend to write a life of the "historical Judas". Rather, she is concerned with the iconic Judas, with the meaning and utility of that symbol and how it developed and changed over the last two thousand years - is interested with the uses to which it was put. This is a daunting task, however Gubar has an encyclopedic knowledge of this field, has done what must have been an enormous amount of research, of scholarship. Seems to have at her fingertips every thought, every literary reference, every aesthetic image of Judas ever made. And they are of a bewildering variety. The very paucity and contradictory nature of the Biblical accounts are responsible for this. Imagination and fantasy have tried to fill in the factual gaps, to reconcile the discrepancies, and, by so doing, to make a Judas to fit the current need. This continuing "imaginative construction" has over the years led to a plethora of wide-ranging interpretations of Judas. Gubar organizes these, simplifies them, into five distinct types, identifies five general ways of viewing him: as the demonic betrayer symbolizing the perfidy of the Jews; as the "lover" who completes, complements, Jesus; as the heroic rebel who tries to force the kingdom; as the man caught between the demands of two religions, the hyphen in "Judeo-Christian"; or as the savior who sacrifices himself to bring about the crucifixion and thereby the salvation of mankind. Her Judas "biography" is the historical development of these individual types, the competition between them - one coming into prominence at a particular time in history, doing so at the expense of the others, doing so to meet the needs of a new era, to satisfy the changed circumstances, to be understandable in an altered intellectual culture. The Judas of the anti-Semitic Middle Ages is very different from the image of Judas in the modern post-Holocaust, secular society. Thjis book is the story of the rise and fall of the various Judas types. Gubar's account is scholarly, lucid, and well written. She is a brilliant stylist - a genius at seeing symbolic connections, at discovering layers and layers of meaning in a single iconic image. In seeing Judas through her eyes, he becomes a kaleidoscopic image - continuously changing, fascinating in all his infinite permutations. The reader is overwhelmed by him - by Judas in all his varieties. Learns more about him than he ever thought possible, more than he had a desire to learn, is surfeited. Begins to wonder if he too might be a Judas.

[Caroline · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have always found Judas the most fascinating character from the Bible stories - for his motivations, his isolation, the contradictions in his story, the gaps, his anomalous position as, as Susan Gubar puts it, the hyphen in Judeo-Christian. Jesus is too remote a figure, and the other apostles fairly anonymous figures, but Judas is messy, Judas is interesting, his character constantly changing through the years.

The author demonstrates how Judas has served as a cipher and a scapegoat since the day of the Crucifixion, charting the rise of fall of Judas' reputation through the centuries, from pariah to lover, hero, saviour, skeptic. Judas has worn many faces over the years, and been used to symbolise many things - a symbol of human weakness, of corruptibility, of greed and avarice. He has served as a stand-in for the entire Jewish race - it is no coincidence after all that only Judas of all the apostles (and Jesus) has ever been seen as Jewish. And yet, as Susan Gubar repeatedly demonstrates in this book, Judas and Jesus are inextricably linked, not just as betrayer and betrayed, but as two sides of the same coin. It is impossible to change our perception of Judas without subsequently revising our position on Jesus.

Is Judas acting of his own free will, or a helpless agent of God's divine plan? Is he innately wicked, or does he truly repent? Does he betray Jesus, or are his actions previously agreed upon, a sanctioned and allotted task? Is he the ultimate outsider or the only one privy to God/Jesus' true plan? Does he act out of misguided love, anger, malice, or are his actions politically motivated? Does he love and honour his saviour or is he disappointed in Jesus? Is he in Hell, or was he forgiven? The potential answer to any one of those questions also raises further troubling questions about the nature of Jesus' ministry and his promise of salvation.

Perhaps the central issue of this book is, as Gubar queries at one point, "what does it say about Jesus that Judas, who made possible Jesus' sacrifice, suffers nothing but harm from it." If Judas' sacrifice was spiritual, and Jesus' only physical, whose then was greater?

[Brian Bojo]

A survey of literary and artistic representations of Judas Iscariot in noncanonical gospels, works of the early church, the dark & middle ages, reformation, enlightenment, through today. The author admits that she is neither a theologian nor a historian, but rather a literary critic. The two most common themes regarding Judas include de-villification and doubling. De-villification in the sense that without his actions, there would not have been redemption, so maybe he should not be villified. Doubling in the sense that his destiny and that of Jesus are inescapably connected. In a lesser sense (and probably unintentionally), there is a hint of doubling between Judas and Peter, in that Peter also betrayed Jesus - three/four times - yet repented and was restored to fellowship with Jesus after his resurrection, as opposed to Judas who was not penitent.

[Allison · Rating 5 out of 5]

A super interesting book, sort of wish her literary theory wasn't trapped in the mid-90s. Could have done without some of that age-old academic overreach where you could just tell that she wanted to talk about something pretty irrelevant and made up a reason as to why no really it need to be there. Also can we all just agree as a culture to stop pretending Freud is relevant?

It's a unique text though and really serves as a great jumping off point for hunting down every single text about Judas that exists, which: come let me explain to you my passions.

[Sheila · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a very insightful book, it really makes you think about judas and his role in being a catalyst for launching the ground work for Christianity, but the author has a propensity for using bery large and pretentious words unnecessarily, which really bogs down the reader. I mean, she uses words that even the most intellectual person would pause and think "really?" But nonetheless, it's an interesting read if you're into the history and psychology of religion.

[Ash · Rating 4 out of 5]

I watched Jesus Christ Superstar last night, and was reminded that JCS was like, 80% of the reason I decided to read this book. I think Judas gets a bad rap. Someone had to betray Jesus, right, and now what? Everyone's all talking shit about him and he's probably burning in hell for all eternity or something. Bogus.

[Cindy Kirkland · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not what I thought it would be when I picked it up, I thought it would be a biography about Judas. NOT..... it was more of a text book with many references Iif you wanted to look further). I did enjoy the descriptions and explainations about the paintings. I would like to go see them all !!!

[Charles Cavazos · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting look at the cultural afterlife of Judas and his role in anti-semitism. His is a history that is at turns surprising and even startling. His paring with Jesus, to the exclusion of the other disciples, is extensively covered.

[Einschrein · Rating 5 out of 5]

A thoughtful 2000-year survey of the manner in which "Judas Iscariot" has been used, and often abused, by the masses to serve their own ends.

[Aimee Warrington · Rating 2 out of 5]

gets really really boring

[Jae Roth · Rating 2 out of 5]

eh. Written in a convoluted style with analysis way too heavily steeped in Freudian theory. The work is bland, repetitive and at times so convoluted as to be incomprehensible.