Machingura, The Judas Iscariot episode in the Zimbabwean Religio-Political debate...about the historicity of Judas leading to the claims that, its absence in
the earliest manuscripts as confirmation of its fabrication or invention
that creates historical and theological problems, though not part of the
attention of this article. It is clear that, the problem in understanding the
Judas story is not only caused by the evangelists’ biases but the intense
aversion to Judas that accumulated over the years in making him the
scapegoat.^9 Mark accuses Judas of being motivated by greed (14:10-11).
Matthew (26:14-16) agrees with Mark but Luke (22:3) claims that Judas
was led astray by Satan. John (3:18, 8:44) on the other hand attributes the
selling-out motivation to both Satan and a penchant for theft, when he is
alleged to have stolen from the common funds.
The betrayal of Judas is linked to his gluttonous behaviour and this ac-
cusation finds platform in Zimbabwean politics where individuals with
views that are contrary to the status quo, majority or those in power are
deemed ‘sell-outs’. The evangelists Luke and John are very similar in
how they portray Judas as somebody who became an agent or instru-
ment of Satan. The role of working as an agent of outside spiritual force
is contextually interpreted by ZANU-PF as shown above to imply impe-
rialist forces that take control of opposition parties so as to destabilize
Zimbabwe. K Paffenroth adds that, in the gospel of John we have the
most villainous, demonic depiction of Judas in the New Testament.^10
Why would Mark attribute the motive of greed to Judas when he isn’t
approached by the priests offering money? It’s possible that, Judas as-
sumed that betraying Jesus would be worth a lot of money. Some have
speculated that Judas was actually betraying Jesus out of disappointed
expectations that Jesus would lead an anti-Roman rebellion. Others have
argued that Judas could have thought he was giving Jesus the “push”
necessary to launch a rebellion against the Romans and their Jewish
followers.^11 The complications become much deeper if one considers
that Judas Iscariot’s actions and death are interpreted as fulfillment of
prophetic scriptures though it might have been prophecy after the event.
Judas is presented in the gospels as having had the only mission of
handing over Jesus to the authorities, an epitome of failure. It however,
boggles the mind to regard Judas Iscariot as having been a failure when
he managed to accomplish his mission. It is important to note that, had
(^9) Klassen, Judas, 17.
(^10) Paffenroth, Judas, 37.
(^11) Klassen, Judas, 17.