Iscariot: A Novel of Judas (38 page)
Last glance. Last kiss.
Too many lasts.
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The crack team of executioners, those experts in crucifixion, have lined up outside the fortress. Pilate will have his demonstration to quell any further thoughts of uprising.
A part of me says, Go. Touch him. Be healed.
I could loiter on the street--hope to catch a word, a glimpse of him. A moment.
It wouldn't be enough.
Does he know that I loved him, that I love him still?
He washed my feet . . .
And I have killed him.
What I wouldn't give to be a tax collector.
A Samaritan.
Even a Roman dog.
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Near the Hinnom Valley the camps get thinner and thinner, and then there are no tents at all. The trash burns there at all hours, a constant smolder, an eternal fire.
There are trees there, mostly olive, and they are sturdy.
The rope is strong, and I have tied the noose well. I have cinched it with every year of my life.
I gasp but there is no air except that sweeping past me, like water. And I am back at the Jordan, and there is John, pointing from the muddy water.
Behold, the lamb of God.
Hosanna. Pray save.
They will say that I betrayed him, that I reduced his price to thirty silver shekels. They will say that I am greedy. That I turned against my master.
They do not know that I die for heartbreak. For regret . . .
For love.
But if they did not know me, neither did they know him. How he shocked us with his compassion. With his unwillingness to restore a nation, preferring to restore individuals instead.
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They called him a madman. They called him a liar. But now I know him as the face of God. Who does not save us from the Romans . . .
But saves us from ourselves.
The thought is a jolt and I jerk with it. The rope winds tighter. I would gasp if I could, with amazement. Because ah! I see.
I am the leper. The demoniac. I, who was paralyzed by fear, who was blind.
The prostitute, the dead man in the tomb.
Me. All me.
I, who denied him and delivered him to his enemies. I, who die with him. My
name will be synonymous with "traitor." But he has loved his enemies.
He has loved me.
The sun is setting. It has painted the far rise of the valley gold with the coming in of Sabbath. No one will know to take down my body. My bowels have released, unruly to the end.
Overhead, the clouds have thinned, darkening with dusk. The stars will come, bringing in the Feast. The stars my master loved to gaze at with the eye of God himself.
It is warm for this time of year.
It will be a beautiful Passover.
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AUTHOR'S NOTE
I ran away from this story for about a year before even casually mentioning the possibility of it to author friends and my agent. Unlike the case with Havah: The Story of Eve, this time I knew what I was getting myself in to.
And so I told them with the full expectation and slight hope they would talk me out of it. They didn't. A year later, I finally admitted it had sprouted in my writer's brain and rooted in my heart. It scared me. It fascinated me.
Over the next three years, Iscariot became an intellectual and spiritual quest to discover the life of Judas based on the belief that we all err in ways that make sense to us. We do not set out to commit the heinous. As I wrote in my author's note for Havah: The Story of Eve, there is more--there must be more--to the story than the two-dimensional account. There always is.
After returning from a research trip to Israel, I sat down to a library of more than 100 books, documentaries, lectures, commentaries, sermons, and collected articles. Invaluable to me: The New Complete Works of Josephus, William Whiston, trans. (Kregel, 1999); The History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ, Vols. I
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and II, Emil Schürer (T. & T. Clark, 1979); Bandits, Prophets and Messiahs, Richard A. Horsley (Trinity Press International, 1999); and Judas: Betrayer or Friend of Jesus?, William Klassen (Fortress Press, 2005). 1 And of course, the companionship of a team of scholars--Dr. Joe Cathey and Randy Ingermanson in particular--who walked this journey with me.
I was fascinated by the context of Jesus--the Roman occupation and oppression, the deep groan for national freedom. For salvation. I was intrigued with the increasing vilification of Judas through the progression of the gospels. I was caught up in the richness of Jesus' parables, the historical events in the scriptural account--in my own need to be accurate, whatever that is, as I chased vision through the lens of history and myriad layers of doctrine.
And of course, I was captured by the person--by the riddle--of Judas himself, the only disciple Jesus called "friend."
What did his name mean? Could it be attributed to the Hebrew word for
"false one" or is it an allusion to the Sicarii "dagger-men"--an extremist zealot group active in the years leading up to the Great Revolt 66-70AD? Or is it, as I have postulated, a combination of ish-Kerioth, the "man from Kerioth"? We know little about his youth or
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his family--only that his father's name was Simon. Was he a zealous patriot?
A disciple disappointed with the mission of his master? Or a man as confused and prone to failure as the other disciples around him? Was he possibly, as some suggest, a priest with access to the inner court of the Temple--or even a Pharisee?
The gospel of John records that Satan entered Judas. Did the devil possess him literally, or did he become the embodiment of Satan--the "accuser"--as he made his appearance before the Sanhedrin? How was this different from Peter, whom Jesus called Satan in Caesarea Philippi?
What is the significance of the Greek word paradidmi, most often translated as "betray" but more aptly translated "deliver"? When Jesus predicted at the last supper that one of them would betray him, why would Judas, who was knowingly delivering his master to death, openly ask, "Is it me Lord?" and be broken to the point of suicide over it?
What is the significance of the thirty pieces of silver--possibly thirty Tyrian shekels? Is the passage in Zechariah 11 a sarcastic, even ominous, warning of such a betrayal to come?
And was Judas the chief betrayer . . . or merely one among many: priests, Romans, and the mob who handed him over? Is it possible that, as Susan Gubar (Jesus: A Biography) suggests, given the benefit of his action we are all accomplices?
The account of his death, in itself, is a riddle. Did he hang himself, as traditionally depicted, by a rope? Or in the way that one "hangs" on a cross or by impalement as throughout biblical times? And what of the account in Acts, in which he fell, breaking open his body so that his intestines spilled out? Are these conflicting or complementary accounts?
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Was Judas damned for the act that defined his life? Having no hope for pardon, did he receive none? Can the instrument of divine will be excluded from the outcome he helped enact . . . if so, who has paid the greater price?
Or is it possible that grace knows no such limits?
As I wrestled with these questions (anyone who knows me even a little knows I ask too many questions) and the ideas of religious agenda, legalism, personal stymie, and spiritual failure, I could not help but see myself in Judas--at times, too well.
One of the things I looked forward to the most in the writing of this book was the opportunity to slip into the skin of one of those closest to Jesus. To sit, even virtually, at his side. Ultimately, this novel became as much about the person of Jesus as Judas.
I was shocked by and enamored of this Jesus, who concerned himself less with the purity laws of polite society and more with its outcasts. This radical messenger seditiously dared to proclaim another kingdom other than Rome, another "son of God" than its emperor--an action historically treated with swift and decisive action. A man who stood up for the oppressed without condemning the oppressor, more concerned with the restoration of individuals than the salvation of a nation. A man who, through the lens of history, was nothing short of dangerous.
I saw with new eyes this paradox of a man given to emotion. An unpredictable, even scandalous man, nothing like the Jesus of paintings I grew up with. A man who would not be controlled. A man as wild as God.
After a year and a half of research, I collected my notes and began to write.
To attempt to capture the tension surrounding Jesus, the historical stage he walked onto the day he began his ministry, the
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political and theological nuances of his actions, the symbolism of the context lost to us today.
My first draft of this story was nearly three times the length of the book in your hands. But somewhere in those pages filled with intricate detail to delight the history- and theology-minded alike, I lost sight of the most important thing: the heart of Judas' and Jesus' story.
I thought back to my time in Israel. I had stood on the shores of Galilee's lake, sat in Capernaum's synagogue, had seen the theater of history. I had learned so much. But as I entered Jerusalem, I was bereft. Ascending toward the Dome of the Rock that day, steeples and mosques and temples crowding the horizon like so many hands reaching for God, I realized I had not experienced one moment of mystery. I fought back tears on my way toward the mosque, distracted myself by stopping to give an old beggar woman a few shekels. The moment I did, she grabbed my hand in both of hers, and I nearly fell to my knees. Here was God. And I knew without a doubt I had traveled all the way to Israel just to hold her hand.
In the end, I threw out three theses' worth of historical detail and returned to mystery. One of these days I may make some of those portions available, but for now here is the heart . . . a story of divine and human love--a story of you and me.
Selah,
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Tosca
1 Other invaluable volumes include: Rabbi Jesus, Bruce Chilton (Image Books, 2000); Jerusalem in the Time of Jesus, Joachim Jeremias (Fortress Press, 1969); Who Was Jesus?, N. T. Wright (William B. Eerdmans, 1992); Judas: A Biography, Susan Gubar (W. W. Norton & Co., 2009); Where Christianity Was Born, Hershel Shanks, ed. (Biblical Archeology Society, 2006); What Jesus Meant, Garry Wills (Penguin, 2007); The Jewish Study Bible (Oxford University Press, 1999). Also: Amy-Jill Levin's lecture series
on Great Figures of the New Testament, Bart Ehrman on the New Testament, Isaiah M. Gafni on the Beginnings of Judaism, and Shai Cherry's Introduction to Judaism (The Teaching Company, 2002, 2000, 2008, and 2004).
A more complete list of my research library can be found on my website at
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
My first, biggest thanks goes to my readers who waited so patiently (well, kind of--okay, not at all) for this book. Thank you for your encouragement and love, for keeping me company through the often soul-wrenching hours of this work.
Thank you: Jeff Gerke, who first slid the idea for the Son of Perdition under my skin like a thorn. Robert Liparulo, who told me to write the story. My management team of Steve Laube and Dan Raines, who keep me focused, mostly sane, and off Ramen Noodles. Meredith Efken, and Stephen Parolini, who bravely waded through the behemoth first versions. My co-author in the Books of Mortals, Ted Dekker, you have taught me so much. Kevin Kaiser, Meredith Smith, Denise George and the team at Creative Trust, you are invaluable.