stylistic:style_transfer, linguistic:translation
Death

Many different accounts of Judas's death have survived from antiquity, both within and outside the New Testament. Matthew 27:1–10 states that after learning that Jesus was to be crucified, Judas was overcome by remorse and attempted to return the 30 pieces of silver to the priests, but they would not accept them because they were blood money, so he threw them on the ground and left. Afterwards, he committed suicide by hanging himself according to Mosaic law (Deuteronomy 21:22–23). The priests then used the money to buy a potter's field, which became known as Akeldama (חקל דמא – khakel dama) – the Field of Blood – because it had been bought with blood money. Acts 1:18 states that Judas used the money to buy a field, and " headlong... burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed out." In this account, Judas's death is apparently by accident, and he shows no signs of remorse.

The early Church Father Papias of Hierapolis records in his Expositions of the Sayings of the Lord (which was probably written around 100 AD) that Judas was afflicted by God's wrath; his body became so enormously bloated that he could not pass through a street with buildings on either side. His face became so swollen that a doctor could not even identify the location of his eyes using an optical instrument. Judas's genitals became enormously swollen and oozed with pus and worms. Finally, he killed himself on his own land by pouring out his innards onto the ground, which stank so horribly that, even in Papias's own time a century later, people still could not pass the site without holding their noses. This story was well known among Christians in antiquity and was often told in competition with the two conflicting stories from the New Testament.

According to the apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus, which was probably written in the fourth century AD, Judas was overcome with remorse and went home to tell his wife, who was roasting a chicken on a spit over a charcoal fire, that he was going to kill himself, because he knew Jesus would rise from the dead and, when he did, he would punish him. Judas's wife laughed and told him that Jesus could no more rise from the dead than he could resurrect the chicken she was cooking. Immediately, the chicken was restored to life and began to crow. Judas then ran away and hanged himself. In the apocryphal Gospel of Judas, Judas has a vision of the disciples stoning and persecuting him.

The discrepancy between the two different accounts of Judas's death in Matthew 27:1–10 and Acts 1:18 has proven to be a serious challenge to those who support the idea of Biblical inerrancy. This problem was one of the points leading C. S. Lewis, for example, to reject the view "that every statement in Scripture must be historical truth". Nonetheless, various attempts at harmonization have been suggested. Generally they have followed literal interpretations such as that of Augustine of Hippo, which suggest that these simply describe different aspects of the same event—that Judas hanged himself in the field, and the rope eventually snapped and the fall burst his body open, or that the accounts of Acts and Matthew refer to two different transactions. Some have taken the descriptions as figurative: that the "falling prostrate" was Judas in anguish, and the "bursting out of the bowels" is pouring out emotion.

Modern scholars reject these approaches. Arie W. Zwiep states "neither story was meant to be read in light of the other" and "the integrity of both stories as complete narratives in themselves is seriously disrespected when the two separate stories are being conflated into a third, harmonized version." David A. Reed argues that the Matthew account is a midrashic exposition that allows the author to present the event as a fulfillment of prophetic passages from the Old Testament. They argue that the author adds imaginative details such as the thirty pieces of silver, and the fact that Judas hangs himself, to an earlier tradition about Judas's death.

Matthew's description of the death as fulfilment of a prophecy "spoken through Jeremiah the prophet" has caused difficulties, since it does not clearly correspond to any known version of the Book of Jeremiah but does appear to refer to a story from the Book of Zechariah which describes the return of a payment of thirty pieces of silver. Even writers such as Jerome and John Calvin conclude that this was obviously an error. Evangelical theologian James R. White has suggested the misattribution arises from a supposed Jewish practice of using the name of a major prophet to refer to the whole content of the scroll group, including books written by minor prophets placed in the same grouping.

Some scholars have suggested that the writer may also have had a passage from Jeremiah in mind, such as chapters 18:1–4 and 19:1–13 which refer to a potter's jar and a burial place, and chapter 32:6–15 which refers to a burial place and an earthenware jar. Raymond Brown suggests "the most plausible is that Matthew 27:9–10 is presenting a mixed citation with words taken both from Zechariah and Jeremiah, and... he refers to that combination by one name. Jeremiah 18–9 concerns a potter (18:2–; 19:1), a purchase (19:1), the Valley of Hinnom (where the Field of Blood is traditionally located, 19:2), 'innocent blood' (19:4), and the renaming of a place for burial (19:6, 11); and Jer 32:6–5 tells of the purchase of a field with silver."

Classicist Glenn W. Most suggests that Judas's death in Acts can be interpreted figuratively, writing that πρηνὴς γενόμενος should be translated as saying his body went prone, rather than falling headlong, and the spilling of the entrails is meant to invoke the imagery of dead snakes and their burst-open bellies. Hence Luke was stating that Judas took the body posture of a snake and died like one. However, the Catholic biblical scholar John L. McKenzie states "This passage probably echoes the fate of the wicked in..." the Deuterocanonical book Wisdom of Solomon 4:19: "... will dash them speechless to the ground, and shake them from the foundations; they will be left utterly dry and barren, and they will suffer anguish, and the memory of them will perish."