On Judas

I most certainly don’t care about Christianity or any religion at this stage of my life. However, if you are a true believer, I don’t get the Judas hate. Here’s a good example of how Judas serves to describe treasonous evil today. Judas is the necessary ingredient for Christianity to come together. Christ has to die for our sins. Someone has to betray Christ in order for that to happen. That someone is Judas. Doesn’t he do as much as any apostle for that to happen? I am hardly the first person to mention this. This is one of the core framings of Nikos Kazantzakis’ 1955 novel The Last Temptation of Christ, which Martin Scorsese made into the great 1988 film so stupidly hated by Catholics. The thing about that book and film is that they are so strongly about faith but the idiots couldn’t see beyond Jesus having sex. In any case, I liked Harvey Keitel’s portrayal of Judas in the film. This leads me to another point, which is that so many people made fun of the idea of Judas having a modern New York accent. Why? No one would say that if Judas had been played by an English guy.

In any case, Judas is more or less the hero of the story, in my reading of it.