Person
Judas Iscariot
One of Jesus's twelve disciples, who kept the group's money and handed Jesus over to the chief priests for thirty pieces of silver; Matthew and Acts give different accounts of his death.
See Luke 6:16, John 12:6, Matthew 26:15, Matthew 27:5, Acts 1:18.
A money bag marks Judas Iscariot in the reading view: he kept the common purse, and was paid thirty pieces of silver (John 12:6, Matthew 26:15).
Mentioned in 23 verses across 5 books, first in Matthew 10:4. The verses below are the ones linked to this person (the Theographic dataset, with our sourced corrections).
How artists have pictured him
3 works from different centuries and traditions. Each shows how its time and place imagined Judas Iscariot, not how he looked. Many medieval and later images gave Judas red hair, a hooked nose or a yellow robe, stereotypes long used against Jews; the works here were chosen without them.
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In the Bible
The first 10 of 23 verses, in Bible order. Text from the Berean Standard Bible; verse numbers follow the KJV.
Matthew
- Matthew 10:4
Simon the Zealot, and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed Jesus.
- Matthew 26:14
Then one of the Twelve, the one called Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests
- Matthew 26:25
Then Judas, who would betray Him, said, “Surely not I, Rabbi?” Jesus answered, “You have said it yourself.”
- Matthew 26:47
While Jesus was still speaking, Judas, one of the Twelve, arrived, accompanied by a large crowd armed with swords and clubs, sent from the chief priests and elders of the people.
- Matthew 27:3
When Judas, who had betrayed Him, saw that Jesus was condemned, he was filled with remorse and returned the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders.
Mark
- Mark 3:19
and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed Jesus.
- Mark 14:10
Then Judas Iscariot, one of the Twelve, went to the chief priests to betray Jesus to them.
- Mark 14:43
While Jesus was still speaking, Judas, one of the Twelve, arrived, accompanied by a crowd armed with swords and clubs, sent from the chief priests, scribes, and elders.
Luke
Events
Events the dataset lists Judas Iscariot as taking part in. Dates follow its Ussher–Jones reckoning (one of several traditional counts), not established history.
- c. AD 28Apostles Chosen
- no dateJudas Plans Betrayal
- no datePrayer and Betrayal in Gethsemane
- no dateJudas' Suicide
Dictionary
From Easton’s Bible Dictionary (1897), as attached to this record by Theographic. The entry is for the name and can describe more than one person who bore it. Easton wrote in 1897, and some of his views are now debated.
Read Easton’s entry
Son of Simon (John 6:71; 13:2, 26), surnamed Iscariot, i.e., a man of Kerioth (Josh. 15:25). His name is uniformly the last in the list of the apostles, as given in the synoptic (i.e., the first three) Gospels. The evil of his nature probably gradually unfolded itself till “Satan entered into him” (John 13:27), and he betrayed our Lord (18:3). Afterwards he owned his sin with “an exceeding bitter cry,” and cast the money he had received as the wages of his iniquity down on the floor of the sanctuary, and “departed and went and hanged himself” (Matt. 27:5). He perished in his guilt, and “went unto his own place” (Acts 1:25). The statement in Acts 1:18 that he “fell headlong and burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed out,” is in no way contrary to that in Matt. 27:5. The sucide first hanged himself, perhaps over the valley of Hinnom, “and the rope giving way, or the branch to which he hung breaking, he fell down headlong on his face, and was crushed and mangled on the rocky pavement below.”
Why such a man was chosen to be an apostle we know not, but it is written that “Jesus knew from the beginning who should betray him” (John 6:64). Nor can any answer be satisfactorily given to the question as to the motives that led Judas to betray his Master. “Of the motives that have been assigned we need not care to fix on any one as that which simply led him on. Crime is, for the most part, the result of a hundred motives rushing with bewildering fury through the mind of the criminal.”