I’m not arguing against writers ever writing about the intentions of individuals. I’m not even against the idea that they might in some cases know the intentions of individuals in roundabout or even miraculous ways. What I’m saying is that when you’re looking for the most ‘natural’ reading of a text involving a claim about intentions, shouldn’t you start with the assumption that the writer inferred those intentions by more typical means, and only assume the use of atypical means as a last resort?

That’s all I’m doing with Luke here. I’m starting with the assumption that Luke came to his conclusion about Judas’ intentions by the usual means. That leads me to a pretty good reading of the text…a reading that also happens not to conflict with the other synoptics.

BTW-None of our discussion so far has touched on the alleged tension between the synoptics and John. John is completely silent about the kiss. My thinking is that this tension is pretty weak as well.

What you mean is, readers would have said “how did he know that?” and assumed that Judas had kissed Jesus and that’s how Luke knew his intentions.

But this is a stretch, given the many other times in the gospels where feelings and thoughts are attributed to people without explanation of how anyone could know about them.

Luke and Matthew both seem to make Jesus more divine than Mark. In this case, Luke achieves this by having Jesus already know what’s in Judas’s head before he does anything.

Or at least, something along these lines is a possibility.

“Any reading of Luke that denies that Judas kissed Jesus requires that we assume that Luke (or somebody) had an out-of-the-ordinary means of discovering Judas’ intentions.”

Why? Why can’t he just write it down, without having any such knowledge?

There are other passages where Luke says something about Judas’s mental state, e.g. 22:3.

Of course they can. Happens all the time. Usually they would have some reason for doing so. But that’s what I’m failing to see here.

And in the end, why should we be tempted to assume that here? Because the most ‘natural’ reading is that Luke intended to describe Judas as being interrupted? This is a very slender reed to base a charge of error upon.

For starters, I’ll lay out a challenge to you to explain what errantists mean by a “natural” reading. What it seems to mean is your initial pre-reflective take on the text.

What it does not seem to mean is the reading most in accordance with the nature of things.

The Luke passage is a case in point. As already noted, the way we usually detect a person’s intentions is by observing his overt actions. Any reading of Luke that denies that Judas kissed Jesus requires that we assume that Luke (or somebody) had an out-of-the-ordinary means of discovering Judas’ intentions. This alone suggests that the reading most in accordance with the nature of things is that Luke is implying that Judas did kiss Jesus and that Luke inferred Judas’ intention to kiss from the kiss itself.

To take a different tack, even our initial, pre-reflective take on things can be a bit dodgy. Suppose Luke had said this:

“While he [Jesus] was still speaking, suddenly a crowd came, and the one called Judas, one of the twelve, was leading them. He approached Jesus to betray him; but Jesus said to him, ‘Judas, are you betraying the Son of Man?’”

Would we, even initially and prior to reflection, assume from this that Judas intended to, but did not betray Jesus?

Or what if Luke said this:

“While he [Jesus] was still speaking, suddenly a crowd came, and the one called Judas, one of the twelve, was leading them. He approached Jesus to greet him; but Jesus said to him, ‘Judas, is it with a greeting that you are betraying the Son of Man?’”

Would we, even initially and prior to reflection, assume from this that Judas intended to, but did not greet Jesus?

The answers are obvious: “no” and “no”.

In the second case, Jesus seems, in fact, to be responding to Judas’ actual greeting, saying, in effect, “Is the greeting you just gave me the way you are betraying me?”

So what makes kissing so special?

You know, people can just invent details that suit them.

And if the claim is that Luke is somehow correcting Mark, then that just underscores the original question. Luke would have to be correcting Mark on the basis of his knowledge that Judas intended to, but did not kiss Jesus. But how could Luke have known that without inferring it from what Jesus actually did.

So it seems that either Judas did kiss Jesus and Luke correctly inferred his intention to do so from that, or someone got it from either Judas himself or from a co-conspirator.

Even though I’m on record arguing for the idea that Judas was very much alive after the resurrection, I think it’s unlikely that this detail was discussed. And if it was Malchus (or whoever), that said “no Judas never actually kissed Jesus, but he meant to”, that has its own problems.

I agree that Luke’s speaking of Judas’ intentions rather than his overt acts does tend to suggest that he was describing an uncompleted act. But when you dig into it and try to explain how it is that the writer might have known what Judas intended to do, this ‘natural’ reading doesn’t seem as good.

With that said, I think you are right, Errancy, that this is a side-issue to the main point: there is no explicit contradiction.

Any of those could allow Luke to know from Mark that Judas intended to kiss Jesus but still assert that he was interrupted before he could do so.

Or perhaps Luke didn’t mean to imply that Judas didn’t manage to kiss Jesus. I concede that that’s possible, I just don’t find it the most natural reading.

Let’s not lose sight of the fact that we’re in broad agreement here!

I suppose you might have this: Luke knew from some source other than Mark, that Judas had arranged to betray Jesus with a kiss. Perhaps some soldier involved in the arrest was a later convert and filled Luke in on that detail. But even so, there is no way Luke could have known that Judas’ initial approach to Jesus was the one where Judas would kiss Jesus unless Judas actually did kiss Jesus. For all Luke could know, Judas planned to kiss Jesus an hour later.

First, I don’t think you need an antecedent commitment to inerrancy to buy the harmonization. But, as I have been at pains to argue in a number of entries, I think there should, for most texts, be a presumption in favor of consistency. One does not need to be committed to inerrancy in order to think these passages fail to provide sufficient grounds to overturn that presumption.

Second, I don’t think the Luke passage actually suggests that there was no kiss. Luke says that Judas approached Jesus with the intention of kissing him. But how would Luke know what Judas’s intentions were? There’s really only one way, and that’s if Judas actually did kiss Jesus.