How did the crowd identify Jesus to arrest him?
Posted on Feb.02, 2010. Filed in Matthew, Mark, Luke, John. Average rating: 4.0 / 10 (Rate It).
Jesus often met with his disciples in the garden of Gethsemane. Having agreed to betray him, Judas led an armed crowd there so that they could arrest him. The gospels contradict each other, however, concerning how the crowd knew who to arrest.According to Matthew and Mark, Judas kissed Jesus in order to identify him to the crowd who had been sent to arrest him:
While he [Jesus] was still speaking, Judas, one of the twelve, arrived; with him was a large crowd with swords and clubs, from the chief priests and the elders of the people. Now the betrayer had given them a sign, saying, ‘The one I will kiss is the man; arrest him.’ At once he came up to Jesus and said, ‘Greetings, Rabbi!’ and kissed him. Jesus said to him, ‘Friend, do what you are here to do.’ Then they they came and lay hands on Jesus and arrested him. [Matthew 26:47-50, NRSV]
Immediately, while he [Jesus] was still speaking, Judas, one of the twelve, arrived; and with him there was a crowd with swords and clubs, from the chief priests, the scribes, and the elders. Now the betrayer had given them a sign, saying, ‘The one I will kiss is the man; arrest him and lead him away under guard.’ So when he came, he went up to him at once and said, ‘Rabbi!’ and kissed him. Then they laid hands on him and arrested him. [Mark 14:43-46, NRSV]
According to Luke, Judas intended to identify Jesus with a kiss, but Jesus interrupted him:
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 kiss him; but Jesus said to him, ‘Judas, is it with a kiss that you are betraying the Son of Man?’ … Then Jesus said to the chief priests, the officers of the temple police, and the elders who had come for him, ‘Have you come out with swords and clubs as if I were a bandit?’ When I was with you day after day in the temple, you did not lay hands on me. But this is your hour, and the power of darkness!’ Then they seized him and led him away… [Luke 22:47-48, 52-54a, NRSV]
According to John, Jesus identified himself to the crowd; there was no need for Judas to point him out using a kiss or any other means:
So Judas brought a detachment of soldiers together with police from the chief priests and the Pharisees, and they came there with lanterns and torches and weapons. Then Jesus, knowing all that was to happen to him, came forward and asked them, ‘For whom are you looking?’ They answered, ‘Jesus of Nazareth.’ Jesus replied, ‘I am he.’ [John 18:3-5a, NRSV]
So how did the crowd identify Jesus to arrest him? Did Judas kiss him, approach to kiss him but get interrupted, or did Jesus identify himself?
N.B. All posts are written in a style sympathetic to the claim of Biblical error, even in cases where the author ("Errancy") disagrees with the claim. See the About page for the site's philosophy.
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February 2nd, 2010 on 2:25 pm
This is one of those cases where I’d say that the passages don’t explicitly contradict each other, but that you would need to have a prior commitment to inerrancy to read them as harmonious.
Matthew and Mark are quite clear that the kiss did occur. They leave open the possibility that Jesus questioned Judas between the kiss and his arrest, so are consistent with Luke. They also leave open the possibility that Jesus identified himself to the crowd between the kiss and his arrest, so are consistent with John.
Luke implies that the kiss didn’t occur, but doesn’t quite state as much, and leaves open the possibility that Judas kissed Jesus before being questioned by him, so is consistent with Matthew and Mark. It also leaves open the possibility that Jesus identified himself to the crowd between questioning Judas and being arrested, so is consistent with John.
John also implies that the kiss didn’t occur, but again doesn’t state as much, and leaves open the possibility that Judas kissed Jesus and then was questioned by him before Jesus identified himself to the crowd, so is consistent with Matthew, Mark, and Luke.
So there’s no explicit contradiction here, and the passages can be brought into harmony, but taking each on its own would give you three different pictures of what happened.
February 2nd, 2010 on 6:37 pm
I basically agree with you harmonization Errancy. I disagree, however, with two points in your comment that analyzes it.
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.
February 2nd, 2010 on 7:05 pm
Perhaps Luke knew Judas’s intentions because his source, Mark, said that Judas had agreed to identify Jesus by kissing him?
February 2nd, 2010 on 9:41 pm
If Mark was Luke’s source, then Luke clearly did not intend to suggest that Judas didn’t kiss Jesus (since Mark says that Judas kissed Jesus). Or am I missing something?
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.
February 3rd, 2010 on 10:55 am
There are a few possibilities, e.g. Luke’s version of Mark wasn’t the same as ours (he used proto-Mark), or Luke’s access to Mark was limited (he was going on memory), or Luke wasn’t an inerrantist (he corrected/adapted Mark).
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!
February 8th, 2010 on 10:50 pm
If the claim is that proto-Mark had Judas intending to kiss Jesus but not actually doing so, the same question just arises from proto-Mark. How could proto-Mark have known what Judas intended to do but didn’t actually do? The only way to really know would be to get it from Judas himself or one of his co-conspirators (Malchus perhaps?).
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.
February 9th, 2010 on 8:50 pm
“Luke would have to be correcting Mark on the basis of his knowledge that Judas intended to, but did not kiss Jesus.”
You know, people can just invent details that suit them.
February 10th, 2010 on 12:16 am
“people can just invent details that suit them”
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?
February 10th, 2010 on 3:23 pm
“Usually they would have some reason for doing so.”
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.
February 10th, 2010 on 3:34 pm
Ah.
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.