Tin foil hat time about religion.

[LostInAnomie]

I don't know if anyone else has thought this but I thought about it the other day.

The Bible has been rewritten numerous times and surely the names have been changed from what they originally were. I doubt that there were a lot of Matthew's, Mark's, Luke's, John, David's, Joesph's, Mary's, etc. around the middle east at that time.

Anyway getting back to my point. The great betrayer of Jesus in the Bible is named Judas which has a very similar spelling to Judaism the religion of the Jews. Is it possible that the Church changed the name of the betrayer of Jesus to Judas to symbolically connect him with the Jews and at the same time connect the Jews as the betrayers of Jesus.

Anybody have any thoughts on this?

[taxidriver]

1. *ducking*

[POed_Ex_Repub]

2. *Runs as if a grenade were just tossed in his lap* n/t

[2Design]

3. bible written 60 years after christ death....most of these guys

never knew him....have you ever played telephone....where one person says something then passes it to the next....after it gets through 7 people it is not the same.....

I suspect by the time it was written the stories had changed from the truth...some of the gist of them may be there....but for people to literally follow the bible....well....makes no sense to me....

Jesus talked in parables for a reason...stories are easier to remember but how many of us have told stories and added or subtracted what we wanted....

so anything is possible...it is a book.

[James T. Kirk]

4. I think you are barking up a weird tree.

There were others with the same name. I think it was a common name.

See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judas

[James T. Kirk]

5. Etymology of "Judas"

Greek: ioudas
Hebrew: yehudhah (let him {God} be praised)

From the Pocket Catholic Dictionary

[LostInAnomie]

6. I was just wondering about the English pronunciation and spelling.

I could be wrong but it is an odd coincidence that the betrayer of Jesus' name has a very similar spelling to the religious group that the Church blamed for his death for a long time.

[James T. Kirk]

7. Not that odd.

Originally, "Jew" was used to identify the people of the kingdom of Judah, but became more widely used later. I think you are reading too much into it. The early Christians WERE Jewish after all, so I don't think they were trying to say something bad about the Jews.

[LostInAnomie]

9. Could be

I'm VERY skeptical about religion especially with all the subtle prejudices in the Bible.

[James T. Kirk]

10. I'll bite. Which other prejudices?

[LostInAnomie]

11. Mostly towards women

[James T. Kirk]

12. What about Mary, one of the biggest stars in that book?

Mary, mother of Jesus, bore Him and raised Him and convinced Him to perform his first miracle at Cana. Sounds like quite an honor to a woman and to women to me.

====
When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to Him, "They have no wine." And Jesus said to her, " Woman, what does that have to do with us? My hour has not yet come." His mother said to the servants, "Whatever He says to you, do it."
===
http://www.biblegateway.com/cgi-bin/bible?passage=JOHN%2B2&showfn=on&showxref=on&language=english&version=NASB&x=14&y=12

[LostInAnomie]

13. Well...

I’ll point you to these two links. They have numerous quotations from the bible that point out how women are discriminated against.

From the very beginning though women are seen as the tempters of man that lead him to damnation. They are punished far more harshly for sexual indisgressions than men. Regarded as possessions of their husbands and told to be subservient.

http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/women/long.html

http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/inj/long.html

[jmowreader]

15. Sounds pretty disrespectful toward his mom...

Calling her "Woman"?

Why does that seem about one step removed from "Yo, bitch"?

[James T. Kirk]

18. But He ultimately did what she wanted.

[Deja Q]

17. Slavery, homophobia, sexism... (and a link that says it all)

Generally in favor of males.

Nothing is said of a woman lying down with a woman as she would a man, though if a man lies down with a man like he would with a woman then he'd be put to death. (uh, men don't have vaginas so the comment makes NO SENSE. And I didn't write it.)

The Bible also says bad things about women who cheat on their men. (it also tells women to be totally subservient to men.)

What men can do is pretty disgusting...

More:
http://home.sprynet.com/~owl1/biblequotes.htm

[Rabrrrrrr]

8. Actually, the Bible hasn't been rewritten "many times"

It has, however, been translated and retranslated many times.

And as to the names: remmber, we're getting an English version of (sometimes the Latin form of) the Greek form of an Aramaic name.

Jesus and his disciples were Jews, and thus spoke Aramaic. However, the NT is all in Greek, so the names were all changed to Greek names (Yoshua to Iesus). Then, the Bible was translated into Latin (still Iesus or Jesu (with the J having a Y sound)). Then, eventually, it found its way into English, oft times through German (so we get Jesus (with the J now having a current, English J sound)).

So was there a "Judas" - that is, someone who's name was pronounced exactly "Judas"? No, there most likely was not. More than likely, as another poster pointed out, "Judas" was actually a "Yehudah". And Yehudah was also the southern country after Israel split into what we call Israel and Judah.

So, was/is there a conspiracy to make "Judas" sound like "Judaism"? No, absolutely not. They ended up with similar sounds because, hey, Judas was named after the son of Jacob (Judah) whose tribe ended up being the dominant tribe in the Southern Kingdom.

And "David" as we have it now in Hebrew was likely pronounced like "Daweeth" with the "th" being sounded as it is in "these".

Matthew was Mattias was . . . I don't know what it might have been in Hebrew.

Peter was Petra was Petros was ...well, actually, there is no Hebrew name for Peter since his original name was "Simon".

[RoyGBiv]

14. Excellent analysis n/t

[Deja Q]

16. A provocative and shrewd post... One thing should be made clear.

Your observation (which I agree with) does not make you anti-Semitic. I believe you are merely pointing out that the translators of the original texts (and/or up to the original writers themselves) were.

The concept is subliminal, but it is there.