Reconciling Matthew's and Luke's accounts of the suicide of Judas Iscariot

The suicide of Judas Iscariot is described twice in the New Testament and the two accounts seem to be offering two different ways Judas died: one by hanging and one by falling. So the question is are the two accounts reconcilable? If so it's not an affront to the idea that God inspired both of them. If not it's a problem for both being inspired. 

 

So, to look at the two stories: The hanging account is in Matthew 27:5: "And throwing down the pieces of silver into the temple, he departed, and he went and hanged himself." The falling account is Acts 1:18: "Now this man acquired a field with the reward of his wickedness, and falling headlong he burst open in the middle and all his bowels gushed out." 

 

On the surface it appears that one is hanging, one is falling to die on impact. But neither account is particularly detailed. The hanging account doesn't say, for example, he went into a room, got up on a stool, tied himself to a rafter and kicked the stool over. That would make an account that said he went up on a cliff and jumped off clearly incompatible. But the falling account isn't that detailed either. It doesn't even say specifically that he died in the field he purchased (though you could argue it's implied). 

 

I think there's a variety of ways that the accounts can be reconciled: Judas tying his rope to something that broke, causing him to fall a long way; jumping from too high a point when hanging himself so he gets decapitated and falls and "bursts;" hanging himself ("falling headlong") and then being left so long his body swells and bursts from decomposition (which seems shameful: no one cares about him enough to find him so the body just hangs in its owner's new field until it rots). 

 

So I think if we're careful not to import too much assumption into our reading of either account we can see that there are numerous scenarios that could be accurately described with both statements without either one suffering.

Then we get into, "yeah, but are those as likely as the idea that there are just two conflicting stories?" Well, taken by themselves, I wouldn't jump to a complex scenario from either story. But then we do have two stories--even without a doctrine of inspiration we should ask, "is it necessary to assume one of the accounts is mistaken, or would we assume we're getting more details from two accounts?" If I'm just considering two historical documents, of course I could just say one must be mistaken, but that's not really good historical work if it's not necessary from the accounts that they are mutually exclusive. If I have reports of a battle from two Roman commanders that seem to have conflicts, but on analysis could be reconciled, I would just assume that I'm getting a fuller picture of naturally complex historical realities by having more accounts to work from. 

This is violating the common maxim that the simplest answer is likely the most accurate. But that maxim doesn't really apply to the discipline of history where the more accurate maxim is that "History is Messy" (i.e. complex). Usually the most accurate understanding of any historical circumstance is a highly nuanced and complex picture made up of multitudes of factors. Unless there's some demonstrable reason to believe that one or the other source is untrustworthy, or has an "angle" that would benefit from their version excluding another, we're probably best accepting the more complex picture reconciled from multiple sources. I don't really see any advantage to Matthew or Luke (the author of Acts) to favor falling versus hanging. One means of death versus another doesn't add anything to either author's larger story--the primary point for both seems to be that Judas committed suicide, not that the specific means of his death proved something or enhanced some other point.

This gets to a question of source reliability. This is illustrated in The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe by Professor Digory Kirke's question to Peter and Susan (the older two siblings) about the reliability of their younger siblings when the youngest discovers a portal to the fantastic realm of Narnia: Lucy, the younger girl, has a story of finding another world through a portal and Edmund (the younger boy) says it's a made up game. Peter and Susan are troubled because obviously it's a lie--there can't be portals to fantastic worlds. But the professor asks, "is it usual that the girl is less honest than the boy?" They reply that Edmund is a known liar and that Lucy is very honest. So the Professor asks why they are sticking by their (what we might call a "negative evidence"-based, or argument from silence) presupposition that there can't be a portal, rather than their (positive evidence-based) presupposition that Lucy is honest. 

 If we generally find Matthew and Luke to be honest reporters, and they have an apparent conflict that, on analysis, can be reconciled, it actually makes more sense to assume the reconciled picture is the more full picture of the actual historical event and dismiss our assumptions about rafters and cliffs.

Woah! What happened to 2020?!

The last time I posted was September of 2019? What happened? Well, in addition to all the things that happened to all of us in 2020 (pandemic, racial injustice and tension, political conflict, etc.), I pastored our church plant through its launch (which included changing worship locations seven times in its first 7 months of existence!), continued rehabbing our house and apartments, and wrote a little less than half of my dissertation. So it was a busy year. But I'll hope for a little more activity here in 2021!