The 2nd stop in the 6th Doctor’s last adventure. Jimmy Akin, Dom Bettinelli, and Fr. Cory Sticha discuss the red riding hood connections, the unexpected twists, the Valeyard’s creeping plan, and the difference between Companion Charli with the 6th and 8th Doctors.
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Judas Iscariot’s betrayal of Jesus is perplexing in several ways, and Christian thinkers have sought to make sense of it.
The largest question is: Why did Judas perform the betrayal? What was his motive?
The Gospels give us some clues. One is that Satan was working on Judas (Luke 22:3, John 13:2, 27). However, this explains the action from a superhuman point of view and does not address why—on a human level—Judas would choose to betray Jesus.
A possible human motive may have been greed. John indicates that Judas was greedy and had previously committed theft to obtain money (John 12:5-6), and Matthew portrays Judas as telling the chief priests, “‘What will you give me if I deliver him over to you?’ And they paid him thirty pieces of silver. And from that moment he sought an opportunity to betray him” (Matt. 26:15-16). Mark and Luke also mention a commitment to pay Judas (Mark 14:11, Luke 22:5).
This suggests at least that Judas wanted to be compensated for the deed, but that doesn’t mean it was his primary motive. Why would someone who had followed Jesus for three years suddenly decide to betray his master? Is the opportunity for some quick cash really a sufficient motive?
Many have thought that it is not, and they have proposed additional reasons. One is the idea that Judas was actually trying to help Jesus fulfill his messianic destiny by bringing him into contact with the Jewish authorities. This view would tend to rehabilitate Judas, as he thought he was doing a good thing.
In favor of such a view, Judas could be seen as not aware of the fact he’s betraying Jesus, for when Jesus predicts at the Last Supper that one of the Twelve will betray him, Judas—along with the others—asks, “Is it I, Master?” (Matt. 26:25; cf. 26:22). Also, “when Judas, his betrayer, saw that Jesus was condemned, he changed his mind and brought back the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and the elders, saying, ‘I have sinned by betraying innocent blood’” (Matt. 27:3-4). So maybe Judas just meant to put Jesus in contact with the chief priests and didn’t realize they would condemn him.
Against this view is the fact that Judas “had given them a sign, saying, ‘The one I shall kiss is the man; seize him and lead him away safely’” (Mark 14:44). The use of a covert sign—as opposed to making a simple introduction—and the instruction to seize Jesus indicates consciousness of betrayal.
However, another messianic motive is possible. No doubt, Judas—like the other disciples—expected Jesus to be a political Messiah who would kick out the Romans and restore national sovereignty to Israel (cf. John 6:15, 11:48-50; Acts 1:6). However, Jesus did not intend to be this type of Messiah. Perhaps Judas disagreed, and by forcing him into a confrontation with the chief priests, Judas was hoping to force him back onto what he regarded as the proper path for the Messiah—only to see Jesus condemned instead.
Another possible motive is anger and resentment. It is clear from various passages in the New Testament that some disciples (Peter, James, John, and Andrew) were closer to Jesus than others, and Judas is always listed last among the Twelve (Matt. 10:1-4, Mark 3:13-19, Luke 6:12-16). Perhaps Judas’s lower status had come to grate on him after three years, and—under the influence of Satanically inspired envy and resentment—he decided to prove that he was a person of importance after all.
What we can say with confidence is that on the superhuman level Satan was involved and on the human level greed was involved, but beyond that, all we can do is speculate.
Whatever Judas’s exact motive, a careful reading of the Gospels reveals that the betrayal involved an intricate, time-sensitive plan.
“It was now two days before the Passover and the feast of Unleavened Bread. And the chief priests and the scribes were seeking how to arrest him by stealth, and kill him; for they said, ‘Not during the feast, lest there be a tumult of the people’” (Mark 14:1-2).
Given the Jewish way of reckoning time, and the fact Passover began at sundown on Thursday, “two days before the Passover” points to sometime during the daytime on Wednesday.
The Jewish authorities thus had a window of opportunity to arrest Jesus between Wednesday and Thursday. Beginning Friday morning, the feast of Unleavened Bread would be in full swing, and Jesus could be expected to be with the crowds during the daytime in the week-long festival.
It apparently was on this Wednesday that Judas went to the chief priests and agreed to betray him, so he “sought an opportunity to betray him to them in the absence of the multitude” (Luke 22:6). Since Judas was now serving as their spy, the Wednesday of Holy Week is often called Spy Wednesday.
Jesus being away from the crowds was important. Jesus noted that they could have arrested him any day they wanted as he taught in the temple (Matt. 26:55, Mark 14:49, Luke 22:53). By waiting until he was in a private setting, they could avoid the people rioting.
Judas did not find an opportunity to betray Jesus Wednesday night or Thursday during the daytime when Jesus was with the crowds. The next opportunity would be when he was alone with the disciples on Thursday night at the Passover meal, which would be in private.
However, there was a new complication. Jesus kept the location of the Passover meal secret until the last moment, forcing the disciples to ask, “Where will you have us go and prepare for you to eat the Passover?” (Mark 14:16).
Instead of simply telling them the location, Jesus sent two of the disciples (Luke reveals it was Peter and John; Luke 22:8) to look for a man unusually carrying a water jar, which was normally women’s work. They were then to follow this man back to a house, and there the householder would have a room prepared for them to eat the Passover meal (Mark 14:13-15).
The apparent purpose of this subterfuge was to keep the Twelve—including Judas—from knowing the location of the meal until the last moment. That way, Judas could not bring the authorities there to arrest Jesus, for he greatly desired to eat this Passover with his disciples (Luke 22:15).
At the Last Supper, Jesus announced that one of the Twelve would betray him, prompting the disciples to ask who it would be.
Jesus indicated it would be someone who dipped food in the same dish as him, which would make it obvious to anyone who was in-the-know that Judas would be the betrayer. But John’s Gospel indicates that this was a rather restricted audience. It may have only been Peter and the beloved disciple who knew.
“One of his disciples, whom Jesus loved, was reclining at table at Jesus’ side, so Simon Peter motioned to him to ask Jesus of whom he was speaking. So that disciple, leaning back against Jesus, said to him, ‘Lord, who is it?’ Jesus answered, ‘It is he to whom I will give this morsel of bread when I have dipped it.’ So when he had dipped the morsel, he gave it to Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot. Then after he had taken the morsel, Satan entered into him. Jesus said to him, ‘What you are going to do, do quickly.’ Now no one at the table knew why he said this to him. Some thought that, because Judas had the moneybag, Jesus was telling him, ‘Buy what we need for the feast,’ or that he should give something to the poor” (John 13:23-29) since giving to the poor was a custom on the first night of Passover.
By this point, Judas had learned what he needed to know to betray Jesus, for he had learned their plans for the remainder of the evening.
Jesus “went out with his disciples across the brook Kidron, where there was a garden, which he and his disciples entered. Now Judas, who betrayed him, also knew the place, for Jesus often met there with his disciples” (John 18:1-2).
Judas thus brought a band of soldiers and officers from the Jewish authorities to arrest him.
It was at this point that Judas betrayed Jesus with a kiss. Even though Jesus was a public figure, the guards might not know him by sight.
Also, it was dark, and they would be viewing the scene in the garden by torchlight. Even Judas himself might not recognize Jesus until getting up close to him.
By arranging the kiss, Judas apparently wanted a degree of protection. If he suddenly yelled, “This is Jesus! Grab him!” that would make it obvious to everyone that Judas had betrayed him. A melee might ensue, and Judas might be injured or killed by one of the other disciples.
But by coming up and giving the ordinary greeting gesture of a kiss, it would make the act of betrayal non-obvious. From Judas’s perspective, he might get away scot-free, with nobody realizing what he had done.
However, Jesus knew what Judas was up to. “Jesus said to him, “Judas, would you betray the Son of man with a kiss?” (Luke 22:48).
From Jesus’ perspective—as tragic as it was—everything was proceeding according to plan.
This version of The Weekly Francis covers material released in the last week, from 30 March 2023 to 4 April 2023.
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Big revelations and cameos! Jimmy Akin, Dom Bettinelli, and Fr. Cory Sticha discuss what more we’ve learned about the story so far, including morally questionable and objectionable actions, plus another high-profile cameo in this week’s Picard.
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Joshua Abraham Norton had an amazing life and was a titan among men. Jimmy Akin and Dom Bettinelli explore the story of Norton’s life in the 1800s, with his rise from humble circumstances to wealth and power to humility and back again, and learn what made him so amazing.
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This version of The Weekly Francis covers material released in the last week, from 9 March 2023 to 29 March 2023.
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A perplexing story about Jesus in the Gospels is the account in which he curses a fig tree. It is found in Mark 11 and in Matthew 21.
The incident occurs when Jesus makes his way to Jerusalem for his final Passover. However, it is related differently in the two Gospels.
Mark 11 presents Jesus first as cursing the fig tree (11:12–14), then clearing the temple (11:15–19), and the next morning the fig tree is seen to have withered (11:20–25).
But in Matthew 21, Jesus first clears the temple (Matt. 21:12–13) and later curses the fig tree (Matt. 21:18–20), after which it immediately withers (Matt. 21:21–22).
What explains this difference in order? Matthew may have presented the material about the fig tree together because it deals with the same subject—the fig tree. This is in keeping with the way Matthew groups material topically.
Mark’s ordering of the events may be chronological. However, Mark also has a special way of ordering material, which scholars call the “Markan sandwich.” A sandwich occurs when Mark interrupts one story with another before returning to the first. This allows Mark to contrast the two stories so that they shed light on each other.
Scholars have proposed that this is what is happening in Mark’s accounts of the cursing and withering of the fig tree with the clearing of the temple interposed. In fact, this is one of the most famous Markan sandwiches. So Mark also may be ordering these events in a non-chronological way.
In the story, Jesus sees a fig tree in the distance. Mark notes that it is “in leaf” and that it is “not the season for figs.” This is consistent with the timing of Passover (late March or April).
Jesus then “went to see if he could find anything on it.” Why does he do that if it is not the season for figs? This seems strange.
“If, however, as Pliny the Elder noted in his Naturalis Historia (16.49), the fig tree stands out as a tree that produces fruit before leaves (cf. Mark 13:28 …), the presence of leaves makes intelligible to Mark’s readers why Jesus went to the tree in search of something to eat” (Craig Evans, Word Biblical Commentary on Mark 11:13).
There are several possibilities for what Jesus may have hoped to find on the tree, including unripe but edible figs; however, he finds nothing.
Jesus says to the tree, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again.” Why does Jesus say this to the tree? At first glance, it seems like an act of gratuitous malice.
Why should Jesus curse a tree—especially when it isn’t even the season for it to be bearing fruit? The Law of Moses even condemned the needless destruction of fruit trees (Deut. 20:19–20).
The fact that Jesus perfectly observed the Law (Matt. 5:17–18, Heb. 4:15) suggests that this does not constitute the needless destruction of a fruit tree. It has a purpose, and what happens next clarifies that purpose.
The party enters Jerusalem and goes to the temple. There, Jesus “began to drive out those who sold and those who bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons.”
Note that in this passage and the previous one, we witness a similar phenomenon: apparently unprovoked anger on Jesus’ part. Just as Jesus lashed out at the fig tree, he lashes out at the people doing commerce and changing money in the temple. This connects the two events and provides a clue as to why Jesus cursed the fig tree.
The people Jesus drives out are those who bought and sold items relating to the functioning of the temple itself—specifically, to the animals that were offered there in sacrifice. Mark alludes to this when he speaks of “those who sold pigeons” (pigeons being one of the sacrificial animals).
The “money-changers” served the temple-goers in ancient Jerusalem, who needed to change the Roman currency that had pagan images—including emperors, some of whom were worshipped as gods—for money that could be used at the temple.
Jesus explains his actions by saying, “Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’? But you have made it a den of robbers.”
The statement Jesus quotes is from Isaiah 56:7. Today we think of the Jerusalem temple as an exclusively Jewish institution, and the idea of it being used for prayer by Gentiles (“all the nations”) seems strange. However, Gentiles did pray there. They even had sacrifices offered for them by the Jewish priests. In fact, the stopping of the sacrifices for foreigners, including Caesar, was one of the precipitating events of the Jewish war of the A.D. 60s (Josephus, Jewish War 2:17:2[409–410]).
The outer court, the so-called “court of the Gentiles,” was very large, and it was apparently here that the sellers and money-changers set up shop. This space was meant for the use of the Gentiles to worship God, but instead unscrupulous merchants were using it. Thus Jesus quotes Jeremiah 7:11, asserting that they have made it “a den of robbers.” And “when evening came they went out of the city” and return to Bethany.
In the morning, as they return to the city, they see the fig tree has withered. Peter remembers the curse Jesus put on the tree and says, “Master, look! The fig tree which you cursed has withered.” This was evidently a surprising and impressive event for Peter.
Jesus tells them, “Have faith in God. Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him.”
By pointing to the power of faith in God, he indicates the means by which the fig tree withered so quickly: Jesus had faith in God that it would happen, and it did.
Many earlier commentators have failed to appreciate the fact that the clearing of the temple occurs between Mark’s two halves of the fig tree narrative, suggesting that they did not see its relevance. However, given Markan sandwiches, we should be alert to elements connecting the two. There are a number to be found.
“The interrelation of the clearing of the temple (vv 15–19), and the cursing (vv 12–14) and withering (vv 20–21) of the fig tree, is established at several points. For one, all the material between Mark 11:1 and 13:37 is oriented around the temple; this is itself a cue that there is a relationship between the fig tree and temple. There is also a clear parallel between ‘his disciples were hearing’ (v 14) and ‘the chief priests and the scribes heard’ (v 18). Above all, the fig tree is often in the Old Testament a symbol for Israel, and more than once Israel is judged under this symbol, ‘There will be no figs on the tree, and their leaves will wither,’ said Jeremiah (8:13). In connection with this is the intriguing statement that ‘it was not the season for figs’ (v 13). This statement surely has less to do with horticulture than theology. The word for ‘season’ (kairos) is used at the opening of the Gospel, ‘ “The time (kairos) has come,” said Jesus, “the kingdom of God is near” ’ (1:14). Kairos means a special, critical moment. There is no fruit on the tree because its time has passed. The leafy fig tree, with all its promise of fruit, is as deceptive as the temple, which, with all its bustling activity, is really an outlaw’s hideout (v 17)” (James R. Edwards, “Markan Sandwiches: The Significance of Interpolations in Markan Narratives,” Novum Testamentum XXXI, 3 (1989), 207).
There is also the fact that, in both narratives, Jesus lashes out, first at the fig tree and then at those in the temple complex. This is perhaps the most direct parallel between the two narratives, and it provides the key to understanding them.
By cursing the fig tree, Jesus is enacting a physical parable of what will happen to the temple. The time when the fig tree produced fruit is passed. In the same way, whatever fruit the temple may have borne in the past, at the time of Jesus it is corrupt and has become a “den of robbers.”
Thus, just as no one will eat fruit from the fig tree in the future, the time of the temple itself is passing. Jesus makes this explicit later by prophesying its physical destruction (13:1–2).
The fact that Jesus uses the fig tree as a parable of the temple sheds light on why he cursed the tree even though it was not the season for figs. Only a tree without fruit is suitable for this physical parable. Thus he seeks to see if it offers anything edible. It does not, and so instead he uses the occasion to enact the parable.
Interested in hearing more about the Gospel of Mark? Check out Jimmy Akin’s full-length commentary on Logos/Verbum Bible software!
It’s the end of the line for the 6th Doctor. Jimmy Akin, Dom Bettinelli, and Fr. Cory Sticha discuss the first part of the 6th Doctor’s Last Adventure audio story, which takes him to a creepy train station for an encounter with a couple of old foes.
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Can Catholic believe theistic evolution? Michael Lofton welcomes Jimmy Akin onto his show to discuss this topic, as well as old vs. young earth and monogenism vs. polygenism, all from a Catholic perspective.
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In the spate of recent stories on artificial intelligence (AI), Catholic News Service carries one in which they interview Fr. Phillip Larrey of the Pontifical Lateran University in Rome.
Fr. Larrey says that Silicon Valley technology companies are now consulting with religious leaders on matters related to AI—apparently including the nature of consciousness, humanity, and the purpose of life.
When it comes to defining consciousness, good luck! This is a perennial problem that nobody has a good handle on. Consciousness is something we experience, but defining it in a way that doesn’t use other consciousness-related terms has proved nigh onto impossible, at least thus far.
It’s clear that consciousness involves processing information, but being able to process information doesn’t mean having the awareness that we refer to as consciousness. Mechanical adding machines from the 19th century can process information, but they aren’t conscious.
Neither are computers, robots, or AI. The Next Generation episode “The Measure of a Man” featured a line that bluntly summarized the situation: “Data is a toaster.” He may look and act human, but Mr. Data not only has no emotions, he has no consciousness (though the episode tried to pretend otherwise). He’s just a data-crunching machine.
The same will be true of any silicon-based AIs we have or will come up with in the foreseeable future. They may be programmed to sound human, and—hypothetically—they could one day process information better than a human, but all they will be doing is shuffling symbols around according to rules. They will not have genuine consciousness.
Still, it’s good that tech companies are talking to ethicists and religious leaders about the impact that they will have on human lives. According to the CNS piece:
He [Fr. Larrey] also identified potential adverse effects of AI for everyday users, noting that minors can ask chatbots for advice in committing illicit activities and students can use them to complete their assignments without performing the work of learning.
A major downside of AI, he said, is that “we become dependent on the software, and we become lazy. We no longer think things out for ourselves, we turn to the machine.”
When it comes to minors asking AIs how to commit crimes, I’m sure that tech companies will come up with ways to stop that. (“I’m sorry, Dave. I’m afraid I can’t answer that question.”) Legal liability alone will ensure that they do.
However, education will adapt to the student use of AI—at least in some situations. Back before the 1970s, people were concerned that electronic calculators would cause kids to become lazy and not memorize their multiplication tables. But you don’t need to memorize all the stuff you used to need to when you can rely on computers to provide answers. Thus math classes today regularly include calculators.
The same thing will happen with AI in education. It will take time, and there will be some tasks for which the use of AI will be prohibited, but eventually educators will figure out ways it can be incorporated, and Fr. Larrey acknowledges this in the piece.
Perhaps the most chilling part of the story comes when it says:
The pope urged [an audience of tech leaders] to “ensure that the discriminatory use of these instruments does not take root at the expense of the most fragile and excluded” and gave an example of AI making visa decisions for asylum-seekers based on generalized data.
“It is not acceptable that the decision about someone’s life and future be entrusted to an algorithm,” said the pope.
Amen! Part of the reason is that we no longer really know how modern algorithms work. They are judged on their results (e.g., does the YouTube algorithm keep you watching videos?), but we don’t clearly understand the specifics of what’s happening under the hood.
This results in algorithms making mistakes, and companies like Google, Facebook, and YouTube are already bureaucratic black boxes that make secretive decisions to the detriment of their users.
There are thus real dangers to AI. Even assuming you don’t give them autonomous firing control in a wartime situation, nobody wants to hear, “I’m sorry, but the AI has determined that curing you would be iffy and expensive, so your fatal disease will just be allowed to run its course.”
Religious leaders need to be involved in this conversation, so it’s good to hear that tech companies are consulting them.
Data may be a toaster, but he shouldn’t become a creepy, opaque toaster with the power of life and death.
