How exactly did judas die?

Question

I saw two opposing bible passages, one says Judas hung himself, the other says his guts burst open in the "field of blood" so which is it?

Answer 1

Matthew 27:5 (NIV)

Judas threw the money into the temple and left. Then he went away and hanged himself.

Luke 1:17-19 (NIV)

Judas bought a field; there he fell headlong, his body burst open and all his intestines spilled out. [1:18] Everyone in Jerusalem heard about this, so they called that field in their language Akeldama, that is, Field of Blood.)

According to what I have been taught, there are two possible explanations for this. One is that Judas' corpse was left to hang, and decomposition eventually caused his head and body to separate. In such a state of decomposition, his body split upon hitting the ground.

The other scenario is that in this instance, "to hang" means "to impale." I choose to believe that the first explanation is the most accurate.

Answer 2

According to the Bible, he, Judas Iscariot, hung himself and then the rope broke and he fell to the ground where his bowels burst out. He would have to have been hanging for some time for his body to be sufficiently decomposed to burst upon falling. The priests then used the thirty pieces of silver that they had given Judas for betraying Jesus to buy the field where he lay and buried him there, now known as the Potter's field.
The field of blood was called so because it was bought with blood money, meaning the money used to betray Jesus which led not only to Christ's death but Judas death as well, thus the field of blood.
The two passages go together, they are not contradictory.

Answer 3

The man who bought the field he hung himself on fell and burst open on the field. Its confusing, I know

Answer 4

The fate of Judas is clearly full of contradictions. One apologist tried to reconcile the two by saying that he hung himself THEN his guts burst out.

ADD: Another possibility is that he was killed while fighting the Romans in the Roman Jewish wars.
There were a couple famous leaders named Judas (possibly related to each other) recorded in the Roman histories as leading successful battles and assassination attempts.

Strangely enough these Jewish leaders were documented by the Romans as being a threat to their hold on those lands, but there was no mention in the same histories of anyone named Jesus leading a peaceful rebellion.

Answer 5

He fell headlong in the field he purchased with the bribe money and his guts burst open.

Answer 6

Perhaps his guts burst open from decomposition gases within his stomach after he hung himself.

Answer 7

Both. He hung himself, no one touched his body, decomposition took hold (specifically, the first stage of rigor mortis), the rope or branch broke, and his body fell and burst open.

Answer 8

These verses don't oppose each other. Both happened. But he hung himself first.

Answer 9

He hanged himself.....

His body had probably been there long enough to decompose....so when it fell to the ground, it burst open.

This is not rocket science people....and there are NO contradictions in Scripture.

Keep trying.......you wont find any

Answer 10

Apparenly he didn't die when he hung himself. He lived to die in a fall. (Who do you know that survived hanging themself? Why does the Bible not include this pertinant, valid information?)

Lol, this is one of the better example of how they have to twist the meaning of words to end up saying "Nope, no contradictions. None at all..."

edit: Even better, this one says he died by hanging, but then the rope broke and his guts spilled out, so he was already dead when he fell. Despite the fact that the "death by falling" verse has him going head-first, impossible from a noose.