While all the events of Good Friday are dramatic and shocking, there is one shocking event that we don’t often discuss: Judas throwing his 30 pieces of silver back to the religious leaders and dying in “the field of blood.” This event, or its aftermath, is mentioned in two Bible passages that appear to contradict each other. But do they?
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Where Does the Bible Mention the Field of Blood?
The Field of Blood first gets mentioned in Matthew 27, after Judas has betrayed Jesus and the religious leaders have condemned Jesus to death:
When Judas, who had betrayed him, saw that Jesus was condemned, he was seized with remorse and returned the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and the elders. “I have sinned,” he said, “for I have betrayed innocent blood.” “What is that to us?” they replied. “That’s your responsibility.” So Judas threw the money into the temple and left. Then he went away and hanged himself. The chief priests picked up the coins and said, “It is against the law to put this into the treasury, since it is blood money.” So they decided to use the money to buy the potter’s field as a burial place for foreigners. That is why it has been called the Field of Blood to this day. Then what was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet was fulfilled: “They took the thirty pieces of silver, the price set on him by the people of Israel, and they used them to buy the potter’s field, as the Lord commanded me.” (Matthew 27:3-10 NIV)
Several Bible translations include a footnote that this exact Old Testament quote appears in Zechariah 11:12-13, although a similar scene appears in Jeremiah 32:6-9. The New International Version translation of the Bible includes Jeremiah 19:1-13 in its footnote, a story involving Jeremiah buying a clay pot and smashing it in a field as he prophesies Israel’s coming doom. Scholars have suggested many reasons why Matthew 27 (apparently) misattributes Zechariah’s quote to Jeremiah, including Augustine’s suggestion that the original passage said, “what was spoken by the prophet was fulfilled,” and a copyist added “Jeremiah” by mistake. John C. Gill suggests in his commentary that since the Old Testament was organized differently in Jesus’ day (the books of latter prophets starting with Jeremiah), Matthew may have meant something like “the words of the latter prophets under the name of Jeremiah.”
The Field of Blood comes up a second time in Acts 1 as an aside when Peter talks about Judas. Peter observes that Judas shared in the ministry, but someone must take his place now that he’s gone (Acts 1:17-22). The author, Luke, adds this parenthetical detail:
(With the payment he received for his wickedness, Judas bought a field; there he fell headlong, his body burst open and all his intestines spilled out. Everyone in Jerusalem heard about this, so they called that field in their language Akeldama, that is, Field of Blood.) (Acts 1:18-19 NIV)
The phrase “Akeldama” or “Aceldama” is Aramaic, the commonly spoken language of Jesus’ day. Most Jewish people, including Jesus, would have spoken Aramaic and been at least familiar with Greek and Hebrew.
Do We Know Where the Field of Blood Is Today?
Throughout history, different religious writers have mentioned Akeldama, not all of them agreeing on the location. The most popular location is a spot near Jerusalem that Easton’s Bible Dictionary says “lies on a narrow level terrace on the south face of the valley of Hinnom. Its modern name is Hak ed-damm.” Smith’s Bible Dictionary mentions the same spot and adds an interesting detail: it is “southwest of the supposed pool of Siloam.” The Pool of Siloam is, of course, where Jesus told a blind man to wash his eyes, after which he could see.
The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia adds some more details about Akeldama:
“Tradition, which appears to go back to the 4th century, points to a level platform on, and some distance up, the southern slope of the Wady er Rababi (Valley of Hinnom) just before it joins the Kidron Valley. Upon this spot there is a very remarkable ruin (78 ft. x 57 ft.) which for many centuries was used as a charnel house. The earth here was reputed to have the property of quickly consuming dead bodies. So great was its reputation that vast quantities of it are said to have been transported in 1215 AD to the Campo Santo at Pisa.
When this building was standing entire, the bodies were lowered into it through five openings in the roof and then left to disintegrate, so that a few years ago there were very many feet of bones all over the floor. These have now been removed. A little Southeast of this ruin is a new Greek monastery erected in recent years over the remains of a large number of cave tombs; many of the bones from ‘Akeldama’ are now buried here.”
(Excerpted from E.W.G. Masterman’s entry on “Akeldama”)
Does the Bible Give Contradictory Accounts of Judas Dying?
Note: This section describes Judas’ suicide by hanging and medical discussions about how it might have happened. Some graphic details or references are included.
Many have questioned why Matthew 27 and Acts 1 describe Judas’ death differently. One account describes him hanging himself. The other describes his body falling headfirst and his organs bursting as he hits the ground. Are these accounts contradictory, or do they describe the same events?
Some scholars have noted that Luke wasn’t one of the original apostles, although he was there for some of the events he recorded in Acts (like the snake biting Paul). So, Luke describes what happened to Judas based on interviews and research. Therefore, he could have reported the urban legend circulating in Jerusalem about Judas’ death. While this theory is possible, it’s hard to reconcile with how Luke overall is an exemplary historian. He usually gives specific details (who was governor when the Roman census happened, etc.) that indicate he took the time to go back to primary sources.
Another possibility is that Matthew and Luke describe the same event from different angles: Judas hangs himself, his body falls face first, and after the strangulation or decapitation (probably both), his organs rupture. There have been multiple medical studies on “bowel wall hemorrhage,” showing it does happen to at least some hanged people.
While we generally assume someone being hanged would fall feetfirst, we can’t definitively say that without knowing details Luke and Matthew omit. Did Judas hang himself from a tree or a building? If a tree, was it on a cliff, a level spot, or a hill? How far did Judas fall? Did the hanging finish Judas off, or (as happens sometimes) did the rope break and he hit the ground headfirst?
Acts 1 mentioning Judas falling headfirst doesn’t necessarily mean he wasn’t hanging himself. A contributor to Biblical Hermeneutics Stack Exchange cited Richard Preston’s book The Wild Trees, which discusses what happens to a human body falling from a tree. Here is what Preston says in his first chapter:
“A distance of fifty feet above the ground is known to climbers as the redline. They hold it as a rule of thumb that if you fall fifty feet to hard ground you will very likely die. Indeed, an adult human can easily die after falling ten feet, if he lands on his head. A person who is dropping in free fall through space often turns upside down and falls headfirst. This happens because, with most people, the upper half of the body is heavier than the lower half, and so the person tips over and plunges downward, like an arrow with a weighed point.” (The Wild Trees, 14-15)
Granted, Preston describes people climbing giant trees (redwoods), and you’d have to ask an expert whether Israel has any 50-foot tree species. However, Preston’s point that human bodies rotate so they tend to fall headfirst, and that a 10-foot-fall can kill you at the wrong angle, makes an important point. Physics is complicated and unexpected factors lead to people dying in bizarre ways. So, depending on where and how Judas hanged himself, it’s conceivable that his body rotated so he was falling headfirst (at least until he got to the rope's end).
Another possibility is Luke could be describing what happened after Mathew’s description. As someone cut Judas’ body down, the body could fall headfirst, the organs bursting out on impact. James Bejon follows that argument and goes further: what if Mathew and Luke use different details to hearken back to Old Testament figures? Matthew routinely refers to Jesus as the “son of David” and makes Judas sound like David’s son Absolom (the close friend who commits treachery and who dies hanging from a tree). Luke keeps highlighting medical details (Jesus sweating blood, etc.), so he highlights Judas’ body rupturing (decomposing after his hanging). Also, Judas’ body left in a field sounds like Ahab and his son (Ahab kills Naboth for his field, 2 Kings 9 mentions Jehu killing Ahab's son and leaving the body in Naboth's field).
Bejon’s idea fits Ian Howard Marshall’s observation that Luke wasn’t just recording history: he was implying “that the story itself was of similar characters to the Old Testament scriptures” (18). Howard also weighs in on the alleged contradictions: “it is quite possible that Matthew or Luke is simply reporting what was commonly said in Jerusalem, and that we are not meant to harmonize the two accounts” (65). If we harmonize them, Howard suggests Judas' organs ruptured as his body decomposed. He also notes the religious leaders could have bought the field where Judas hanged himself, or “what the priests bought with Judas’s money (Mt.) could be regarded as his purchase by their agency (Acts)” (65).
What Can We Learn From the Field of Blood?
Depending on what we think Luke and Matthew’s intent was (were they reporting what others said or telling us what they had personally verified?), we get a very different picture of what happened to Judas. Our viewpoint will partly be informed by what we mean when we say Scripture is inerrant (can it dispassionately report someone’s urban legend and still be an error-free text?).
We also must admit that neither Matthew nor Luke give us a full picture of how Judas died. Without those details, it’s conceivable that the two accounts don’t contradict, but are simply each author focusing on what they consider most important. Either view we take, we must humbly admit what we do and don’t know. We can safely say that there’s not enough contradiction to accuse the Bible of being inaccurate.
We can also see that whatever way Judas died, his death shows the tragedy of Good Friday in a new way. Easter is not just a story about Jesus being condemned unjustly and dying in a terrible way. It is also the story of friendships betrayed and the betrayer only realizing after the fact what he'd actually done. Easter combines interpersonal pain with physical pain, starting with deep sadness before it moves on to deep happiness. The combination of darkness and light makes Easter the most shocking story ever told, as well as the greatest story ever told.
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Learn more about the meaning and significance behind the Easter holiday and Holy Week celebrations:
What is Lent? and When Does Lent Start?
What is Ash Wednesday? and When is Ash Wednesday?
What is Palm Sunday?
What is Maundy Thursday?
What is Good Friday? and When is Good Friday?
What is Holy Saturday?
What is Easter? and When is Easter Sunday?
Easter Bible Verses
The Resurrection of Jesus
Easter Prayers
