The Peter discussion has petered out. hehe
Yeah, I think so, but I may post again on this subject once I've digested the ideas from this very interesting and provocative book I'm reading on the distinctive Petrine teachings of Jewish-Christianty.
Leolaia
JoinedPosts by Leolaia
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Simon, Cephas, Peter, Judas, Thomas, Didymus
by Leolaia inthis post is in response to peacefulpete's interesting post from my king david thread, which i quote below: .
leolaia...if you look again at 1cor you'll see peter is not there only an ebionite named cephas is.
the only reference to "peter" in any of "pauline" works is gal 2:7 and it is an interpolation made for the very reasons being discussed.
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Leolaia
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Simon, Cephas, Peter, Judas, Thomas, Didymus
by Leolaia inthis post is in response to peacefulpete's interesting post from my king david thread, which i quote below: .
leolaia...if you look again at 1cor you'll see peter is not there only an ebionite named cephas is.
the only reference to "peter" in any of "pauline" works is gal 2:7 and it is an interpolation made for the very reasons being discussed.
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Leolaia
My take is that there is no "truth" to find in "origins", whatever they are. But the inner logic and interaction of texts amazes me, no matter where they come from (we may never know).
Sounds a lot like your fellow Frenchman Derrida :)
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The Rainbow and the Flood?
by Blueblades inthere is evidence that the flood of noah's day was local.why then does the account mention that the rainbow is a visible sign from jehovah,a covenant promise that no more would "all flesh" be cut off by waters of a deluge,and no more would there occur a deluge to bring the earth ( land ) to ruin.
( genesis 9:11 - 16 ).. some commentators say that the rainbow had been seen before this and that the flood was only local.that being the case and from all the evidence presented here and on the internet,i believe that it was a local flood.
.why then this rainbow covenant,that never again would man be cut off and the earth, ( land ) be brought to ruin,when we see so much local flooding around the world and man being cut off and the land being ruined today?.
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Leolaia
The short answer is that the theme of the "rainbow" comes from Near Eastern mythology.
The Hebrew word qesheth used in Genesis 9:13-15 is actually the word for "bow" as in archery, there is no separate word for "rainbow" in Hebrew. The only other occurrence of qesheth in the sense of "rainbow" is in Ezekiel 1:28 -- all other uses of the word in the OT refer to a physical bow (cf. Genesis 27:3, 48:22, 49:24; Joshua 24:12; 1 Samuel 2:4, 18:4; 2 Samuel 1:22, 22:35; 1 Kings 22:34; 2 Kings 6:22, 9:24, 13:15-16; 1 Chronicles 5:18, 8:40, 12:2, etc. etc.).
The concept of Yahweh's bow derives from Canaanite mythology -- the storm god Baal was identified with Yahweh in early Israelite religion, so that many of the epithets and motifs of Baal which are known from Canaanite myths were later applied to Yahweh. This is especially the case with meterological language. Yahweh is most clearly described as the source of rain and storm in 1 Samuel 12:18, Psalm 29, 77:16-18, Job 28:25-38, Jeremiah 3:3, 5:24, 10:13, 51:16, Amos 4:6-7, Haggai 1:7-11, and Zechariah 10:1. In Canaanite texts, Baal rides a winged war chariot (cf. 2 Kings 2:11, 6:17; Psalm 18, 65:12), riding against his enemies with his divine horses (cf. Habakkuk 3:8, 15), both Baal and Yahweh are given the epithet rkb 'rpt "Cloud Rider" (Deuteronomy 33:26; Psalm 68:4, 104:3; cf. Psalm 18:9-14 and 68:33, "Rider of the Heavens"), both are descibed as a bull or calf or with bovine imagery ("the bull of Jacob" in Genesis 49:24; Psalm 132:2, 4 and "the bull of Joseph" in Deuteronomy 33:17), both battle against the seven-headed Chaos sea monster variously named Lotan/Leviathan, Yam, Rahab, "the fleeing serpent" (Job 3:8, 26:21-13, Psalm 65:7, 74:13-14; 89:10, 104:26; Isaiah 11:15, 27:1, 51:9; cf. also Revelation 12:7-9, 15, 17:3, 21:1; 4 Ezra 6:49-52, Testament of Moses 10:6; Odes of Solomon 22:5), both fight against the Sea with Resheph in their entourage (Habakkuk 3:5-8), both have a divine mountainous abode (Exodus 15:13; Psalm 46:5, 87:1; Joel 4:17), the holy mountain in both cases is called Zaphon (Psalm 48:2-3; Isaiah 14:13; cf. Psalm 20:2 in the Aramaic version and Psalm 27:4-5 which puns on the name Zaphon in the Hebrew).
Most significantly, in both cases thunder is described as their voice (Exodus 19:19; 2 Samuel 22:14; Job 37:4, 40:9; Psalm 29:3-9, 68:33; Isaiah 30:30) and lightning is described as their arrows (2 Samuel 22:15; Psalm 18:14; Psalm 144:6; Habakkuk 3:11; Zechariah 9:14). Examples from the OT:
"He shot arrows and scattered the enemies, bolts of lightning and routed them." (2 Samuel 22:15)
"Yahweh thundered from heaven, the Most High made his voice heard; he let his arrows fly and scattered them, launched the lightnings and routed them." (Psalm 18:13-14)
"The voice of Yahweh shatters the cedars, Yahweh shatters the cedars of Lebanon, making Lebanon leap like a calf, Sirion like a young bull. The voice of Yahweh sharpens lightning shafts....The voice of Yahweh sets the terebinths shuddering, stripping the forests bare. The God of glory thunders." (Psalm 29:5-9)
"Yahweh will appear above them and his arrow will flash out as lightning. The Lord Yahweh will sound the trumpet and advance in the storms of the south." (Zechariah 9:14)
Similarly, in the Baal epic, Baal's chief weapons are lightning bolts and thunder is his voice: "Now is the season of his rains may Baal indeed appoint, the season of his storm-chariot. And the sound of his voice from the clouds, his hurling to earth of lightning flashes" (KTU 1.4 v 6-9), "Baal opened a rift in the clouds; his holy voice Baal gave forth; Baal repeated the issue of his lips. At his holy voice the earth quaked," (KTU 1.4 vii 25-35), "Seven lightning-flashes and eight bundles of thunder, a cedar of lightning in his right hand" (KTU 1.101 R 1-5), etc. In the Baal epic, the craftsman god Kothar fashions him the lightning-weapon (zmd) that Baal uses to kill his foe Lotan/Yam; while not a bow, it is a weapon that utilizes Baal's power over lightning. This forms a parallel with Zeus' thunderbolts as fashioned by Cyclopes, the son of the craftsman-god Hephaistos. Another parallel may be found in the Rig Veda, which tells of Indra defeating Virtra with thunderbolt arrows forged by the divine craftsman Tvashtr. The name of Baal's weapon, zmd or Zamad, can be found in Phoenician inscriptions which refer to "Baal of the zmd," and a late vestigal survival of this epithet can be found in an obscure epithet of Allah in the Quran: allahu s-samadu "Allah is Al-Samad" (Surah 112). In Ugarit legend, the craftsman god Kothar also fashions a divine bow for Aqhat, the son of the mighty and wise king Danel and the war goddess Anat becomes jealous and wants the bow for herself and she ends up killing Danel's heir. This story was also well-known to the Israelites and Ezekiel alludes to it (or a later Israelite version of it) several times.
In this context, when the rains of a storm have ended, the storm god hangs up his bow in the heavens to show that it is no longer being used and the rains have stopped. This is the notion in Islam, where the rainbow is called qaws-e-quzah, the Bow of Quzah. In ancient Arab folklore, the rain god Quzah shoots arrows from his bow and then hangs it up in the clouds. As Islam developed, the old pagan gods were turned into demons under monotheism (quite similar to what happened in post-exile Judaism), and Quzah became a demon -- which promoted a change in the name of "rainbow" to the Bow of Shaitan (an angel) or qawsuallah, the Bow of Allah. Another parallel can be found in the Babylonian creation epic Enuma Elish, where Marduk's bow, which had been used against Tiamat (the Babylonian equivalent of Lotan/Yam), was set in the heavens as a constellation. In the Rig Veda, the battle-bow of Indra, after his contest with the demons, was laid aside in the clouds as a rainbow. In the Rainbow Covenent in Genesis 9, Yahweh says: "I set my bow in the clouds and it shall be a sign of the Covenant between me and the earth. When I gather the clouds over the earth and the bow appears in the clouds, I will recall the Covenant between myself and you" (9:12-15). The concept is that the bow Yahweh used to open the floodgates of heaven is lodged once and for all in the clouds, and will remind Yahweh every time he makes it rain to never use it again to flood the earth.
And incidentally, the Flood is conceived in the narrative as a universal flood since text claims that "Yahweh destroyed every living thing on the face of the earth" (Genesis 7:23) and Genesis 10 presents all the nations of the world as the descendents of Noah's children. There is of course no concept of a global Flood however since the ancient Israelites had no idea the world was so large. Even the local Flood of the Sumerian and Babylonian tales is presented as a universal Flood, as if the entire world was the land of Sumer. And presumably there were no rainbows before the Flood because Genesis 2:2-6 states that "Yahweh God had not sent rain on the earth" and the earth was watered not from above by from water "rising from the earth and watering all the surface of the soil."
Leolaia
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Genesis 6:3
by Globetrotter ini know that this has been talked about already under a different context, but i had another question about it.... .
the december 15 wt claims that genesis 6:3 started a 120 year countdown to the flood.
our watchfulness takes on greater urgency .
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Leolaia
Yerusalyim......Yeah, I was waiting for years and years and years for a documentary to take that approach on Noah's Flood....finally! The main problem, though, is that they don't fully separate the possible "real story" from any preexisting Flood stories the Sumerians might have had from living for hundreds of years along the Tigris and Euphrates. I have wondered whether such a Flood might have come right at the transition of the Ubaidian and Sumerian civilizations -- that the flood crippled Ubaidian society, allowing the Sumerians to move right in and take over the culture. The Sumerian king list places the Flood right before their dynasties, and view the antediluvian kings as mainly from Eridu which as I recall fits better with the Ubaidian civilization. The names of the cities and toponyms in Sumeria also, incidentally, are Ubaidian and not of Sumerian origin. The obvious question would be whether the thick silt layer at Ur (and other cities, from what I recall) corresponds chronologically to this change in culture or whether it instead intervenes in the middle of Sumerian deposits instead of at the boundary between Sumerian and Ubaidian strata.
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Genesis 6:3
by Globetrotter ini know that this has been talked about already under a different context, but i had another question about it.... .
the december 15 wt claims that genesis 6:3 started a 120 year countdown to the flood.
our watchfulness takes on greater urgency .
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Leolaia
Was Goliath's daddy an angel? Hmm...
Goliath was presented as a Philistine, but indeed in Numbers the words "Nephilim" and "Rephaim" are used to describe some of the gigantic inhabitants of the land who preceded the Israelites. In ancient Canaanite lore, the Rephaim were the primeval legendary kings of old, were somewhat divine, and presently reside in Sheol. The Hebrew texts that present the Nephilim and Rephaim as still living knew nothing of a Flood, which was a later accretion to their primeval history. The Israelites adopted the Canaanite legends about these "men of old, men of renown," one of whom was possibly Nimrod (he was separated from the Nephilim story when the Flood legend was added to the primeval history, but he was described in Genesis 10:8 as the "first gibbor on the earth" and the Nephilim in Genesis 6 are also described as gibbor "mighty ones"). Another famous Rephaim of old was the wise king Danel, who in a Canaanite epic poem fought to have his dead son Aqhat brought back to life, and this Danel was alluded to several times in Ezekiel as an ancient hero of old. In later Jewish tradition, as the Nephilim and Rephaim were associated with fallen angels, Danel was construed as one of the fallen angels (1 Enoch 6:7).
I have written a bunch of threads on this subject in the Bible discussion folder.
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What is it with British accents?
by Aztec infirst, i must say they are very attractive.
i just got off of the phone with two british guys and i spent most of the time saying "what?
" they talk so fast!
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Leolaia
I always thought the silliest thing in British English was the word "hire" meaning "to rent"....I'd like to hire a car....Hire it to do what? Take you places and stuff? And just how much are you gonna pay the car to do all this for you? At least the car should be paid more than minimum wage, huh?
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What is it with British accents?
by Aztec infirst, i must say they are very attractive.
i just got off of the phone with two british guys and i spent most of the time saying "what?
" they talk so fast!
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Leolaia
Good grief. It's "A" to "Z" as everyone knows. You know, Ay to Zed.
Oh nooo....how can you sing the ABCs when Zed doesn't rhyme with anything? QRS (ess) .... TUV (vee) ... wx (eks) ... y and z (zee), now I know my ABCs (sees), why don't you sing with me (mee). It has a nice rhyming pattern (AB CB BB) that is totally ruined by ZED!
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Simon, Cephas, Peter, Judas, Thomas, Didymus
by Leolaia inthis post is in response to peacefulpete's interesting post from my king david thread, which i quote below: .
leolaia...if you look again at 1cor you'll see peter is not there only an ebionite named cephas is.
the only reference to "peter" in any of "pauline" works is gal 2:7 and it is an interpolation made for the very reasons being discussed.
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Leolaia
My comment referred specifically to the use of the grammatical construction as an interrogative. According to the reference I was using, it's simply not attested aside for a solitary ambiguous instance. It is of course possible that the claim was overstated.
As for when the exegetical tradition arose, it must have preceded the written gospels and so the process must have developed for some time before the 70s when Mark was published. Paul indulges in midrashic interpretation in Romans (cf. 9:25-33 and 10:5-21 on justification in Christ), Galatians (cf. 3:10-14 on crucifixion and justification), and other texts, but his focus is on fleshing out his mystical doctrine of Christ and not the events of Jesus' life to prove him as the Christ. Hebrews and Barnabas do the same, but take a more concrete step in turning Christ's role as paschal lamb into events from Jesus' passion. Revelation is also dependent on the paschal tradition but seems to take this notion in a rather different direction. My guess is that the exegetical method that resulted in the elaborated narratives of the gospels (particularly in the paschal vein) began very early in the Jewish-Christian or Nazorean tradition, as a device to recruit converts from Pharisaic Judaism (in this sense the Petrine speeches in Acts might reproduce the Jewish-Christian method); it would be among adherents of, or those familiar with the levitical tradition that this conception of Jesus would most appeal. This motive behind the exegetical method makes more sense than construing it as a Judaizing reaction against gnosticism.
On Peter-Cephas being an "empty shell" to be filled with subsequent tradition and theology, I could say that is applies as well to most of the other figures in the gospels (e.g. Levi Matthew, Thomas, Mary Magdalene, Salome) who appear in early gnostic texts only as launching-boards to elicit Jesus logia but were subsequently fleshed out for ideological purposes: such as the story of "Thomas" in the Gospel of John that was designed to refute docetic doctrine or the "Levi" of the Gospel of Mary as the defender and evangelist of Mary's gospel. Still, I find Lapham's thesis quite plausible that Peter-Cephas did have a distinctive teaching and doctrine in the Jewish-Christian vein that was preserved in the Eastern Petrine writings.
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Simon, Cephas, Peter, Judas, Thomas, Didymus
by Leolaia inthis post is in response to peacefulpete's interesting post from my king david thread, which i quote below: .
leolaia...if you look again at 1cor you'll see peter is not there only an ebionite named cephas is.
the only reference to "peter" in any of "pauline" works is gal 2:7 and it is an interpolation made for the very reasons being discussed.
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Leolaia
Robert, here's my short answer....
The Bible is a collection of diverse writings that did not become a single book, or codex, until the early centuries A.D. Before that, it was a library of scrolls that varied by community. The Pharisees had a fairly fixed canon of the Torah, Prophets, and Writings that rejected the later Greek-language apocrypha. The Jews of the Diaspora reading the Septuagint included the apocrypha and the many early Christians accepted the apocrypha as well. The Essenes in Palestine combined the Law and Prophets and Writings with their own sectarian documents, as well as pseudepigrapha like 1 Enoch and Jubilees. The canon of the New Testament also varied, with various churches accepting certain disputed books and other churches rejecting them. One of the earliest codexes of the entire Bible included 1 Clement and the Shepherd of Hermas. Eventually the orthodoxy settled on what books were considered scripture and which were not, and for a thousand years the Catholic Church accepted the Old Testament with the apocrypha and the New Testament with its current boundaries, but during the Reformation the Protestants threw out the apocrypha from their Bible so that to this day Catholic Bibles differ from Protestant versions.
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Simon, Cephas, Peter, Judas, Thomas, Didymus
by Leolaia inthis post is in response to peacefulpete's interesting post from my king david thread, which i quote below: .
leolaia...if you look again at 1cor you'll see peter is not there only an ebionite named cephas is.
the only reference to "peter" in any of "pauline" works is gal 2:7 and it is an interpolation made for the very reasons being discussed.
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Leolaia
Your reference to Judah being the model for the Judas arrest story is very likely true. This however does not suggest that the story was not a rewrite of an earlier arrest story that had a woman (Martha?) as the betrayer. (kiss very tenderly..... what are you doing here? Matt 26:49,50) This seems to contradict the rewrite that Jesus foreknew the arrest that night and that judas in the image of Judah was the betrayer.
First of all, Jesus was not asking Judas why he was there in Matthew 26:50 because it is not in the form of a question. Literally, what Jesus says is: "Friend, on what you are here" (hetaire, eph' ho parei), and ho is a relative pronoun and is never used in Greek to introduce a direct question; an interrogative such as ti "for what reason" is what is used instead in such questions (e.g. Ti elthate pros me "Why did you come to me?", Genesis 26:27, LXX). This is why translators tend to treat the sentence as an imperative but with the verb deleted (possibly through a scribal error), meaning "[do that] on what you are here". This is suggested also by a similar saying of Jesus to Judas in John 13:27 where he tells him, "What you do, do quickly." John places this saying in the context of the Last Supper where he shows foreknowledge of the betrayal in much the same way as his declaration in Matthew 26:21-24. Another theory is that eph' ho is an idiom related to the notorious passage in Romans 5:12 which reads "Just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, eph' ho death spread to all men because all have sinned." What is controversial is whether eph' ho designates Adam's sin as the cause of death's spread, meaning "by such means," or whether the phrase is just an expression meaning "and so" or "thus" which doesn't directly denote cause and effect but merely that a situation is subsequent to another. The evidence for the latter reading is better than the first. In this light, Jesus' utterance could more simply be read not as a question or a request but rather as a sardonic statement: "Thus you're here" or "And so you're here," which implies that that Judas' presence there was just as expected, the next subsequent event in an unfolding process. In either case, Jesus does not show surprise at Judas' betrayal -- quite the opposite in fact is implied.
Now about that kiss -- from what you wrote, I gather that designating a woman as the betrayer resolves a problem of why a man is giving Jesus such a "tender kiss". But the text as it reads is only to be expected from the OT sources that are used to construct the narrative. I refer again to the story of King David's betrayal in 2 Samuel 14-17. The connection between David and Jesus, the Davidic Messiah, is obvious throughout the interpretive tradition. In the original story, David is betrayed by his son Absalom who launches his revolt by exchanging a kiss with him (2 Samuel 14:33). Absalom however is assisted in his revolt by one of David's most trusted counselors, Ahithophel, who conspires with Absalom to remove David from the throne (2 Samuel 15:12, 31). It is Ahithophel who most clearly resembles the Judas of the gospel tradition. Like Jesus, David flees during the night across the Kidron ravine (2 Samuel 15:23 = John 18:1), and goes to the Mount of Olives (2 Samuel 15:30 = Mark 14:26), where he prays to God and weeps (2 Samuel 15:30-32 = Mark 14:32-34). David is accompanied with Ittai the Gittite who refused to leave him and who, like Peter, swore an oath to never forsake him (2 Samuel 15:19-31 = Mark 14:27-31). David tells two of his companions, Abiathar and Zadok, that he is ready to accept whatever fate God gives him and declares, "Let him do to me what seems good to him," while Jesus tells God in his prayer: "It is not what I want but what you want that matters" (2 Samuel 15:25-26 = Mark 14:36). Then Ahithophel, David's trusted counselor, meets with Absalom to conspire the capture and assassination of David. In making his proposal to Absalom, Ahithophel says: "You are only asking for the life of one man, which will bring peace to all the people," and this is strikingly similar to what Caiaphas says when he hatches the plot to have Jesus killed: "It is prudent for you that one man should die for the people, so that the whole nation should not perish" (2 Samuel 17:1-3 = John 11:49-52). Ahithophel wants to capture David that very night so that "all the people who are with him will take flight, then I shall strike down the king alone," and similarly Jesus cites Zechariah 13:7 which foretells: "I will strike down the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered" (2 Samuel 17:2 = Mark 14:27). Ahithophel's plan was rejected by Absalom in favor of the advice of Hushai, David's loyal friend, and ashamed of what he did, Ahithophel returns home and hangs himself (2 Samuel 17:5-19, 23 = Matthew 27:3-10).
On the basis of the above, 2 Samuel 14-17 clearly played a key role in constructing the plot of the Passion narrative. No clear motivation for Ahithophel's betrayal is stated, other than to bring peace and order (17:3), but Ahithophel clearly wasn't a lover or wife of David or someone who had a personal relationship that ended in jealousy; his role was much closer to Judas, as a trusted confidant of one's inner circle who decided to switch sides and conspire with the enemy. Joseph's betrayal by Judah, similarly, involved his brother and not a lover, wife, or someone jealous about him loving someone else. Both these stories suggest that the betrayer was crafted from the beginning as someone like Judas, a fellow brother, a member of Jesus' inner circle of disciples; the idea that Jesus' betrayer was a woman motivated by heart-break and jealousy appears only as an interpretive epiphenomenon suggested only through the combination of originally separate stories in the most recent redacted version of the Gospel of John (where only the story of Lazarus is reported), and not as something that belonged to the earliest strata of the common gospel traditions. Rather, the trope of a betrayal in the first place follows not from the combination of certain narrative stories in a finished narrative gospel but from the "suffering servant" prophecy in Isaiah 53:12 which claims that "he was handed over to die". This bare statement was then embellished into a story by adding four principal motifs from the OT. The first was the claim that the betrayer would gain thirty silver pieces from his conspirators which would later be returned to the Temple. This motif was derived from two sources: Judah's betrayal of Joseph in Genesis 37:26-38 and the prophecy in Zechariah 11:12-14:
"Then Judah said to his brothers, 'Come, let us sell him to the Ishmaelites, but let us not do any harm to him.' .... Now some Midianite merchants were passing, and they drew Joseph up out of the well. They sold Joseph to the Ishmaelites for twenty pieces of silver, and these men took Joseph to Egypt." (Genesis 37:26-38)
"They weighed out my wages: thirty shekels of silver. But Yahweh told me, 'Throw it into the treasury, this princely sum at which they have valued me.' Taking the thirty shekels of silver, I threw them into the Temple of Yahweh, into the treasury. I then broke my second staff, Union, in half, to break the brotherhood between Judah and Israel." (Zechariah 11:12-14)
The Genesis account also inspired the name of the betrayer as Judas (Gk. for Judah). Joseph was sold as a slave for twenty pieces but since Exodus 21:32 mandates the price of a slave as thirty shekels, the latter figure is what is used in Matthew. The other gospelists only refer to "money". Matthew also has Judas throw the money back to the priests in the Temple (27:3-10), borrowing the other motif from Zechariah. Luke, on the other hand, does not draw on either motif from Zechariah and claims that Judas used the money to buy a field (Acts 1:18). The interpretation of these sources, therefore, furnish the story of Judas' conspiracy before the Last Supper and what he did after Jesus' arrest.
The second key element drawn through the exegetical tradition was of the betrayer sharing a meal with Jesus, in this case the last meal. This was derived directly from Psalm 41:9:
"Even my bosom-friend, whom I trusted, who ate of my bread, has raised his heel against me." (Psalm 41:9)
The tradition of the Last Supper and the Eucharist already existed independent of the later Passion narrative, and Psalm 41:9 motivated the addition of the theme of betrayal to the Last Supper tradition. 1 Corinthians 11:23-27 indicates that this happened very early, unless we regard this text as a later interpolation which is possible (the form reproduces almost exactly the Lukan phrasing). This text thus inspired the story of what happened with Judas during the Last Supper. The third key element to the betrayal story, as discussed above, was the betrayal of David by Absalom and Ahithophel in 2 Samuel 14-17. This story provided the plot of what happened in between the Last Supper and Jesus' arrest, as well as the end of Judas' story via suicide. Finally, the fourth and final element inspired what Judas did during the arrest itself -- that is, the infamous kiss. There are several literary sources of this motif. The concept of a traitorous kiss may have been inspired by the proverbs in Proverbs 26:24 and 27:6:
"Where hatred is, there are dissembling lips but deep within lies treachery....From one who loves, wounds are well-intentioned; from one who hates, kisses are ominous." (Proverbs 27:6)
The pairing with kisses and betrayal also occurs repeatedly in 2 Samuel, the source of other elements in the betrayal story. First, as I already mentioned, Absalom and David kiss immediately before Absalom launches his revolt (2 Samuel 14:33). Then, while Absalom was hatching his conspiracy against David, he "stole the hearts of the men of Israel" by doing this: "Whenever anyone came up to do homage to him, he would stretch out his hand and take him and kiss him." (2 Samuel 15:5-6). But the most significant kissing story in 2 Samuel was one that occurs in ch. 20, during a second revolt against David. According to 2 Samuel 20:2, "all the men of Israel deserted David and followed Sheba son of Bichri," and David declares that "Sheba son of Bichri is more dangerous to us than Absalom ever was" (v. 6). The story therefore parallels somewhat the story of Absalom and Ahithophel. The former general of Absalom's army, David's nephew Amasa, was appointed by the king to find those in Judah loyal to the king's authority but he was betrayed by his brother Joab who came to him with kisses:
"Joab said the Amasa, 'Are you okay, my brother?' And with his right hand (kheir he dexia) he seized (ekratesan) Amasa by the beard to kiss him tenderly (kataphilesai). Amasa paid no attention to the sword (ten makhairan) Joab was holding, and Joab struck (epaisen) him with it in the belly and spilled his entrails to the ground (kai exekhuthe he koilia autou)." (2 Samuel 20:9-10; LXX)
The first verse may be readily compared with Mark 14:45-46: "He immediately went to him saying 'Rabbi!' and kissed him tenderly (kataphilesen). And they laid hands (tas kheiras) on him, and seized (ekratesan) him." The wording is very close, even in the use of the intensified verb kataphilesai "to kiss tenderly". The next verse (v. 47) continues the parallel with its use of language from the first half of 2 Samuel 20:10: "But then a certain one of those who stood by drew his sword (ten makhairan) and struck (epaisen) the slave of the high priest." The resemblance between the two texts is exceedingly close. Yet this is not all. Luke's version of Judas' suicide (Acts 1:18) draws imagery not from Ahithophel's hanging but Amasa's assassination: "Falling headlong, he burst open in the middle and all his entrails gushed out (kai exekhuthe panta ta splakhna autou). Even the "falling headlong" part finds inspiration from the Amasa story: according to 2 Samuel 20:8, "the sword came out and fell (kai epesen)."
I thus see very little in the Judas story that could be projected back to the stage of the narrative traditions that preceded the exegetical interpretation that recruited these motifs and tropes to construct the betrayal story. At the earliest stage, there could well have been oral traditions about Jesus' betrayer that were independent from the Judas story in the gospels, perhaps even involving a female disciple, and stories based not on exegetical traditions but living memory. But if any such stories existed, they were early on replaced by the construction of the Judas story from OT traditional materials.