The Motives of Judas

It is usually assumed that Judas had a personal, self-serving motive for his actions. Most theologians state that it was his love of money that dictated his actions. And it is just a short jump from that plot line to that of the so-called "Gospel of Judas" that paints Judas as a co-conspirator with Yeshua/Jesus to make Yeshua a martyr.

But what if Judas had bigger motives? One of the big debates has often been what Iscariot means. I lean towards the Sicarii definition. There are a couple of reasons for this.

First, a fact often overlooked or unknown by Christian commentators is that during the time of Yeshua another Jewish messianic movement, called the Sicarii, fought in Judea against imperial Rome. This militaristic movement interpreted –- quite logically -- that the same prophecies that the Gospels claim envisioned Yeshua, actually predicted the coming of a warrior Messiah who would lead the Jews against Rome. (see note below)

The Sicarri are often linked with the Zealots as either a subset or parallel thinking group. We know that Yeshua had at least one Zealot as a disciple, Simon the Zealot. Some have even suggested that Simon and Judas were father and son, not a terrible stretch since John always refers to him as Judas, son of Simon. Therefore Judas being a Sicarii is not too remote a possibility.

Under their cloaks, the Sicarri concealed "sicæ," or small daggers, which is where they got their name. They believed that the Messiah would one day appear to lead the Jews against their oppressors, the Romans. They also believed that the Messiah would not come while there were still priests present. So, part of their actions as "dagger-men" was to kill the priests so that the Messiah would appear. Josephus gives at least one account of their killing a priest.

If Judas was a Sicarii and he expected the Messiah to be militant in his leadership, then his actions could be his way of removing another obstacle, or more logically, his way of prodding Yeshua to start his "campaign". After all, for someone who expected the Messiah to lead his people, Yeshua' teaching approach was not the style he wanted to see.

The question to ask is if Judas was only betraying Yeshua, then why would he feel remorse? Surely he would have known that the arrest would probably lead to death. However, if he truly thought that Yeshua was the Messiah that could lead the Jews against Rome, then he might feel remorse when he realized that he was the Messiah sent to suffer.

It seems likely that a Judas who was looking for a Messiah ben David, but found a Messiah ben Joseph, would feel remorse more than a Judas who sold out his rabbi for money. When you put Judas’s action into the context of the times that he lived and the expectations that the Zealots had, it changes the lesson that we should learn. And since Yeshua’ entire walk was his attempt to teach us, we should be asking ourselves what he wanted us to learn by his choosing Judas as a disciple.


The quote about the Sicarii above came from a site called Sikh Spectrum. The article was written to show that Christianity was a myth. The author’s view was that since there was already a messianic movement at the time of Yeshua, Christianity must have just been a take off of it. What the author fails to recognize was that many of the different Jewish groups were expecting a messiah to lead them over Rome. The Essenes, Pharisees and the Zealots all taught about a Davidic style messiah. Therefore Christianity, which has its roots these same Jewish groups, would be expected to have a similar messiah story.