JUDAS AND THE POTTER'S FIELD.
By W. H. Littlejohn
BY ELD. W. H. LITTLEJOHN. That there is a seeming discrepancy between the statements found in Matt. 27:3–8 and Acts 1:18, few persons will be disposed to deny, and some have based thereupon an argument against the authenticity of the Scriptures themselves. Having been interrogated respecting the manner in which these apparent contradictions can be reconciled, I offer the following suggestions: Discrepancies of the nature of those under consideration are frequently allowed to have too much weight in determining the measure of our faith in the Scriptures. We are too apt to fasten our attention upon a single flaw in the record and to continue turning the subject over and over in our mind, until the difficulty becomes unduly magnified to that extent that we are ready to set aside the great mass of evidence by which the inspiration of the Bible is proved, and conclude that it is altogether unworthy of our confidence because we are unable to harmonize all its statements. Such a course is dangerous in the extreme, as any student of the word may learn by consulting his own experience. Who is there that has been an habitual reader of the Scriptures but can recall many difficulties of the nature of the one in question, which troubled him at one or another period in his life grievously, and yet which were subsequently entirely dispelled by the acquisition of additional light? Sometimes this light has come through the discovery of an imperfection in the translation; sometimes through the perception of the fact that his own theory was wrong, and sometimes from the knowledge of a failure on his part to place the right construction upon the language itself. But if these things be so, then prudence would surely dictate that the better course would be to lay hold of the pillars of our confidence with a firm grasp, believing that reflection, and the aid of the Holy Spirit obtained in answer to prayer, will in time bring us the desired relief. To do otherwise would be to act as the individual would who should refuse to believe that the sun is the source of light because of the dark spots that are found upon its surface. We now proceed to an examination of the passages which are supposed to contain the contradictory statements in question. They are as follows: “Then Judas, which had betrayed him, when he saw that he was condemned, repented himself, and brought again the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, saying, I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood. And they said, What is that to us? see thou to that. And he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, and departed, and went and hanged himself. And the chief priests took the silver pieces, and said, It is not lawful for to put them into the treasury, because it is the price of blood. And they took counsel, and bought with them the potter’s field, to bury strangers in. Wherefore that field was called, The field of blood, unto this day.” Matt. 27:3–8. The other text is as follows: “Now this man purchased a field with the reward of iniquity; and falling headlong, he burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed out.” Acts 1:18. In entering upon our work we concede frankly, that, after having examined several commentaries, we have not been able to find in them an explanation of these texts which has been wholly satisfactory to our own mind. We also admit that there is apparently a grave discrepancy in the two accounts, and one which enables the infidel to make quite a show of logic in his charge against the Bible, of historical inaccuracy. But let us move cautiously in the direction of our conclusions. Is there necessarily a contradiction here? We answer, That depends entirely upon whether it is possible that both of the accounts may be true. If by any fair inference we can conclude that Matthew and Peter—who otherwise have been found to be reliable and straightforward men—were in possession of facts which do not appear on the record, and which, if understood, would relieve the embarrassment of the situation, then they are entitled to the benefit of that conclusion. Who, for example, has not listened to the stories of two individuals who had witnessed the same transaction, and discovered in their statements, as given, apparent disagreements which were really serious in their nature, and which could be only satisfactorily disposed of after questioning had brought out additional explanations? Who, also, having witnessed the effect of explanations, would not feel, in every instance where two of his friends had given conflicting narrations of the same affair, that to each should be accorded the benefit of all doubts as to the possibility that certain additional facts would in due time be brought out, which would prove them to have been honest and correct in what they said? Giving, therefore, Matthew and Peter the advantage of the same charity which we extend to others, we inquire whether it is not possible that both of them have told the truth. In other words, is it not possible that Matthew was right in saying that the high priests bought the field with the money; and also that Peter was right in saying that Judas himself bought the field? In answering this question in the affirmative, as we shall do, we appeal to a known and universally acknowledged principle of the law which is formulated as follows: “Qui facit per alium, facit per se;” i. e., “He who acts through another, acts for himself;” i. e., There may be two or more parties to the same transaction, each of whom may be held responsible for a given action, and each may properly be said, in common parlance, to have done the deed in question. For example: It is a very common thing at the present time for men to state that Gen. Grant crushed the Southern rebellion. Now the statement is accepted as literally correct; and yet it would be equally admissible for one to say that the army crushed the rebellion, or to state that the president, under whom Gen. Grant acted, crushed the rebellion. Gen. Grant executed the orders of the executive, and, therefore, he may properly be said to have achieved the victory in question; or—from another standpoint—the president, who gave those orders, might be properly represented as the one who brought about the grand result. Now turning again to the matter of the purchase of the potter’s field, we readily perceive that if Judas gave his consent to the transaction, and the priests took the money and bought the field for a burial place, the inspired writers would be justified; the one in saying that Judas bought the field, and the other in saying that it was purchased by the priests. But can we supply the missing link in the chain of evidence? I answer, No. It is neither stated that Judas consented to the purchase of the field with the money, nor is it declared by any one that he refused to do so. We have preserved to us but a fragment of the conversation that occurred between him and the priests. We cannot tell what was said in addition to what has been recorded. We do not know but that several other interviews may have taken place concerning the matter before his final suicide. The priests did not know what to do with the money. They evidently debated the matter at length; and who shall say that in some of these conversations—or even during the one that is alluded to in the record—they might not have persuaded the conscience-smitten apostle to give his consent to the buying of the land, and that Peter, being made aware of the actual state of things, might not have spoken of Judas as the purchaser, from the fact that he reasoned as we reason at the present time, that what one does by another, he also does of himself? To our mind, this conclusion is much more natural and reasonable than it would be to impeach the characters of Peter and Matthew of dishonesty or inaccuracy, when the general tenor of their writings, after having stood the test of the criticism of ages, proves them to have been men of both intelligence and candor. Not only so, but we also conceive that in the very difficulty that has been raised there may be found strong presumptive evidence of the authenticity of the Scriptures themselves; since if Matthew never reconciled the statements which are found in his gospel that relate to this matter, and if Peter never uttered the words concerning the same which Luke attributed to him, then the accounts given are doubtless a forgery. But who does not perceive that an individual possessing sufficient shrewdness and capacity to produce out of his own brain the books which he has attributed to Matthew and Luke, must have been a man of too great acuteness to have failed to perceive the lack of harmony between the statements which he had put into the mouths of these two individuals; and that having perceived the same he would have corrected it, lest it should bring his work into disrepute? The fact, therefore, that the apparent discrepancy has been allowed to stand, is proof that the book of Matthew and the book of Acts were not the product of one mind; and that, having been written by two individuals, those individuals are in all probability the ones whose names are attached to them. RELIABILITY OF BIBLE RECORDS.
It is the peculiarity of the Bible, of the Old Testament especially, to be exceedingly minute in its details. It speaks very frequently of the topography of the countries to which it refers. It also speaks, with great carefulness apparently, concerning certain kingdoms and dynasties, certain emperors, and courts, and peoples. Now it has been impossible, up to within a few years, to verify these statements, and they have been of such an extraordinary nature that even scholars have looked upon them askance, and felt that some apology was possibly due in explaining them. Nineveh and Babylon are referred to again and again in the Old Testament, but Nineveh and Babylon are buried, and have been for ages. Those old dynasties have been blotted out by the on-coming armies from whose battle-spears the flag of victory floated. The dusts of time have settled down on the banks of the Euphrates, and buried its palaces out of sight. Since that time, the world has been very busy. The old Roman empire cracked, fell, crumbled, and was almost forgotten. Modern times, with the power of a mill-stream, came rushing on, its events flowing in inconceivable rapidity, and men cared nothing for the past, but everything for the future. Then the crusades filled men’s minds and hearts, and millions left their homes in Western Europe on a pilgrimage in which they carried the spear and the sword, and the result of which was victory in battle. They marched league after league, from country to country, until at last they stood on the hill-top that overlooked Jerusalem and the Holy Sepulcher. Then, next, came the printing-press, and our minds were so stirred and inspired by it, that nothing engaged attention except the immense advantages of every new day, and the golden possibilities that were within reach. So, for the last two thousand years and more, the world has been so busy in thinking of to-morrow, that it has forgotten all about yesterday. But thirty years ago, a scholar traveled along the banks of the Euphrates, and seeing these mounds, determined to unearth their secrets. At immense expense, and great pains, the work was partially achieved, and in this vast cemetery of history was found buried a palace. The excavations went on, until it was possible to enter the palace. It was sadly broken, to be sure, but yet enough remained to make us all glad and happy. The “Chamber of Records” was discovered, spoken of in the Old Testament, and in it were thousands of tablets, on which, as in so many volumes, the history of the past had been inscribed. They were written in an unknown tongue, but modern scholarship attacked the problem and solved it, and to-day the secret is being told. More and more is being discovered every year. Tablet after tablet, recording events hitherto unattainable, has been read, and, curiously enough, the Record Chamber found under those sands, corroborates the old story of Genesis, and in such a minute way that our confidence in the book, as a historical record, is put beyond a peradventure. For instance, in the fourteenth chapter of Genesis, we have an account of the invasion of60Palestine in the time of Abraham. Of course it has been until now impossible to verify the statements of the writer of this book, but within thirty years tablets have been found which have told the same story. Genesis has been vindicated by the inscriptions on the sandstone and marble which have been found in the Chamber of Records by the banks of the Euphrates. Is it not a curious fact that while science, with its strong hand, is trying to tear down, these researches are building up the Bible, and that while philosophy is calling in question some of the doctrines of the New Testament, these researches are corroborating even the details of the Old? It makes the Book still dearer to us, and I have no doubt that when all these tablets are found, and when they shall be read, one after another, we shall find such irresistible corroboration of Holy Writ that the Old Testament will blaze with a new light. We shall enjoy an increased faith in that Jehovah who guided and guarded the Israelites, and who was revealed as the world’s Father, by the life and the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ.—Hepworth.