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Talk:Judas Iscariot

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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Danny (talk | contribs) at 18:52, 24 June 2002 (the etymology of Iscariot - an explanation). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Iscariot may derive from sicari, or dagger-man , a cadre of Jewish rebels intent on driving the Romans out of Judea. Although Judas's name became synonymous with "betrayer," he may have turned Jesus in to the Romans because he felt Jesus had betrayed the rebel movement

I have a lot of doubts regarding both this etymology and the general perception of Jesus as some rebel leader. The rebellion against Rome (or rather, a civil war in Judaea) started in 66 A.D., more than 30 years after Jesus's supposed death. Moreover, anywhwere that I looked up, the name Iscariot is a corruption of ish qrayot (other transcriptions are possible), "a person from villages" / "a person from Qrayot". From a random Web search, the Catholic Encyclopedia seems to back me up on this. Any suggestions? --Uriyan

Ahalan, Uriyan! Looks like you beat me to it. SLR, what is the source of that etymology. It certainly does not work in the Hebrew/Aramaic and does not account for the initial I. In Hebrew, he has always (to the best of my knowledge) been known as Ish Kerayoth. Now, an article on the Sicarii (there are two i's) would be interesting. Danny

BTW, the idea of Jesus as a rebel leader is not a new one. It is a major theme in Asch's book The Nazarene. Danny

I will have to do some more checking on the etymology. I just remember several histories of Roman Judea describing, among the various factions (Pharisees, Saducees, Essenes) etc. a group of people called "sicarii" meaning basically insurectionists. Some of these books speculate (and I admit it is just that) that "iscariot" is derived from sicarii. I really thought this was common knowledge. By the way, the reversal of a vowel and consonant is common in language change. Today we call things that fly in the air "birds" even though the original word was "brids." Many today use the word "aks" to describe a question -- perhaps in a couple of centuries know one will say "ask" any more. This of course does not prove that the I and S in Judas's name was switched, but it opens the possibility.
As for the dating -- although a rebellion against Rome started in 66 CE, there was constant rebellious activity in Judea uner Roman occupation. You could say the rebellion started many years before Jesus' birth. For example, according to Josephus Herod the Great had two religious leaders executed for rebellion. In 6 CE Varus had two thousand rebels crucified. Around 48 CE two Galilleans were crucified for insurrection -- to choose "66" as a starting date is arbitrary, in this context. 66 marks the year that the rebellion became open and widespread.
In all 4 accounts in the NT, Pilate asks Jesus if he is "king of the Jews" -- the charge is sedition. Of course, there is good reason why this element of Jesus' career is toned down in the NT (although there are many textual indications of it): in the early years of Christianity (after 70, and especially after 135) Jews did not want Jewish Christians to go around preaching that Jesus would return as messiah. Once Christians turned principally to Gentiles, and gave up on converting many Jews, there was no sense to presenting Jesus as messiah in the Jewish sense (kick out the Romans, become king); a new notion of messiah would be more appealing to Gentile Romans, and this form of Christianity is expressed in the NT slrubenstein

By the way, I am not satisfied with the Catholic Encyclopedia as a definitive source. Aside from the fact that encyclopedias should rely on fresh research, and not other encyclopedias, for documentation, the Catholic Encyclopedia is obviously biased. I looked at the article and it does indeed assert that Iscariot means, without doubt, man of Keriot. But it does not provide an account of any academic debates (if there are any), nor does it provide the reasons for which it reaches this conclusion. In fact, the article (I only skimmed the rest of it) seems to rely entirely on NT quotes and references to Church Fathers. I didn't see any reference to contemporary texts or linguistics or anything else. slrubenstein

Hi, slr! First of all, I agree with you that the Catholic Encyclopedia is not the most reliable source. Nevertheless, I continue to hold that Iscariot is derived from the Hebrew Ish Kerayoth" for purely philological reasons. Here is the argument for it:

  1. The term Ish XXX, meaning "Man of XXX" was a common appellation at that time. Examples include Nahum of Gimzo (Nahum Ish Gimzo), a legendary Tanna who appears in the Mishnah, and John of Giscala (Yohanan Ish Gush Halav), who is described by Josephus as a rebel leader in the Galilee.
  2. While I accept the possibility of a consonantal shift in the name, there would have to be some evidence of this occurring in other, similar transliterations of names from Hebrew/Aramaic to Latin/English. I've worked on a lot of those texts professionally, and no such shift comes to mind. On the other hand, it is common in other languages: the Albanian national hero Skanderbeg was originally Alexander Bey, but the shift occurred in the Albanian itself, not in the transliteration.
  3. The Hebrew name for as far back as I can trace is Yehudah Ish Kerayoth, pronounced 'Ish [preceded by a glottal stop], Ke [the e representing a shewa] ra yoth. Stress is on the last syllable.
  4. To assume that the name is from Sicarii requires a) a consonantal shift of the i and the s to justify the Is syllable, justification for the ot syllable at the end of the word. Ot (really oth), by the way, is a common Hebrew suffix, indicating the plural, most often for the feminine gender.
  5. Iscariot does not require any of these explanations. The "Is represents the word Ish (the Hebrew letter shin used to represent the sh sound, is often used for the "s" sound as well, as in Yisrael/Israel. Furthermore the transliteration system began before the formalization of sh as representing that sound in English. Cariot is almost the exact equivalent of Kerayoth (say it fast a couple of times), with a simple shift of stress to the first syllable because of the addition of the suffix Ish. The stress shit can be attributed to the prefixed "Is."
  6. The letters "sc" as transliteration appear again in the aforementioned Giscala, which is Gush Halav, the initial H being a guttural het. C appears in transliteration in place of certain sounds close to "k". Halav is sometimes transliterated chalav to represent the sound, while kerayoth is, more properly, qerayoth.
  7. In all other of transliterations of biblical or mishnaic Hebrew, an initial letter I indicates the combination yod hiriq, combining to form the syllable yi. That does not exist in Sicarii
  8. Apart from the historical vilification of Judas Iscariot, what evidence is there that he also belonged to a secretive band of assassins?

Sorry if it's kinda technical, but you asked about the linguistics … By the way, the Bible and later the Mishnah are full of false etymologies, intended to provide some insight into the character of the person or object. Sicarii as a source for Iscariot could well be one of those. Danny

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