Author Topic: Judas Iscariot (Read 7343 times)

Minister Polarius · « **Reply #25 on:** December 10, 2010, 01:45:25 AM »

Quote

Judas was faithful for a time

That's an assumption based on circumstantial evidence being held up against a mountain of reasons why he should be evil.

A lot of how who gets what alignment in Redemption seems to have to do with how people are most commonly known. Judas is obviously most commonly known for betraying the Messiah, so he gets evil. Whether he was good once is speculation, but that's not what he's known for. Saul is known for starting out well and ending evil, so he gets Good and Evil. David was known for being good and messing up big time every once in a while, so he gets only good.

Sometimes there is only one side of the card because the other hasn't been printed yet. I can easily see a Hero Manasseh eventually since his was a true repentance.

Sometimes it's a genuine mistake. There's just no way Joab should be a Hero and Abner should be an Evil Character. But the mistake is understandable since the political intrigue surrounding David is sometimes difficult to decipher.

All that to say, Judas may have once been good, but there's no mention of it in the Bible and plenty of mention of him being evil. He's also well known for being evil. So that's 2-0 against there being a good version.

Alex_Olijar · « **Reply #26 on:** December 10, 2010, 01:59:29 AM »

Judas is never portrayed personally positively, and is always portrayed personally negatively. Just because his group was good does not mean he was.

stefferweffer · « **Reply #27 on:** December 10, 2010, 08:28:17 AM »

I give up. My earlier assumption was obviously correct about how some will interpret scripture. Every time many people see Judas called a Disciple, or read about something good that all of the disciples said or believed, they are going to read into it "except Judas", despite the scriptures never adding this addendum. But Thaddeus we're OK with being a hero even though we're never told by name that he specifically did anything good, but because he was a "disciple" and some other disciples were good, Thaddeus must have been good. The inconsistency amazes me. We give hero cards to the 12 sons of Jacob without any hesitation, despite the only things we have on some of them being bad! It's just a game though, and I know that anyone can make a mistake. Like I said this is not what I had in mind when I created the card, but perhaps now you can see where I was coming from. Thanks.

Prof Underwood · « **Reply #28 on:** December 10, 2010, 11:07:30 AM »

I think both sides have made some really good points in this discussion.

It is true that Judas is included in the verses that talk about how the disciples believed in Jesus and taught others about Him, etc. So I think that there is good reason to believe that Judas was a hero at least at some point. But it is also true that he is more famous for being the traitor and killing himself at the end, which is why he is currently printed as an evil character.

It is true that Manasseh did repent and ended well. But it is also true that he is more famous for being one of the worst kings (and that's saying a lot) ever, which is why he currently is printed as an evil character.

I wouldn't mind both of these characters someday getting a reprint as a character of the opposite alignment. I also could see an evil character for King Solomon as he is also pretty well known for finishing poorly.

Daniel TS RED · « **Reply #29 on:** December 10, 2010, 11:21:51 AM »

Let's remember there is no-one that is Good except God. So it's not about good and evil. It's about if he was a believer or not. There are a lot of people who do good works and really could care less about the people they're helping, or do them in a self-serving way. Also athiests will do good works for society. It's all about if the person was a believer or not and has nothing to do with works.

Alex_Olijar · « **Reply #30 on:** December 10, 2010, 11:24:01 AM »

Quote from: stefferweffer on December 10, 2010, 08:28:17 AM

I give up. My earlier assumption was obviously correct about how some will interpret scripture. Every time many people see Judas called a Disciple, or read about something good that all of the disciples said or believed, they are going to read into it "except Judas", despite the scriptures never adding this addendum. But Thaddeus we're OK with being a hero even though we're never told by name that he specifically did anything good, but because he was a "disciple" and some other disciples were good, Thaddeus must have been good. The inconsistency amazes me. We give hero cards to the 12 sons of Jacob without any hesitation, despite the only things we have on some of them being bad! It's just a game though, and I know that anyone can make a mistake. Like I said this is not what I had in mind when I created the card, but perhaps now you can see where I was coming from. Thanks.

Thaddeus is good because he is part of a group considered to be good, and is never portrayed in a personally negative light. Judas was portrayed in a personally negative light, and never in a positive one (on a personal level) and never showed Godly repentance. I am not reading into anything in the Bible. I am reading where the Bible mentions Judas, realizing it never has anything good to say about him, and typing accordingly.

What you are arguing is essentially that because he was a member of a church (disciple) he should be a hero. I don't think that's a good thought at all. On top of that, try explaining to the mother of the 10 year old why Judas Iscariot, who many consider the guy most responsible for Christ' death (in a historical sense), is a hero and can be used to save souls when he himself was not even saved.

Minister Polarius · « **Reply #31 on:** December 10, 2010, 01:04:12 PM »

Furthermore, to answer your Thaddeus argument, there is documentation from early church history about the individual disciples following the ascension. So, yes, there is very good reason to believe Thaddeus and the rest of the "just in the lists" Disciples (except Judas) were personally saved.

To answer your "why doesn't Judas get included with the group" argument, if someone writes about how bad the Westboro Baptist Church is, and then you find elsewhere in his writing that the Baptist denomination is good, it's way more natural to assume he means "except Westboro Baptist." What would make more sense as a writer, to write "(except Judas)" every time you mention the disciples, or to just make sure you single Judas out at some point in your writing? Furthermore, I'm not even sure Greek has that kind of "except Judas" language. As far as I can remember, the New Testament doesn't use "except" or "excluding" in that way, and every time the word "except" comes up it means "unless." But that's just a guess and if I'm wrong on that it doesn't hurt my original argument that saying "except Judas" every time you mention the disciples is way more clunky than making very clear that Judas was an exception because he was evil.

stefferweffer · « **Reply #32 on:** December 10, 2010, 02:50:18 PM »

Quote from: Alex_Olijar on December 10, 2010, 11:24:01 AM

Quote from: stefferweffer on December 10, 2010, 08:28:17 AM
I give up. My earlier assumption was obviously correct about how some will interpret scripture. Every time many people see Judas called a Disciple, or read about something good that all of the disciples said or believed, they are going to read into it "except Judas", despite the scriptures never adding this addendum. But Thaddeus we're OK with being a hero even though we're never told by name that he specifically did anything good, but because he was a "disciple" and some other disciples were good, Thaddeus must have been good. The inconsistency amazes me. We give hero cards to the 12 sons of Jacob without any hesitation, despite the only things we have on some of them being bad! It's just a game though, and I know that anyone can make a mistake. Like I said this is not what I had in mind when I created the card, but perhaps now you can see where I was coming from. Thanks.

Thaddeus is good because he is part of a group considered to be good, and is never portrayed in a personally negative light. Judas was portrayed in a personally negative light, and never in a positive one (on a personal level) and never showed Godly repentance. I am not reading into anything in the Bible. I am reading where the Bible mentions Judas, realizing it never has anything good to say about him, and typing accordingly.

What you are arguing is essentially that because he was a member of a church (disciple) he should be a hero. I don't think that's a good thought at all. On top of that, try explaining to the mother of the 10 year old why Judas Iscariot, who many consider the guy most responsible for Christ' death (in a historical sense), is a hero and can be used to save souls when he himself was not even saved.

I am curious if you have the same problem with rescuing lost souls with King Saul and King Solomon, Simeon and Levi, Joab and others, or if it is just Judas being a hero (before his fall) that bothers you.

Warrior_Monk · « **Reply #33 on:** December 10, 2010, 03:17:01 PM »

Are you saying we should make every card evil/good, since at one point in their life they were evil?

King Solomon is known as a good king. No problems there. Yeah, he did some really stupid stuff, but still. (Which reminds me, I need to get back to the "Once Saved, Always Saved?" thread...)

Simeon and Levi? Just because they murdered some people? Levi had a covenant with God. I don't think he was "evil." Yeah, he did some really stupid stuff, but still.

Joab and King Saul is a decent argument, but somewhat irrelevant, since nobody uses those heroes anyway...

Personally, I'm against King Saul being a hero. He was God's anointed, but he was definitely only focused on himself, not God.
Not sure about where I stand on Joab.

Alex_Olijar · « **Reply #34 on:** December 10, 2010, 04:02:54 PM »

I agree with RW. Your standards state that all should be good and evil.

My problem with Judas being a hero is only that he never showed signs of repetance for his crime, was never protrayed to be a positive person beforehand (other than in group sequences where he went along with the group), and is largely seen as negative by most consumers of this game.

I would be against Evil Solomon (he repented at the end of his life and wrote Ecclesiastes). I am against good Saul. I am against Joab as a hero. I am ok with Simeon and Levi as heroes (with accurate abilities as well).

stefferweffer · « **Reply #35 on:** December 10, 2010, 04:07:33 PM »

Quote from: Ring Wraith on December 10, 2010, 03:17:01 PM

Are you saying we should make every card evil/good, since at one point in their life they were evil?

King Solomon is known as a good king. No problems there. Yeah, he did some really stupid stuff, but still. (Which reminds me, I need to get back to the "Once Saved, Always Saved?" thread...)

Simeon and Levi? Just because they murdered some people? Levi had a covenant with God. I don't think he was "evil." Yeah, he did some really stupid stuff, but still.

Joab and King Saul is a decent argument, but somewhat irrelevant, since nobody uses those heroes anyway...

Personally, I'm against King Saul being a hero. He was God's anointed, but he was definitely only focused on himself, not God.
Not sure about where I stand on Joab.

Um, around here in VA Solomon is NOT known as a good King. Have you read 1 Kings 11? Where did Solomon return to the Lord?
Have you read what Jacob prophesied about Reuben, Simeon and Levi in Genesis 49? "Just because they murdered some people"? Are you serious with this statement? Umm, yeah, "just" for that little matter of slaughtering innocent people that Jacob later judged them for. And Levi son of Jacob did NOT have a covenant with God - Levi the TRIBE did, and you can't say it had anything to do with the "faithfulness" of their forefather.

PLEASE try to understand this contradiction. It was pointed out to me that Judas is evil because we never read of him doing something good (which I disagree with by the way), but we read about him doing clearly evil things. If you can point me to a passage that says that Simeon and Levi were righteous, then I'll go along with that. But in the absence of this we definitely have BAD things written about them, but they are printed as heroes? Apparently its all in the genes, and if you are a child of Jacob you automatically achieve hero status. I'm 50/50 on Reuben and Judah. Reuben did want to spare Joseph's life, but later slept with one of his father's concubines (or maidservants - don't remember which). His father called him "unstable as water". As the oldest he should have received the double-portion, but it skipped the eldest 3 and went to Judah instead. Judah had relations with a woman he believed to be a harlot, only to find out it was his daughter in law. He also seems to have become more faithful over the years before they meet Joseph in Egypt.

To sum up, I just want more consistency in these cards. We can't just say "everything we read about him is bad", therefore we leave them an evil character, when the same case can be made for people like Simeon and Levi, who are heroes.

Alex_Olijar · « **Reply #36 on:** December 10, 2010, 04:13:47 PM »

And around here in PA Solomon was a great king. Thank you for introducing a logical fallacy to your argument.

You are right, Simeon and Levi aren't the greatest people. But, there are signs they showed more remorse than Judas ever did (it is very much implied that the sons of Jacob repented of selling Joseph).

Minister Polarius · « **Reply #37 on:** December 10, 2010, 04:15:11 PM »

A lot of it has to do with defaults. A son of Jacob will default to good as a patriarch of one of the tribes of God's chosen people. Making mistakes will generally not gain you EC status (Levi) unless you died as a result (Uzzah). There is strong evidence to suggest Solomon lived his life as an example of what not to do "All the white keeping my wisdom," and, again, as a king of united Israel who was not killed as a result of his mistakes, that would default to good. Saul was killed as a result of his mistakes, so I don't understand his inclusion as a Hero. Michael was not killed as a result of her mistakes, so I don't understand her inclusion as an Evil Character. However, for a lot of those cards, they came out in the pre-Kings era, before everything started getting tightened up.

Do you have any complaints about cards that were printed Kings forward (and were not reprints)?

Warrior_Monk · « **Reply #38 on:** December 10, 2010, 04:22:22 PM »

Good point with Simeon and Levi. I'd probably be against them being heroes. It's been awhile since I read Genesis though, haha.

You ignored Janissary's post.

Quote from: stefferweffer on December 10, 2010, 04:07:33 PM

Um, around here in VA Solomon is NOT known as a good King. Have you read 1 Kings 11? Where did Solomon return to the Lord?

Quote from: Alex_Olijar on December 10, 2010, 04:02:54 PM

I would be against Evil Solomon (he repented at the end of his life and wrote Ecclesiastes).

stefferweffer · « **Reply #39 on:** December 10, 2010, 04:39:04 PM »

Quote from: Alex_Olijar on December 10, 2010, 04:13:47 PM

And around here in PA Solomon was a great king. Thank you for introducing a logical fallacy to your argument.

You are right, Simeon and Levi aren't the greatest people. But, there are signs they showed more remorse than Judas ever did (it is very much implied that the sons of Jacob repented of selling Joseph).

Wow. Now I know that I should have left this alone several posts ago. Simeon and Levi cowering in fear before the second in command of all Egypt (Joseph) is evidence of remorse to you? Not only this, but you find this greater evidence of remorse than someone who confessed his sin, returned the wages of his betrayal, and even inappropriately killed himself because he did not feel capable of being forgiven? I'm sorry, but I have nothing more to convince you with. In my opinion, any ideology that says some men are just chosen by God for destruction through no fault of their own, with no hope of being saved no matter what they do or believe, despite us being told in the scriptures that God is not willing that ANY should perish and desires that all men come to repentance, is getting in the way of making any forward progress on this subject.

Warrior_Monk · « **Reply #40 on:** December 10, 2010, 04:49:25 PM »

Insulting people's theology isn't going to solve anything. Take that to open discussion if you want.

And on that note, I don't know who went and -1 all of the posts arguing against being Judas being a hero, but you shouldn't -1 because you disagree with them on a debatable matter. Maybe for poor logic, but most of those posts didn't deserve -1.

And FWIW, I agreed with you on Simeon and Levi. They never should have been printed as heroes. But they shouldn't be printed both as evil characters and heroes.

Inb4tehlockage

TheKarazyvicePresidentRR · « **Reply #41 on:** December 10, 2010, 05:08:25 PM »

I never did get why Joab was a hero. King Saul is iffy, but he ALSO has an evil character, so the point is truthfully moot.

On Judas' "remorse": Suicide is NOT a sign of remorse, returning the wages IS but remorse without change is a moot point, also when did he confess his sin as sin? I missed that.

stefferweffer · « **Reply #42 on:** December 10, 2010, 05:29:35 PM »

"Then when Judas, who had betrayed Him, saw that He had been condemned, he felt remorse and returned the 30 pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, saying 'I have sinned by betraying innocent blood." Matt.27:3-4

Alex_Olijar · « **Reply #43 on:** December 10, 2010, 06:01:17 PM »

Quote from: stefferweffer on December 10, 2010, 04:39:04 PM

Quote from: Alex_Olijar on December 10, 2010, 04:13:47 PM
And around here in PA Solomon was a great king. Thank you for introducing a logical fallacy to your argument.

You are right, Simeon and Levi aren't the greatest people. But, there are signs they showed more remorse than Judas ever did (it is very much implied that the sons of Jacob repented of selling Joseph).
Wow. Now I know that I should have left this alone several posts ago. Simeon and Levi cowering in fear before the second in command of all Egypt (Joseph) is evidence of remorse to you? Not only this, but you find this greater evidence of remorse than someone who confessed his sin, returned the wages of his betrayal, and even inappropriately killed himself because he did not feel capable of being forgiven? I'm sorry, but I have nothing more to convince you with. In my opinion, any ideology that says some men are just chosen by God for destruction through no fault of their own, with no hope of being saved no matter what they do or believe, despite us being told in the scriptures that God is not willing that ANY should perish and desires that all men come to repentance, is getting in the way of making any forward progress on this subject.

I'm sorry, but if I read that story, I see a group of brothers who sinned, who forgiven by Joseph, and then put aside their mistakes and ate and talked with him. Contrasting to Judas, who sinned, knew he sinned, and then killed himself rather than face judgement from God and repent and turn to him. Seems like there is a difference.

As for my theology, you completely got it wrong. It is entirely on the fault of their own that they are destroyed. It is only through the grace of God that you or I are not destroyed. We did and continue to do nothing to deserve that grace, and are given it only out of the love of the Father.

God is not willing that any may perish, yes, but he also is not willing that any sin, yet that continually occurs. I think you should probably check that statement with your own theology in order to be consistant.

TheJaylor · « **Reply #44 on:** December 10, 2010, 08:29:25 PM »

King Saul started out as a pretty good king so he has a hero with a reference of him doing something good and then he became evil and greedy in his heart and decided not to follow in the Lord's ways so then he has an evil character with a bad story in the reference. Now King Solomon was a great king to start out with very wealthy and wise, but then later he became prideful but never necessarily turned away from God he just didn't want to obey some of God's commands that would have caused him to be a better king as opposed to Saul who completely did not want to obey God and he hardened his heart in revenge against David. So Saul=Good but then very bad then Solomon=Great and then not as bad so he doesn't have an evil character

Warrior_Monk · « **Reply #45 on:** December 10, 2010, 11:10:39 PM »

Quote from: stefferweffer on December 10, 2010, 05:29:35 PM

"Then when Judas, who had betrayed Him, saw that He had been condemned, he felt remorse and returned the 30 pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, saying 'I have sinned by betraying innocent blood." Matt.27:3-4

He felt remorse, he knew he sinned, but he did not repent.

The M · « **Reply #46 on:** December 11, 2010, 10:57:41 AM »

Resolution to the argument:

Nobody knows if he repented, so we keep him evil as always.

News:

Author Topic: Judas Iscariot (Read 7343 times)

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