TRANSLATION MATTHEW 26:14

Then one of the Twelve, called Judas Iskariot, went to the chief priests and said, “What are you willing to give me if I hand him over to you?” They gave him thirty silver pieces; and from then on he looked for an opportunity to hand him over.

My judgement is that although Jesus’ prophecy of his own rejection and death is authentic, the detail that has accrued to it is not. My guess is that Jesus had not necessarily expected disloyalty, and that the treachery has been read back into the prophecy by the bearers of the tradition and the gospel writers. Matthew gives no hint at all as to Judas’ motive. The only attempt to do so in John’s Gospel is unconvincing; that he’d been stealing from the common purse of the Twelve. Clearly, Matthew sees it as an evil action, but he does not separate it wholly from all the other actions and inactions which brought about the death of Jesus.

The 30 silver pieces are best estimated to add up to three months average wages at the time – a tidy sum but more indicative of contempt that of willingness to pay top dollar. Scholars have wondered whether Matthew saw a special meaning in the sum. In 27: 10 he links it to a prophecy about the purchase of a potter’s field as a burial ground for foreigners. His motive however seems to be simply that the actions and fate of Judas should be seen as part of the divine plan. He says the prophecy is Jeremiah but in fact it’s Zechariah, 30 silver pieces was also conventional amount for the redemption of a slave, but I can find no evidence that anyone linked this with the redemption achieved by Jesus.

If we ask the question, how the gospel writers got information about Judas’ dealings with the high priests, the only sensible answer is, “From the original tellers of Jesus’ story.”

Judas is one of the Twelve. For various reasons, many scholars think that the institution of the Twelve goes back to Jesus. It doesn’t mean that he had only twelve pupils, but that he called his pupil -group after the tribes of Israel, to indicate that they stood for the true Israel, the people of God. Obviously Judas was a bad pupil, but he is used ironically in Matthew: he is the obvious villain, but as the story proceeds we see that he is no worse than his fellow male pupils who deserted Jesus, and much less villainous than the religious leaders and the Romans. Moreover, he realises his crime and repents.