Judas
Bob Wickizer
Matthew 26:73
A few years ago our oldest daughter was teaching English in Japan. She told her employer that she wanted to see ''the real Japan'' and not the big city life of Tokyo or Kyoto. So they stationed her 350 miles from Tokyo way up north in a mountainous region called Yamagata. The region was roughly equivalent to a US state and Yamagata residents were famous throughout Japan as having a rural or hillbilly accent. Japanese comedians made fun of the Yamagata accent. Television shows there featuring actors from Yamagata were the equivalent of our ''Dukes of Hazard'' dumb southerner stereotypes. No matter where you go in the world, there will always be one group that is the focus of jokes and stereotypes.
In first century Israel, that region would be Galilee. The slave girl in the courtyard proclaims to Peter and the Roman guards, ''I can tell you are a Galilean for you have an accent.'' Their accents, their clothing and possibly their mannerisms betrayed their origins. Jesus and most of the disciples were the first century equivalents of rednecks and hillbillies.
As I reviewed the Passion Gospel for the umpteenth time, something caught my attention. I have encouraged our bible study classes on Sunday mornings to pay attention to names in the Bible. They give you important clues. This time I decided to focus on Judas Iscariot.
The name Judas actually derives from the name of the region in southern Israel, the kingdom of Judah. Judah is also the source of the term for Jews. Jerusalem, the big ancient city of nearly a million people, is located in Judah. To have the name Judas would imply pride of one's origin in the big, cosmopolitan, urban complex of Jerusalem. It would also carry a sense of pride in one's Jewish roots. The name, Judah, itself is kind of a brand as we see tod ...
Bob Wickizer
Matthew 26:73
A few years ago our oldest daughter was teaching English in Japan. She told her employer that she wanted to see ''the real Japan'' and not the big city life of Tokyo or Kyoto. So they stationed her 350 miles from Tokyo way up north in a mountainous region called Yamagata. The region was roughly equivalent to a US state and Yamagata residents were famous throughout Japan as having a rural or hillbilly accent. Japanese comedians made fun of the Yamagata accent. Television shows there featuring actors from Yamagata were the equivalent of our ''Dukes of Hazard'' dumb southerner stereotypes. No matter where you go in the world, there will always be one group that is the focus of jokes and stereotypes.
In first century Israel, that region would be Galilee. The slave girl in the courtyard proclaims to Peter and the Roman guards, ''I can tell you are a Galilean for you have an accent.'' Their accents, their clothing and possibly their mannerisms betrayed their origins. Jesus and most of the disciples were the first century equivalents of rednecks and hillbillies.
As I reviewed the Passion Gospel for the umpteenth time, something caught my attention. I have encouraged our bible study classes on Sunday mornings to pay attention to names in the Bible. They give you important clues. This time I decided to focus on Judas Iscariot.
The name Judas actually derives from the name of the region in southern Israel, the kingdom of Judah. Judah is also the source of the term for Jews. Jerusalem, the big ancient city of nearly a million people, is located in Judah. To have the name Judas would imply pride of one's origin in the big, cosmopolitan, urban complex of Jerusalem. It would also carry a sense of pride in one's Jewish roots. The name, Judah, itself is kind of a brand as we see tod ...
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