Think about it – the way Judas betrayed Jesus was to kiss him to identify him. What no one has ever asked is why if Jesus was such a threat, such a big deal, such a prominent person, such a charismatic man with the aura (literally!) of God himself, it was necessary for someone to have to point him out. The whole thing’s preposterous, isn’t it? It doesn’t make any sense. Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey through a chosen gate, as was prophesied for the Messiah, and was greeted by thousand of ecstatic people waving palms – yet we’re supposed to believe that no one in authority could recognise him, and Judas had to do the dirty work for them. But we all know the authorities had spies and secret police everywhere. They would never have needed Judas. Even if, impossibly, they couldn’t recognise Jesus, they would simply have arrested everyone that they found in the Garden of Gethsemane and sorted it out later. The truth is that Judas didn’t do anything wrong. He was just there to help the story along.
The whole Judas thing was just invented by ye olde thriller writer. But it's ludicrous on every level. If someone rode into your town today, on a donkey, calling himself the Messiah and being greeted by thousands, don't you think he'd be the most conspicuous guy in town?
I really don't want to spoil the creation of an obviously intended heckling jeckling opportunity but since you seem to be requesting opinions and do not restrict participation to atheists or anti biblicists, I will dare to venture to and participate. Hope you don't mind.
First, it doesn't make sense because you are totally ignoring all possibilities in order to reach an intended conclusion. There is absolutely NOTHING impossible about what happened in the garden of Getsemane on that night. Here are the reasons:
First, It was night and in the darkness things aren't so easily as identifiable as in plain daylight. Have you ever been in front of a group of people in the darkness or dim light. They tend to blur into one another-especially when emotions are high due to expected conflict.
Also, since we know NOTHING about the physical appearance of Jesus and his apostles,or even about the way each one dressed, it is quite within the possible that similarity in attire added to the difficulty in identification. Add to this problem that all of them were bearded, perhaps and most likely of the same skin tone and perhaps even of similar heights and weight. These are things that were all very possible in that darkness and which might have made the necessity of a Judas kiss for identification purposes necessary.
As for simply arresting everyone, don't you know that there were legal procedures to be dealt with in those days and that the Jews were bound to follow those legal procedures and had to explain themselves to the Romans? Furthermore, why add to the burden and arrest the whole group when the target was Jesus? It was Jesus who was considered the fomenter of discord, the nucleus around which the existence of their nation either dissolve or
continued. The rest were deemed simply as followers who would disband as soon as their leader was removed. Also, Jesus was expected to try to flee which made imediate identification crucial. He was not expected to step forward and identify himself. But that probably doesn't seem possible to you either I dare venture to surmise.
BTW
What's really ludicrous at every conceivable level is your anxious expectation that I place my finely-honed critical-thinking abilities on hold in order to mimick an ill-founded mindless incredulity.
