There's this controversy about a new document that claims that Judas Iscariot's betrayal was not an act of treachery against Jesus, but instead a propitiatory act of his faith. This reminds me of that one Bob Dylan lyric from "With God on Our Side":

You'll have to decide
Whether Judas Iscariot
Had God on his side.

Should Christians immediately write this off as apocryphal, or do people allow themselves to consider the fact that maybe Judas did, in fact, have God on his side?

Having grown up in a Christian household (for the record, I am no longer religious), I was always taught that Jesus's ultimate purpose on earth was to vindicate humankind--I've you've ever been to church on a regular basis, I'm sure you know John 3:16--and the ostensible way to do that was to spread his word and to sacrifice his own "perfect" life to replace the original sin of Adam, also "perfect" (Jesus is sometimes referred to as the Greater Adam). In essence, the redemption of perfection can only be begotten by the sacrifice of perfection. So, if Jesus was to die anyway, why does it matter in which manner this was accomplished? Regardless of what his role was, Judas was a player in the scheme. Could it be so bad to posit that Judas was actually a double agent, so dedicated to Jesus's cause that he was willing to sacrifice his eternal reputation?

Here's my scenario in brief.

As we already know from Jesus' miracle-wielding history, he inspires faith in his followers by nothing less than theatrics, whether you believe in the miracles or not. Jesus's and Judas's collaboration could have been nothing more than a theatrical production in order to maintain his followers. It was necessary for Jesus to become a martyr, because it would seem more tragic if he died for his beliefs. People would assume that such a belief worth suffering the death of a common criminal must be something pretty special.

The religious men hated Jesus because he was a religious and political radical. But there was no way the religious figures (who also had their hand in politics, natch) would have laid a finger on him themselves--they risked breaking the law and alienating the laity, who were in awe of Jesus's claims to be God's Son (they wanted to make him king).

Jesus knew this, so he needed someone to "betray" him. To make it more dramatic and to appeal to common logic, he needed someone who was by his side constantly and thereby in a position to do so. His other apostles were constantly arguing about which of them would be Jesus's right hand man in heaven. There was no way any of them would risk ruining their holy reputations before men as they were too afraid of what people thought (remember Peter, who denied knowing Jesus three times after his death even though everyone saw him with Jesus all the time?).

So Jesus picks Judas, who was probably less ostentatious than the others and maybe more sincere in his devotion--therefore an oddball and a prime suspect. Judas agrees. He betrays Jesus.

The Bible says that after Jesus saw what he had done, he committed suicide by hanging himself (unfortunately, the rope broke, and he took a nasty spill on the rocks below). That doesn't sound like the reaction of a traitor who was hungry for money--this sounds like someone who couldn't live with themselves after being forced to place someone they admired or loved deeply (INSERT QUEER THEORY HERE) in the way of certain death.

So, was Judas on God's side or not? I guess the devil may care.