Free Crucified by Michael Slade Page A

his gullet when he swallowed. So men have 'Adam's apples.'"
    "I still don't know what a Judas chair is."
    "Want another drink?"
    "No, I've got a pile of work to finish up tomorrow before I leave for Germany."
    Wyatt motioned to the bartender for their check.
    "Christianity is based on original sin. Without mankind's fall from paradise into ongoing sin and death, there would be nothing for Jesus to redeem us from with his crucifixion. Without original sin, he would be a messiah without a mission. And why was Christ crucified? Because of betrayal. And who betrayed him?"
    "Judas," said Liz.
    "Why?"
    "Greed. Thirty pieces of silver."
    "That's in the Gospel of Matthew. But what's the deeper reason given in the Gospels of Luke and John?"
    "Give me a clue?"
    Wyatt punched the keys of his laptop and showed her the result:

    Luke 22:3
    Intravit autem Satanas in Iudam qui cognominatur Scarioth unum de duodecim.

    "Satan?" said Liz.
    Another keypunch revealed the translation, and the similar passage from the Gospel of John:

    And Satan entered into Judas, who was surnamed Iscariot, one of the twelve.

    John 13:2
    Et cena facta cum diabolus iam misisset in corde ut traderet eum Iudas Simonis Scariotis.
    And when supper was done (the devil having now put into the heart of Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon, to betray him).

    "Judas is the villain of the crucifixion of Christ, yet the Bible tells us little about him," Wyatt said. "Betraying his master to the temple priests earned him a paltry sum: those thirty pieces of silver. Jesus exposed him as his traitor at the Last Supper, then left Jerusalem with his eleven faithful disciples for the Garden of Gethsemane on the Mount of Olives. During the night, Jesus awoke and warned his followers, 'Look, my betrayer is at hand.'
     Judas entered the garden with troops carrying torches, clubs, and swords. He told them, 'The man I shall kiss is the one. Arrest him.' Then he walked up to Jesus and said, 'Hail, Rabbi,' and kissed him. A scuffle ensued, during which a disciple—the later St. Peter—cut one ear off the high priest's slave with his sword.
    Jesus patched the man up and was led off to crucifixion."
    "So where does the chair come into this?" asked Liz.
    "You tease me with buttons, I respond with suspense."
    "You devil."
    The check arrived and Wyatt paid it.
    "The Bible offers two versions of how Judas died. The Gospel of Matthew says he repented and confessed his sin, then tried to give his blood money back to the priests. They refused to take it, so Judas flung the money into the temple and went off to hang himself. The money was used to buy a potter's field as a burial place for foreigners. Matthew calls it the field of blood."
    " Still no chair," said Liz.
    "The Book of Acts, the second gospel of Luke, says crypti-cally that"—Wyatt fingered more keys and read off the screen—"Judas possessed a field of the reward of iniquity, and being hanged, burst asunder in the midst: and all his bowels gushed out. And it became known to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem: so that the same field was called in their tongue,  Haceldama , that is to say, The field of blood."
    "Weird," said Liz.
    "See the connection? Satan entered into Judas, and Judas's bowels gushed out. So during the Inquisition, Catholic torturers built a Judas chair to disembowel the Devil's disciples. And now, for some reason, that device was used on Balsdon."
    "It's a house of cards," said Liz.
    "What is?"
    "The Bible. It demands internal consistency from the beginning—Genesis—to the close of the New Testament if it's to withstand scrutiny."
    "That's why Darwinism dealt the Bible such a severe blow.
    There went Adam and Eve and original sin."
    "It reminds me of my mother and her feminist friends."
    "How so?"
    "Second-wave feminists engineered a social philosophy that was internally consistent to the nth degree. They tried to rewrite language and create a non-sexist male. Victoria Frankenstein—that's how I taunt her whenever