Reading the Death of Judas (Matthew 27:3-10) with Hauntology

Abstract

Matthew 27:3-10 tells a story of Judas hanging himself after betraying Jesus. Some see Judas’s death as a well-deserved punishment while others see it as a tragedy or a noble death. Catherine Hamilton evaluates Judas as an ambivalent figure. Highlighting the larger context/history told in the Hebrew Bible, she argues that the core of the story is the shedding of Jesus’ innocent blood and its outcome (i.e., the defiled land), and Judas’s fate is tangled with the defiled—haunted—land. Stimulated by Hamilton’s argument, this essay further explores the issue of haunting regarding Judas’s death. It raises questions about justice, a (corrupt) judicial system, failed desires to make things right, and hope that is haunted by such failures.