[EGW editor’s preface:  As with any questions concerning what we hope to learn from the Bible, we must always strive to apply good hermeneutics and to let the Bible interpret itself.
     For more tips on good Bible-reading skills, click the subjects Hermeneutics and Bible study.]

     One of our readers from New Mexico sent in this question.  “In Matt. 27:5-10, it says that Judas hanged himself.  In Acts 1:18-20, it says he fell headlong….  Can you help me with these seemingly different accounts?”  This same reader also sent in a related question asking about who bought the potter's field.

     So when Judas Iscariot committed suicide, what means did he chose?  By hanging?  By jumping from a cliff or tree?   It seems we have two conflicting answers … or do we?
     Sometimes when I’m reading biblical accounts that seemingly conflict, I have to remind myself of three facts — one is that truth does not contradict truth, the second is that the Lord is a God of truth (Deut. 32:4; Psalm 25:8-10), and the other is that God’s word is truth (Psalm 119:160; John 17:17-19; 2 Timothy 2:15).  Keeping those facts in mind, I then look for the plausible explanation that fits together the pieces of truth in the separate accounts.  I look at and compare the details of each account and its context — the “who, what, when, where, why”s.  It’s kind of like working on a jigsaw puzzle — each piece has some of the picture, but only when fitted together properly is the full picture revealed.
     In this case, the pieces of our puzzle must be positioned with respect to time.
     
• Digging into the Scriptures:

     Acts 1:15-20

   And in those days Peter stood up in the midst of the disciples (altogether the number of names was about a hundred and twenty), and said, “Men and brethren, this Scripture had to be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit spoke before by the mouth of David concerning Judas, who became a guide to those who arrested Jesus;  for he was numbered with us and obtained a part in this ministry.”
   (Now this man purchased a field with the wages of iniquity; and falling headlong, he burst open in the middle and all his entrails gushed out.  And it became known to all those dwelling in Jerusalem; so that field is called in their own language, Akel Dama, that is, Field of Blood.)
   “For it is written in the Book of Psalms:

      ‘Let his dwelling place be desolate,
      And let no one live in it’;

and,

      ‘Let another take his office.’”

     Matthew 27:3-10

   Then Judas, His betrayer, seeing that He had been condemned, was remorseful and brought back the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, saying, “I have sinned by betraying innocent blood.”
   And they said, “What is that to us? You see to it!”
   Then he threw down the pieces of silver in the temple and departed, and went and hanged himself.
   But the chief priests took the silver pieces and said, “It is not lawful to put them into the treasury, because they are the price of blood.”  And they consulted together and bought with them the potter’s field, to bury strangers in.  Therefore that field has been called the Field of Blood to this day.
   Then was fulfilled what was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet, saying, “And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the value of Him who was priced, whom they of the children of Israel priced, and gave them for the potter’s field, as the Lord directed me.”

     
• Summary:
     
     Reading in Matt. 27:5 that Judas hung himself, the “when” is the day of Jesus’ trials and crucifixion.  It seems to me Judas was already dead by the time Jesus died.  Reading in Acts 1:15-20 of Peter discussing Judas and his replacement, the “when” is sometime between 40 and 50 days later — between Jesus’ ascension to heaven earlier in chapter one and the beginning of the church on the day of Pentecost recorded in chapter two.  Therefore, sometime after Jesus' death, but before Peter's discussion, Judas suffered a rather nasty fall that would have killed him, if he had been alive when he fell.  Yet Judas died by hanging about the same day Jesus died.  How could Judas plausibly experience two such deadly experiences?
     The plausible explanation is that his messy fall happened after he died, and not before.  Remember the passage in Acts mentioned “falling headlong”, not “jumping headlong.”  Judas hanged himself and died.  After several days of his body softening with decay, either he slipped out of the noose from where he hung, or else someone cut him down. At that time, upon reaching the ground, he fell forward onto his bloated belly which then popped open spilling his guts out.  A graphic and bloody scenario, I admit, but it does reasonably account for all the facts given to us.