Judas Game: the Biology of Combat in the Gospel of John

Abstract

'Judas Game' injects the modern conceptual framework of evolutionary theory and mythology into the discussion of biblical mythology (i.e., the literary reflections of evolving biblical worldviews). Both modern and biblical thought are contoured by a physical and biological pre-history of billions of years. Humans' psychological in heritance is as old and layered as any geological group in the Canadian Rockies. In the light of the last century's accumulating knowledge of this past, certain puzzles of biblical mythology can be clarified. The article takes the example of Judas in the Gospel of John. Judas's paradoxical, troubling role is a conglomerate of our evolved psychological inheritance, clearly visible in the ancient Near Eastern combat myth, and John's theology of providence, itself overlying deeper strata. The argument is based on close reading of literary parallels between John 11 and 12.