1. Among the most important figures in the Christian canon, the existence of Judas Iscariot was not widely accepted by the historical community for many years
Judas Iscariot, one of the original Twelve Disciples of Jesus, remains among the most notorious and important individuals in the New Testament, responsible for the betrayal of Jesus to the Romans in the Garden of Gethsemane. Today synonymous with betrayal and widely accepted to have been a real person, lacking corroborating evidence outside Christian literature, the literal existence of Judas was a topic of considerable historical debate for many centuries. Relying instead on logical argumentation rather than actual earthly discoveries, historians have coalesced around the firm conclusion that such a person did indeed exist.
Firstly, as reasoned by Ehrman who contended Judas’ betrayal “is about as historically certain as anything else in the tradition”, the inclusion of an Apostle turning on Jesus would not have been made up for its negative aspersions cast upon the divine persona by connotation. Moreover, few narrative traditions are shared by all four canonical gospels, contradicting each other on many other crucial points; Judas, in contrast, is almost unique in their collective agreement. As a result, the prevailing historical opinion has concluded that although “we only know two basic facts about Judas”, one of these is that “he handed over Jesus to the Jerusalem authorities”.