Judas Iscariot - Etymology

Etymology

In the Greek New Testament, Judas is called Ιούδας Ισκάριωθ and Ισκαριώτης . "Judas" (spelled "Ioudas" in ancient Greek and "Iudas" in Latin, pronounced yudas in both) is the Greek form of the common name Judah (יהודה, Yehûdâh, Hebrew for "God is praised"). The Greek spelling underlies other names in the New Testament that are traditionally rendered differently in English: Judah and Jude.

The significance of "Iscariot" is uncertain. There are several major theories on etymology:

• One popular explanation derives Iscariot from Hebrew איש־קריות, Κ-Qrîyôth, or "man of Kerioth". The Gospel of John refers to Judas as "son of Simon Iscariot" (although the biblical text only refers to him as "the son of Simon" (Jn 6:71, Jn 13:26, King James Version)), implying it was not Judas, but his father, who came from there. Some speculate that Kerioth refers to a region in Judea, but it is also the name of two known Judean towns.
• A second theory is that "Iscariot" identifies Judas as a member of the sicarii. These were a cadre of assassins among Jewish rebels intent on driving the Romans out of Judea. However, some historians maintain the sicarii arose in the 40s or 50s of the 1st century, in which case Judas could not have been a member.
• A third possibility advanced by Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg is that Iscariot means "the liar" or "the false one," perhaps from the Hebrew .
• Fourth, some have proposed that the word derives from an Aramaic word meaning "red color," from the root .
• Fifth, the word derives from one of the Aramaic roots or . This would mean "to deliver," based on the LXX rendering of Isaiah 19:4a—a theory advanced by J. Alfred Morin.
• Finally, the epithet could be associated with the manner of Judas' death, i.e., hanging. This would mean Iscariot derives from a kind of Greek-Aramaic hybrid:, Iskarioutha, "chokiness" or "constriction." This might indicate that the epithet be applied posthumously by the remaining disciples, but Joan E. Taylor has argued that it was a descriptive name given to Judas by Jesus, since other disciples such as Simon Peter/Cephas (Kephas = "rock") were also given such names.