Vatican scholars are considering absolving Judas of blame for Jesus' death, after 2,000 years of condemnation. Apparently a mistranslation of the Bible led people to believe that Judas betrayed Jesus. The original Greek translation uses the word "paradidomi" which means something like "hand over" or "deliver". When it was translated into Latin the word "betray" was substituted.
Judas was scapegoated around the first century A.D. about the time the early Christian Church was competing with Judaism and they needed a Jewish hate figure. (Now we know where Karl Rove and the Bushites got their bag of dirty tricks). Early Christian writings by St. Paul don't mention Judas at all but about 70 years after Christ's death, John fingered Judas as the culprit.
Read more at the London Times.
The Catholics recently decided to get rid of "limbo", a place they used to send unbaptized children. It isn't clear what they do with those unlucky kids now that limbo is gone. How low can they go?
