Hi Fred. You asked:
How did Judas die?
"And he cast down the pieces of silver into the temple and departed, and went out and hanged himself." (Matt. 27:5)
"And falling headlong, he burst asunder in the midst, and all of his bowels gushed out." (Acts 1:18)
Luke the physician is widely acknowledged by Bible authorities to be the author of the Gospel of Luke & the book of Acts, & the internal evidence shows that one person wrote both books, since both are dedicated to Theophilus. (See Luke 1:3 & Acts 1:1.)
That said, note that in Luke 1:1–3, he states that his account was based upon information that had been ‘handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses.’ He also states, ‘Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us’ & adds, ‘Therefore, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning it seemed good also to me to write an orderly account.’ Now, Luke says that he ‘carefully investigated’ the facts & based his gospel & Acts on ‘eyewitness accounts.’ In addition, he had nearly 2 years to interview eyewitnesses, including Matthew himself. (Luke went with Paul to Jerusalem where Paul was arrested & left with him when Paul was sent to Rome.) The research Luke found at that time was used not only for his gospel, but for the book of Acts, including his mention of Judas’ death in Acts 1:18.
I don’t believe that Luke was trying to ‘set the record straight’ & tell what had really happened, since it is not difficult to envision the two details as being different parts of the same event. According to Matthew, here’s what happened: Judas threw down the coins in the temple in the far NE end of the city & ran across the entire city, rushed out the Dung Gate on the south end & crossed the Valley of Hinnom to the potter’s field (which later was called Akeldama, the Field of Blood) on the southern slope of the Valley of Hinnom. Olive trees grew on the slopes above the potter’s field & the valley. The valley itself, by the way, was where the city dump was rotting & burning & smoking. (I can’t see myself wanting to eat the olives that grew on those trees, but they grew there.)
So where did Judas get the rope he hung himself with? Did he buy it in the market as he ran past? Very likely he wasn’t thinking too well at the time since he was overcome with remorse. Besides, he had just thrown the money back to the priests. He probably decided to hang himself when he saw the olive trees. Since he had nothing to hang himself with, he searched in the dump for a discarded rope; he made a noose, tied it to a branch & jumped.
Either the rope was new & held & the branch broke with the weight, or the branch held & the rope was rotten & snapped. I suspect the latter. Judas fell & rolled down the slope, banged into a sharp rock & cut his stomach open so that his intestines spilled out & he stopped when he came to the Potter’s field at the bottom. There was blood everywhere so it came to be called the Field of Blood. The priests took the 30 pieces of silver & since they couldn’t put blood money in the treasury, they used it to buy the field which the potter, understandably, was at this point willing to sell. We can call this interpretation (a.)
If you don’t think Judas’ fall began with him hanging himself, consider that he would still have to have crossed the city, run out the Dung Gate, crossed the dump & come to the exact same spot among the olive trees—only instead of hanging himself, he either (b.) accidentally tripped & fell headlong down the slope, hitting the rock, cutting himself open, causing all his intestines to spill out, or (c.) he saw the sharp rock, decided to kill himself by throwing himself onto it & leaped off the hillside. This last option is unlikely, since the text doesn’t say he leaped or jumped, but that he fell.
I admit that what I’ve given here is my interpretation of the text, but I think it makes more sense than options (b.) & (c.) It’s unlikely that Judas tripped accidentally. He was probably seriously thinking of suicide at the time, & with a choice between hanging himself or hurling himself onto a sharp rock, I believe he went for the rope.