On another matter, Ted wrote, "It cannot be accidental either
that Mark chose
a betrayal kiss as the sign Judas gave the arresting party
to identify
Jesus." He notes that Funk/Jesus Seminar states that
Absalom "launched his
revolt by exchanging a kiss with David (2 Sam
14:33)."
However, that's not exactly what happened at 14:33: "Then the
king summoned
Absalom, and he came in and bowed down with his face to the
ground before the
king. And the king kissed Absalom." There was no
"exchanging a kiss." It was
the one to be betrayed--David--who did
the kissing, not the other way around.
Ted also notes that "Absalom,
who engineered the conspiracy against his
father David, 'stole the hearts
of the men of Israel' from his father (15:6),
by this cunning practice:
'whenever a man came near him to do obeisance to
him, he would put
out his hand, and take hold of him and kiss him.' (15:5).
It is clear to
me that Mark's idea to have Jesus betrayed by a kiss came from
Absalom's
betrayal kisses."
But, I can't agree there, either. The
correspondence Mark would have been
looking for is not there in Absalom's
kisses. He never kissed his father,
whom he betrayed, and the men he
embraced and kissed certainly weren't
betrayed. Absalom kissed
people to get them to like him, not so he could
hurt them.
Thus,
there is no record of Absalom kissing a person who's then betrayed by
him.
Furthermore, the model for Mark's Judas is Ahihophel, David's
counselor. A better model for Judas' betrayal kiss would by Joab, who
embraced Amasa, kissed him, then stabbed him in the belly.
