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AKELDAMA

(Gk. Akeldamách)

The place Judas purchased with the money he received for betraying Jesus (Acts 1:18-19). Judas later suffered a fatal fall on his property, his blood spilling out onto the field, thus the name “Field of Blood” (transliterated from Aram. ḥăqēl dĕmaʾ). This account is often harmonized with that in Matt. 27:3-10, which also mentions a “Field of Blood” concerning Judas. In Matthew’s account, however, Judas hangs himself (Matt. 27:5), the “potter’s field” is bought by the high priests after Judas’ death (v. 7), and the “blood” in its name refers to the “innocent blood” of Jesus (vv. 4, 6, 8). The two accounts are probably best seen as independent variants of an aetiological legend; the two authors adapted their versions of the story in quite different ways. The traditional site of Akeldama is in the Hinnom Valley S of Jerusalem, an area associated with idolatry and child sacrifice in the OT (2 Kgs. 23:10; Jer. 7:30-34; 19:1-13).

Bibliography. P. Benoit, “The Death of Judas,” in Jesus and the Gospel, 1 (New York, 1973): 189-207; J. Finegan, The Archaeology of the New Testament, rev. ed. (Princeton, 1992), 245-46.

Kim Paffenroth

Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

AKELDAMA

Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible (2000)