Jesus Christ Superstar’s Judas Betrayal

Letter to Romans: Recall how 1970’s Jesus Christ Superstar was instantly celebrated as a countercultural manifesto & criticized as a devilish revisionist lie by turning Jesus into a Lenin-like revolutionary. My gripe: It botched Judas’ betrayal.

Let’s forget the asinine way Judas opens & closes the “show” as narrator. And let’s concede that Judas, like all the Apostles, understandably had trouble getting his head around Jesus saying He was not only the Messiah but the Son of God aka the Savior of mankind who would be part of the Holy Trinity or Father Son & Holy Spirit; it would also have been hard for any of us today to see the Christ’s mission was going to end up sacrificed by the Father to redeem mankind from its sins. Yet invariably portraying Judas as a victim who was blameless rewrites not only history but common sense in the legal as well as logical & psychological sense. If, as the story suggests, the conflicted Judas was not a traitor like Benedict Arnold but simply a poor soul wanting to test the Messiah’s claim to be King of the Jews as prophesized … then, Judas had to be the most ARROGANT man in history. That is, in thinking God Almighty would put such a role in his grubby hands, i.e., for 30 pieces of silver.

In this case, the countercultural challenger or “show” created by Andrew Lloyd Webber & Tim Rice made a veritable ton of money and btw a lot more than Judas. It arguably took advantage of the country’s post-Civil Rights & Vietnam War confusion. Reinforced were the anti-religion folks, provided an “anthem” for their cynicism. In that sense, it was as ARROGANT as the hopeless Judas, history's biggest cheapskate.

Davd Soul