Three Versions Of Judas By Borges Essay

In any popular system of morality, there exist a variety of stories detailing the lives and actions of paragons of virtue and dastardly villains. These tales, in combination with the prescribed interpretations of them, provide examples by which the indoctrinated can base their own personal images of morality without muddling through the actual creed of their system. In this way, the moral system can be opened up to the masses without forcing the target population to endure a detailed and lengthy philosophical debate on what it means to be good. While this system was adequate when the vast majority of the population were illiterate, in the modern age it has rapidly become the target of criticism from the expanding ranks of the educated.
As Borges displays in his “Three Versions of Judas”, …show more content…
In this incarnation, Judas is no longer merely human but is the aspect of the divine that Jesus is purported to be. The decision to sacrifice his own morality because much greater in this perspective because it is the sacrifice that frees humanity from the burden of sin. The punishment that is meted out for the wrongs of the world does not occur on the hill of Golgotha but in the abandoned potter’s field. With this assertion, Borges fulfills the goal of his argument and turns the morality play of the Passion completely around. Judas has become the righteous figure, with Jesus relegated to a secondary role. It is at this stage in the short story, that Borges depicts the secondary aspect of his argument. Once one has managed to discern the truly amorphous aspect of mass morality, it is vital to then cast it aside instead of merely adopting your new conclusion as a replacement. In the story, Runeberg attempts to live the same way as before, only praising Judas as his Lord and Savior instead of Jesus, and in so doing he drives himself insane and dies in the