Skeptics and critics often assert that the Bible contradicts itself about the details of Judas’ death and the “Field 0f Blood” (Matthew 27:8; Acts 1:19). Let’s first get some background information from the scriptures.

The field, known as the “Field of Blood”, or Akeldama, is traditionally located in the Hinnom Valley near Jerusalem. This purchase is indirectly attributed to Judas, as the chief priests used the returned silver to buy the potter’s field as a burial place for foreigners (Matthew 27:6-8). This act fulfills the prophecy found in Zechariah 11:12-13, which speaks of the thirty pieces of silver and the potter’s field.

Here is the first alleged “contradiction”:

How did Judas die?
(a) After he threw the money into the temple he went away and hanged himself (Matthew 27:5)
(b) After he bought the field with the price of his evil deed he fell headlong and burst open in the middle
and all his bowels gushed out (Acts 1:18).

When one person tells the way something happened (say they claim someone died because he hanged himself),  and then someone else tells an entirely different version of how it happened (say they claim they died because of a fall that caused their guts to spill out), is that a contradiction? Yes, it’s an obvious contradiction.

Rather than being contradictory, the two accounts help us to get the picture of exactly how Judas died. The two accounts, Matthew and Acts, are not ‘entirely different versions’ of the same story, as critics allege.

Judas did hang himself, and either the rope, or the tree limb, broke in the process, and Judas fell onto the craggy rocks below. The result was that “his body burst open and all his intestines spilled out” (Acts 1:18 NIV).

Here is the second “contradiction”:

Why is the field called “Field of Blood”?
(a) Because the priests bought it with the blood money (Matthew 27:8)
(b) Because of the bloody death of Judas therein (Acts 1:19)

The priests actually bought the field with the “blood money” (Matthew 27:6,7 NIV) that Judas threw into the temple treasury, that he had been paid to betray Jesus, . However, Judas, in Acts 1:19, was credited with the purchase of the field, because his actions and the results of those actions provided the basis for the purchase, hence the name, “the field of blood” (Matthew 27:8).

Like many criticisms, these two claimed contradictions assume that one gospel account must be all inclusive. In this narrow view, there is no allowance for different writers to report different details, or to omit some details. Such a viewpoint is unreasonable.

Upon careful examination, we have learned that the Bible does not contradict itself in the details about Judas’ death and “the Field of Blood”. The two accounts of Matthew and Acts are complimentary, not contradictory.