Judas Iscariot: Blinded By The Light

By James R. Womack

Judas Iscariot tells his side of the story of who he is, what he did before meeting Jesus. A zealot in search of other Jewish patriots to help throw off the yoke of Rome and rid the nation of hypocritical temple priest collaborators. Then came his plan to use Jesus as a figurehead for a massive rebellion against Roman rule. Things didn't work out the way he intended.

• Language: English
• Publisher: James R. Womack
• Release date: Mar 2, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005739867

James R. Womack

James Womack is a Deaf writer who writes mainly science fiction short stories. Sometimes he dives into contemporary shorts on touchy social issues. Mostly, he just likes telling stories that a bit off the beaten path.

Book preview

Contents

The End

John Baptist

The Tarsus Terror

Encounters

The Dawning Light

The Beginning

The End

Since late last night, I had stumbled around in the olive grove bordering an adjacent vacate field. Racked with grief, self-loathing at my stupidity and my arrogance. I infrequently fell upon my knees, sometimes falling fully prone upon the ground. Done in futile attempts to pray for forgiveness, never once believing I could be considering what I had done. I found myself at the edge of the grove leaning against the trunk of a large tree. Through my bitter tears, I spied a rope at the base of a chest-high rock protruding from the ground. Such cords often used to drape over branches and jerked to shake olives from the trees during harvest season. Was the rope lost, discarded, or perhaps forgotten? I neither knew nor cared. I grasped the rope and threw one end over a sturdy branch. The other end, I made a noose. How had I, the son of Simon Iscariot, come to this?

The foundation of my fate lies probably in my seething hatred of the festering infestation of Romans in Israel. The hateful locusts of Caesar were everywhere. Their taxes and cruelty sapped the life of my people. I desired to rid the land of them. To do something, anything, led to my falling in with a group of zealots led by Abiydan and his second in command, Binyamin. They shared my disdain and unrelenting hatred for the Romans. The group, some twenty-four men, did more than talk. They ambushed Roman soldiers, killing and maiming them in swift attacks. Then vanishing among the rocky hills bordering the roads those soldiers traveled. Each man had a story that fueled his animosity toward the Hellenist horde. My own story began in Jericho and related to my father, Simon. Despite being a man of means, my father worked hard to provide for his family. Arising early to work his field alongside our hired workmen, even before my mother made him breakfast. Rousting me as well to teach me the skills needed for farming, husbandry, and revenue management. We had breakfast after completing the feeding and milking of the goats. He always endured my rebellious griping about such early work, correcting and instructing me with far more gentleness than he ought.

Late one afternoon, a mounted Roman patrol stopped one the road leading pass our farm. They demanded my father come from the field to them. Until that day, I hadn't given much thought to Caesar's locusts beyond following my father's admonishment to avoid them. They were hunting a band of zealots who had attacked a platoon of soldiers escorting Sergius, a nobleman traveling to Joppa. Sergius was seriously wounded, and eight soldiers were dead. The legate in command demanded my father tell him which way the attackers had gone. Of course, my father didn't know as he wasn’t involved; further, the attack happened a good distance from our farm. This didn't matter to the Hellenic hound as he repeated his demand with increasing rage. My father had no way of providing such information. So, the legate ran his horse into my father, knocking him down. Then making sure the horse trampled him before they galloped off. Thus my father suffered a broken leg and an injured head. From that day forward, he walked by dragging his left leg rather than taking steps. He was also left deafened. I learned to deeply hate Romans that day.

 I