Do the gospels disagree on how Judas Iscariot died?

This is how Matthew describes the death of Judas:

Matthew 27:5 And throwing down the pieces of silver into the temple, he [Judas] departed, and he went and hanged himself.

This is how Peter describes it:

Acts 1:18,19 (Now this man acquired a field with the reward of his wickedness, and falling headlong he burst open in the middle and all his bowels gushed out. 19 And it became known to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that the field was called in their own language Akeldama, that is, Field of Blood.)

Do these accounts contradict? Did Judas hang himself, or fall to his death?

Actually they do not contradict. They provide supplementary details that tell us more exactly what happened.

Judas hanged himself before a sabbath. According to Jewish law, no one would be able to cut him down and bury his body without becoming ritually unclean. And this was a great sabbath, meaning it was extra important to stay ritually clean. And also depending on the year, a great sabbath could be a passiver sabbath and a weekly sabbath in close succession. For example, if Jesus was crucified in 30AD, there could be a period of three to four days before anyone would be available to cut him down. His body would be hanging for at minimum of 24 hours, probably longer before being cut down.

In John 11:39 it talks about another dead man, Lazarus:

John 11:39 Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, by this time there will be an odor, for he has been dead four days.”

This tells us that four days is enough to expect there to be an odor of the decaying corpse. Soon after death, the corpse will break down from inside due to microbal activity and will start to bloat. During the bloat stage, gases produced by bacteria and other microorganisms can cause the body to swell and potentially rupture in certain areas, including the gastrointestinal tract. The foul smell associated with decomposition becomes noticeable after the bloat stage, after the body has decayed enough that foul gases start to escape.

So we know that by the fourth day, Lazarus corpse was already well beyond the bloating stage, his body already broken down to the point where it started to smell foul. And this was in a cool cave. This tells us that in the local climate of Jerusalem, a dead body would decay rapidly, reaching the bloating stage and start to rupture within 1-3 days.

So if Judas had been hanging for 1.5-3 days in the scorching sun, his body would be well along in the decaying process, already starting to stink, and being very fragile.

When being cut down, it is not unlikely that his torso fell at least 1 meter, maybe more, and hit the rocks. With such a treatment, is it no wonder falling headlong he burst open in the middle and all his bowels gushed out.

These three pieces of evidence together paints a picture of the hanging of Judas that is scientifically and medically accurate. They are also parts of what is called “undesigned coincidences”. Three different authors independently and without collusion giving puzzle pieces that together show an accurate picture of what happened. There is no way that they conspired to design these pieces to fit together, and then to write them down decades apart, which proves that they are all factually reporting actual events in a reliable way.

_{Image courtesy of Ronsa06}