In my opinion, the context fits equally well with either translation (whether it were better for Judas if he had not been born, or better for Jesus if Judas had not been born).
Thank you Don, but could you help me understand how the latter thought (that it would have been better for Jesus) isn’t out of context with the woe on Judas?
I prefer Young’s translation, but that’s where I have a problem.
Anyone?
I agree entirely. Jesus seems fond of using powerful turns of phrase. So when he says “It would be better for him if he had not been born”, take it also as a powerful turn of phrase. It’s an expression of pity, not a theological declaration on the nature of hell. Do yourself a favor. Stop chewing on this bone. There’s very little meat on it.
You choose the Bible (and the Protestent Canon of said Bible) over other sacred texts because, in your common sense judgment, it speaks the truth. You don’t believe God is good because the Bible says so. You believe the Bible because it reveals the good God. (Would you believe a Holy Book that revealed an evil God?)
If any book (or part thereof) defames God’s good name and character, I either reject it or reinterpret it. If this is showing disrespect to God, I can’t see how.
God in his love and wisdom made Judas. If Judas ends in ECT, then God’s love and wisdom both have failed. God is no longer GOD. He has failed in his duty of care to one of his little ones. He is guilty of gross negligence. This is what your literalist interpretation of that particular verse would have me believe.
I was attempting to derail an unhelpful train of thought. If you’ll forgive the pun.
Okay, Michael. I think I understand your problem now. You are following the translations which read, “Woe to that man, through whom the Son of Man is betrayed!”
Consider Rotherham’s translation, where no woe had been pronounced on Judas:
The Son of Man, indeed, goeth his way, according as it is written concerning him,—But alas! for that man, through whom the Son of Man, is being delivered up: Well, had it been for him, if, that man, had not been born.
The word which is translated “woe” here, the King James also renders the word as “woe” 41 times, but as “alas” 6 times.
The dative case of the word for “man” is usually translated as “to the man”, but can also be translated “for the man”. But either one will do the job, if we end with the word “alas!” instead of connecting it to “the man”.
This is what I think Rotherham meant with his translation:
*The Son of Man, indeed, goes his way according as it is written concerning Him. But alas! As for that man through whom the Son of Man is being delivered up — it would have been good for Him, if that man had not been born.
*
In this way, no woe is pronounced against Judas. Just an exclamation of “alas” (It’s a bad state of affairs) followed by the thought that He, Jesus, would have been better off if Judas had not been born.
Thank You!!!
There is another discussion of this here: It would be better to not have been born...
Jason makes some helpful comments and observations at the end there.
A train of thought you pre-judged as unhelpful because of your own pre-conceived bias.
From your own comments, it seems you would believe in UR regardless of what “any book said,” so scripture is irrelevant to you.
That’s why your train of thought here hasn’t been very helpful to me (and would not be helpful to anyone for whom scripture is relevant.)
Jason is the one who told me that Young’s translation was grammatically correct, but made no sense to him contextually (which is why I found Don’s post so heplful–again, THANK YOU Don.)
Jason: Do you see any reason Don’s reading doesn’t work (grammatically, or contextually)?
]
“One of you is a devil.” Did Jesus mean, given the context, “One of you is accusing me of something”? Does that convey the depth of feeling? If I said, “Stalin was a devil!”, would you reply, “Really? Who did he accuse?”
Jesus didn’t say Judas was possessed by a devil. He was a devil. Now I can read this as a powerful turn of phrase, or I can insist it is true at face value and theorise about devils incarnating as men etc.
In the same way, we can use the “better if not born” passage to theorise about hell, or we can see it as a powerful turn of phrase. That’s my understanding of the issue, for what it’s worth. We’re all free to make that judgment.
The Bible is very relevant to me or I’d not think, talk and write about it so much. I love it because it reveals the good God, and I believe in this good God because I find it impossible (in my rare moments of clarity) to believe in anything less.
Kind regards.
I think he was using the word διαβολος in accordance to its meaning, that is “One of you is a false accuser”. Just as there is one Antichrist as well as many antichrists, so there is one False Accuser as well as many false accusers, Judas being one of them, having accused Jesus falsely.
Similarly, when Jesus calles Peter σατανος, He was calling him, “adversary”. He was not calling him “The Adversary” or “Satan”. There is one Satan (the adversaries), but there are many adversaries. Peter was one of them because he said, concerning Jesus’s impending death, “Surely this will not happen to you!”
You may well be right that that was the intended meaning. Only one of the versions listed in Bible Gateway chose to translate the word this way (and that was in parentheses. Devil was their preferred word.) All other translations used the word devil, fiend, or demon, often with an exclamation mark for emphasis.
But who can say? 
If it is so difficult (time and again) to grasp the intended meaning of simple words, don’t we lose all hope of getting coherent sense out of the Bible?
Typically, people who do this don’t compare their existence as being better than not having been born at all. So usually the frame of comparison doesn’t come up! But since you mention it:
If I thank God for creating me, I can be grateful that I exist without having to compare it to what my state of existence would be if I didn’t exist–which would be a contradictory comparison. If I didn’t exist then I wouldn’t exist, period. “I” wouldn’t and couldn’t be worse or better off “not-existing” because “I” would not exist to be worse or better off. I can only be better or worse off in comparison to states of my existence.
My gratitude to God for creating me has nothing to do with an imaginary and impossible comparison to how I would be existing instead if I didn’t exist instead of existing. 
I’m grateful to have states of existence at all, even though some of those states might be better or worse than others.
When God creates me, acting to love me and give me life, He does not improve my state of existence from ‘non-existent’ to ‘existent’. Having been created, though, my state of existence could improve or degrade in various qualities and to various extents.
This is an important (although difficult) point to understand for purposes of universalistic soteriology, too. Annihilationists have a mistaken notion that a person’s state of existence would be improved by ceasing to exist!–whereas ECT proponents (although not all of them) often have trouble understanding that God continues actively keeping us in existence by the same gracious love by which He brought us into our derivative existence in the first place. (This is why annihilationists like to be called conditional immortalists: they understand that so long as God keeps someone in existence He must be loving that person and so acting toward fulfill love in and with that person. As long as there is life from the Living God there is hope. Consequently, since annihilationists think there is ultimate hopelessness too, souls in hopeless states are annihilated by God or allowed to annihilate themselves–either way it’s by God’s active authority and amounts to the same thing.)
But just as a person’s state of existence cannot be improved by ceasing to exist (such that there is no longer an existence to compare states of for better or for worse), so a person’s state of existence cannot improve by coming to exist (as there was no existence before existence to compare states of for better or for worse).
True, but that wasn’t my only qualification for interpreting the intentions of the describer in describing the person in such a way.
He would have been wrong to think that way anyway, unless he existed in a better state before being born (as I was very careful to qualify for an interpretative option.) If he did not exist before being born (or conceived or conscious or whatever), then he would not have been existing better off not to have been born.
He wasn’t wrong; He was using a poetic cultural expression as a way of expressing and calling for pity (and salvation!) for the person so described, namely Judas. Just as Job and Jeremiah (as cultural examples) were expressing and calling for pity (and salvation!) for the persons they were describing, namely themselves.
Or else, Judas existed before being born in a state better off than his state upon being born. But this opens up other problems and so is generally rejected (although not by all Christian theologians through history, Origen being the arch example.)
This is a subtly but crucially different interpretative option: now there are relevant states of existence to compare for better or for worse!
Most of my brothers and/or sisters (including my own twin) died in the womb, too. Are they now, having died back then, in a better state of existence than they would have been had they lived? Maybe: they died before they could intentionally sin. (Roman Catholics, on the other hand, would say they might or might not be: existing in Limbo they may grow up in a paradise forever that lacks only fellowship with God, which is worse off than being in heaven, but better off than being in hell!) Supposing one of my sisters had lived to sin, would she have been better off compared to her state at that moment not to have been born? If she went to heaven then yes. If she sins and then repents, and God restores her, is she better off compared to not having been born and having gone straight to heaven instead? Theologians have often said yes, and the scriptures tend to indicate the restoration after sin will be better than what was originally promised (especially in the OT), and I can see some reasons why that would be true.
But taken as a snapshot at the moment (or for some time afterward) of her sinning, then yep I’d say it’s true as a comparison within the limited context of the comparison.
But without the special blessing that only those who have been redeemed from sin can know and experientially appreciate. Childbirth is a harsh process, too, but after the baby has been born the pain, though perhaps remembered, is accounted as nothing in comparison. Those women who can never have children might be regarded as “better off” in comparison with the woman in childbirth throes; women not suckling might be regarded as “better off” (despite missing that pleasure) in comparison with the woman suckling who is having to run from armies besieging Jerusalem. But that comparison isn’t absolute, because the condition changes.
I wouldn’t disagree with that interpretation of the standard translation. 
Incidentally, here was my exegetical analysis in the other thread.
It may be worth pointing out that I didn’t analyze the portion Don mentions, concerning the “wail” or “woe”. At the moment I can’t see any objection to it (although as I think Don acknowledged it could grammatically go the standard way, too: woe to that man.) I’ll have to think more about it in relation to my analysis in the other thread.
As noted in the other thread, after weighing the interpretative options, I couldn’t decide on grammar alone whether the “him” for whom it would have been “good” for “that-very-man” to have not been born should be Jesus or Judas (although certainly the grammar points to “that-very-man” being Judas).
The cultural usage of the phrase however (as I noted both here and there) weighs strongly in favor of both pronouns referring to the same person; so if “that-very-man” is Judas, then the most likely translation is “alas good for him-Judas if that-very-man-Judas had not been born.”
But having checked that over, considering that {kalon} comes after “but wail” and before the weird third-person pronoun, I’m inclined to agree with Don’s translation option in regard to that word: it’s a cry in itself without an object.
“But alas!–good (it was, per GosMatt) for him if had not been born that-very-man.”
Not “But wailing to him!–good (it was, per GosMatt) if had not been born that-very-man.”
(Admittedly, Greek word order isn’t as much of a concern as in English, but still it does have some importance.)
Edited to add: I think I’ve omitted an important clause in this reckoning, though, so take the above with a grain of salt until I work some more on it.
I may look up what the Syriac Peshitta has to say on those verses (GosMatt and GosMark both). While I don’t (yet) hold to the theory popular among the Church of the East that the New Testament was originally written in Aramaic, preserved in the (indisputably later) Peshittas, they’re often handy at suggesting how a speaker of Aramaic would have rendered the grammar.
All right, the full verse (with GosMatt’s verb added in double brackets) reads:
hoti ho men huios tou anthropou hupagei kathos gegraptai peri autou ouai de t(i)o anthrop(i)o ekein(i)o di’ hou ho huios tou anthropou paradidotai kalon [h[u]en]] aut(i)o ei ouk egen(g)ethe ho anthropos ekeinos
The {hoti} is unique to GosMark, by the way, but doesn’t seem exegetically important for our purposes; it’s just presenting the statement as the continuation of verse 20, unlike how Matthew presents the statement.
The italicized portion is what I exegeted on in the other thread (although with some reference to pronoun forms earlier in the verse); the bolded portion is the woe statement, and includes a big portion I accidentally elided past in my previous post. Totally my fault; I should have checked the text rather than working from collected portions in both threads.
I’ll work up an extension, but until then I’ll post this for future reference.
Thank you Jason.
I value your thoughts, and I respect your knowledge of N.t. Greek.
I’m reading your comments here with great interest (and I don’t want to derail this thread here), but I can’t agree with the philosophical premise that an existence of pure, un-ending misery is no better or worse than a non-existent state.
First of all, God not only has knowledge of all that exists, but of all that could exist.
In that sense, non-existent individuals exist as possibilities.
If individiual “A” could exist either in eternal torment, or as a mere hypotheitical experiencing no conscious torment, which would be better (from God’s pov)?
If God is love, I think it’s proper to say that it would be better if individual “A” never existed.
Also, if individual “B” could exist in eternal bliss, or as a mere hypotheitical experiencing no happiness, which would be better (from God’s pov)?
If God is Love, I think it’s obvious that it would better for individual "B’ to exist (and actually experience the joy that is possible, and that God wants to share.)
This makes existence a blessing, and creation an act of love.
(Whereas the philosophical argument that existence is no better or worse than non-existence makes it neither a blessing or a curse, and creation something less than an act of love.)
Many thanks to Michael for persisting with this one and to Paidon for explaining, what IMO, is the only sensible and consistent possibility.
So,
ouai == wail (it’s one of those words which sounds like what it means, like splat ) It does seem to be an injunctive form, like a self-contained exclamation, not a declaration about a fact or a recommendation or expectation (i.e. be wailing).
de == this is a post-positive minor conjunction. It could mean ‘now’ or ‘and’ or ‘but’ or ‘yet’; and any of those could be appropriate here. In English, this is what we would start the sentence or clause with, not “wail”.
t(i)o anthrop(i)o ekein(i)o == “the man that-very-one”. This designation will be used later, no doubt in regard to the very same person (which is probably why the author(s) used this form, to keep track of the pronoun trail. ) It’s an implied prepositional phrase: the suffixes and context are supposed to tell the reader what the preposition is. As Don noted, it’s definitely dative. But whether it’s translated “to” or “for” “that-very-man”, typically there has to be a referent connection. It has to be “something” to-or-for “that-very-man”. It can’t just be “for” in the sense of “because”: that would involve a post-positive {gar}!
Here’s where it gets weird again. Normally, the referent would be nearby, which is why translators go for the “wail”, so “woe to” or “wail for” “that-very-man”. But the “wail” does look like an exclamation, which wouldn’t fit very well as a grammatic referent.
di’ hou == “through whom”
ho huios tou anthropou == “the Son of the Man”, i.e. the Son of Man as a title, i.e. Jesus
paradidotai == “is being delivered up”
I notice that Don reports Rotherham as translating this portion “But alas! for that man, through whom the Son of Man, is being delivered up” with commas setting off the “through the Son of Man” as though “is being delivered up” refers to “that-very-man”, so that the major clause would read “for that man is being delivered up” with a dependent clause in the middle of “through whom the Son of Man”.
I don’t know if that was accidental, on Don’s and/or Rotherham’s part. But it doesn’t work. In terms of grammatic form, I’m pretty sure a dative implied prepositional phrase cannot be the subject of “is being delivered up”; and it leaves the dependent clause in the middle just hanging there without even a guess at an implied verb!
The Son of Man is Who is being delivered up here: the nominative case of “the son” is the noun for the verb. Through whom? Through that-very-man. Which by prior context has to be Judas (as everyone agrees, including Rotherham by the way. )
(I will add, though, that Rotherham may have been using commas to try to offset words and phrases, not for English grammatic purposes. If true, he only missed a comma after “through whom”.)
After this my analysis from the other thread follows as already given.
This still leaves over the question of what the referent is for the dative “that-very-man”, however. Maybe the injunctive exclamation works, or maybe it isn’t really an injunctive exclamation.
Or: maybe the referent is way later in the text than normally suspected!
The next and only other time the dative singular masculine is used in this statement, is {aut(i)o}, a pronoun that might refer to either Jesus or Judas–but which by cultural context would normally be considered identified with “that-very-man”, namely Judas, at the end (so that “good for X if X had not been born”).
While it would be unusual to have the referent for the earlier dative delayed so long, it would make a lot of grammatic sense otherwise. The result would be something like this:
“Indeed the Son of Man is going down (going away, under-leading) according-as it has been written. And alas!–good for that very man–through of-whom the Son of Man is delivered up–good (ideal, better) for him if that-very-man was not born.”
Fact: The sin he knowingly committed against the Christ was beyond measure
Fact: He would greatly suffer for his decision and deservedly so
Fact: The fate of this decision was eternal because if there was any period where the torment of his decision ended and he was reconciled with Christ, then no amount of torment would overshadow the bliss of being restored with Christ therefore why would it better if he were never existed?
One can argue that if he were never born then he would have remained in the bliss of heaven rather than suffer the torment of his decision in life but the end result would still be the same. Why would it matter if he were born or not?
I like how the Bible is full of idioms, kinda like the every day language of people today.
I find it interesting how God in the flesh speaks in every day language, kinda like us.
One could argue that if he were never born he would have never suffered the torment resulting from his decision (in life, or in a temporal hell hereafter), and that (even if ultimately reconciled to Christ, and a recepient of eternal bliss), it would have been better for him not to have been born (and not to have suffered that torment.)
True.
But (however you translate the verse), Christ didn’t say that it would have been better for Judas if he never existed.
He said “good were it for Him if that man had not been born.”
Now, if you believe that life begins at conception, isn’t it a fact that not being born isn’t synonomous with non-existence?