Christianity would not be the same ...

Everyone remembers the story of Jesus Christ's close friend, one of the 12 Apostles, who sold him out for 30 pieces of silver, identifying him with a kiss. Later, crazed with guilt, Judas hanged himself. He is the ultimate symbol of treachery.

Stockyards call the goat that leads other animals to slaughter the Judas goat. In Germany, officials can forbid new parents from choosing the name Judas. Guides at the historic Coptic Hanging Church in Old Cairo point out one black column in the church's white colonnades--Judas, of course.

Christianity would not be the same without its traitor.

"You will sacrifice the man that clothes me." In plain English, or Coptic, Judas is going to kill Jesus - and thus do him a favor. "That really isn't Jesus at all," says Meyer. "He will at last get rid of his material, physical flesh, thereby liberating the real Christ, the divine being inside."

"Lift up your eyes and look at the cloud and the light within it and the stars surrounding it," Jesus tells him encouragingly. "The start that leads the way is your star." Ultimately, Judas has a revelation in which he enters a "luminous cloud." People on the ground hear a voice from the cloud, though what it says may be forever unknown due to a tear in the papyrus.