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In the program, In The Footsteps Of Judas, to be shown on BBC One on Good Friday, she examines theories about what led him to betray Jesus for 30 pieces of silver. One theory is that Judas was a dedicated revolutionary who saw Jesus as a reluctant political messiah and hoped that by handing him over for arrest he could trigger an uprising against Roman rule in Judea.

Bottley said Judas should be seen as a “mirror to the human condition.”

“This is not to say, ’Oh Judas, he’s all right really,’ what we are saying is perhaps there is something else to this character than that kiss and that betrayal,” she said.

She added that Judas has been “defined by the worst thing he did,” writing: “What Judas did is not OK but I think he holds up a very important mirror to our own human condition.”

Bishop Baines wrote: “I feel a bit sorry for Judas he has gone down in history as the ultimate traitor, the cheap and nasty greed-merchant who sells his friend and his soul for a few quid.

“Well, it’s a bit more complicated than that.

“Judas had invested himself in the revolutionary leadership of Jesus of Nazareth only to find himself let down.

“I travelled to Jerusalem. You have to look really hard to find anything about Judas, he’s a really shadowy figure, even when you go to the place where he took his own life you have to look really hard to find any reference to him. But when I stopped people everybody would look both ways and lean in and say, ’I actually feel a bit sorry for Judas,’ they look both ways as if they are not allowed to say it.”