In the show-stopping finale to Andrew Lloyd Weber’s 1971 Rock Opera Jesus Christ Superstar, Judas Iscariot–who had been portrayed throughout as Christ’s closest friend and confidant, both his opposite and his compliment–returns from the dead post-suicide to sing the musical’s title-track, just after the Savior has been sentenced to death by Pontius Pilate.

In the popular 1973 film version^[1]Filmed on location in modern Israel., Judas is even provocatively portrayed as an angel in white descending down from heaven, blithely rejecting 20 centuries of near-universal Christian condemnation of the fallen Apostle (Certainly James E. Talmage had nothing but contempt for the man). For if Judas’s betrayal was truly necessary for Christ to accomplish his Atoning sacrifice (as the musical repeatedly implies), then logically we cannot condemn him for fulfilling the Plan of God; or conversely, perhaps Judas is portrayed as an angel in order to imply that there is something saintly, even sacred, about expressing religious doubt and confusion (such is how Joseph Smith had his First Vision, after all)–which is exactly what we find Judas doing in “Superstar:”

Whereas the majority of the musical is just a reasonably straight-forward retelling of the last week of Christ’s life–albeit “updated” for a late-60s hippie audience–“Superstar” finally foregrounds all of the show’s themes and questions about Christ’s divinity (that is, was he truly the Son of God, or simply a pop-cultural “Superstar” after all, no more impressive than, say, a Rock concert—or a Broadway show?). Hence Judas asks such eminently contemporary questions like “why’d you choose such a backward time/And such a strange land/If you’d come today you could have reached a whole nation/Israel in 4 BC had no mass communication…”

Of course from an LDS perspective, that question of why then, why there, is firmly answered by our own Book of Mormon in 2 Nephi 10:3, which reads:

“Wherefore, as I said unto you, it must needs be expedient that Christ—for in the last night the angel spake unto me that this should be his name—should come among the Jews, among those who are the more wicked part of the world; and they shall crucify him—for thus it behooveth our God, and there is none other nation on earth that would crucify their God.”

At first blush then, the answer as to why then, why there, is as simple as: no other people in no other period of human history would have crucified their own God, which sacrifice was necessary to bring about the redemption of humanity. But that of course only raises a whole host of other thorny theological questions, such as: why did Christ have to be sacrificed by his own people in the first place? And if the Jews of this era were purportedly so wicked (remembering that Christ and his disciples were all Jews as well), then why were they still tasked with carrying out this redemptive sacrifice?

Another LDS response might be it was because they alone held the Levitical and Aaronic Priesthood authorized to perform atoning sacrifices. But does that in turn mean possessing the proper Priesthood authority is an irrelevant marker of personal righteousness? (Our own D&C 121:34-37 would appear to answer that in the affirmative–and James E. Talmage said something similar). For that matter, does such a reading imply that our own contemporary Priesthood holders are just as capable of wickedness, viciousness, and pious, self-serving, Pharisaical self-righteousness?

Critics both within and without the Church might argue that such is already the case, citing everything from the racist Priesthood ban pre-1978 to the November ‘15 exclusion policy; but then, does 2 Nephi 10:3 also imply that even the very worst of us are still capable of participating in and doing the work of the Atonement? Does that also imply that the most wicked are who are in turn most eligible to be redeemed by Christ’s Atonement? Indeed, for whom else but the wicked (for we are all sinners in the sight of God) is the Atonement even intended?

That is, when the 1973 film shows Judas descending as an angel of light, is that actually more theologically accurate than we currently acknowledge?

To these questions, the Book of Mormon remains as opaque as Judas accuses the Savior of being in “Superstar.” Perhaps that is as it should be; we “see through a glass darkly,” and must walk by faith. Nevertheless, I cannot help but join Judas sometimes—especially during this Easter season—in singing aloud, “Don’t you get me wrong/Only want to know/Only want to know…”