Judas: The troubling history of the renegade apostle - Hardcover

JUDAS by Peter Stanford was named one of The Independent's Books of the Year in the biography and memoir category. (The Independent)

A cracking piece of writing that posits such a great idea - a pilgrimage to Judas. (Frank Cottrell Boyce)

I've been reading Peter Stanford's JUDAS. It's great. He's a beautiful writer (Author Jon Ronson)

There is no better navigator through the space in which art, culture and spirituality meet than Peter Stanford. His biography of the Devil is a masterpiece. This is an easier book, written in a friendlier style, but the research is just as through... Despite the layers of confusion between the present day and what happened - or not - 2,000 years ago, he finds meaning, and spins a good yarn. (There is also an A to Z of Judas-related bits and pieces, from asparagus to the Zodiac, which is fun)... Stanford is more than willing to admit that some or all of this - including the character of Judas himself - may be fiction, as he picks apart the gospels beautifully and uncovers what appears to be home truths... This entertaining, enlightening biography serves the sympathetic old devil wonderfully well. (Cole Morton The Independent on Sunday)

Peter Stanford's engrossing book shows that Judas is a man for all seasons, nearly all of them bad for him and those around him. Judas is a chameleon, though a chameleon in consistently dark colours, endlessly fertile as a symbolic figure, because he helps us to reflect on our own dark side.

Stanford, a journalist and broadcaster, says a lot about the many faces and other attributes of Judas and does so very engagingly: his book manages to be fun as well as sometimes profound, and it is as much an enjoyable tour of Christian art and thought as an account of a 2,000-year-old traitor.

(Diarmaid MacCulloch The Times)

The biggest question has always been whether Judas was an "out-and-out traitor or cog-in-the-wheel of a divine plan", as Stanford puts it.

With Judas, as with other religious figures, you can and must believe just what you choose. One of the best moments in the book is when Stanford sees a sign outside the Basilica of the Agony in Jerusalem that reads, "Please: no explanations in the Church."

(Christopher Hart The Sunday Times)

It's a fascinating subject. (Clare Balding BBC Radio 2)

This is scary and thought-provoking stuff.

Curiously, thoughtfully and reassuringly English

(James Runcie The Independent)

Wide-ranging and engaging ... Stanford, a much-respected commentator on Catholic affairs, has unearthed some fascinating material and left his readers with more than enough material to prompt some echo of the question "Is it I?" (Rowan Williams New Statesman)

Stanford's book is ultimately a cultural history of the forces which subsumed Judas, leading unstoppably to the version of him - so close to 'Jew' or 'Yehuda' - that lent weight to the idea that the Jews were the murderers of Christ... this book provides, among many insights, a timely account of the origins of anti-Semitism. (Justin Cartwright The Spectator)

Judas: the most famous traitor in all of human history. But who was he really - and what does he mean for us today?