Was Judas Iscariot important? Because if he never betrayed Jesus doesn’t that mean he wouldn’t have died on the cross? Why or why not?

 The hard part to understand here is why the chief priests and Pharisees needed Judas Iscariot to identify Jesus, or why they were prepared to spend such a really large sum of money—thirty pieces of silver—to have him do so. Jesus was already well known in Jerusalem and had even had conversations with some of the Jewish religious leaders. Jesus had even spent three hours alone praying nearby, yet there was no attempt made to apprehend him. If this arrest at the Garden of Gethsemene ever really happened, they merely had to wait for Jesus to arrive with his three companions. At worst, they could have arrested all four and then sorted out which one was Jesus. Judas Iscariot may have been important in the gospel story, in order to make the arrest part of an evil plot to kill Jesus, but logic does not require him.