From a historical and exegetical point of view, there is not necessarily a contradiction between the accounts of Matthew and Acts. The two authors probably describe different aspects of the same event.
1- Matthew's account: the hanging
Matthew simply writes:
“He went away and hanged himself” (Matthew 27.5).
His intention is to show Judas' despair after he had returned the thirty pieces of silver to the religious leaders.
2- The account in Acts: the fall of the body
Peter declares:
“Falling headlong, he burst open in the middle and all his entrails gushed out” (Acts 1.18).
Luke does not explicitly say that Judas killed himself by falling. He merely describes the condition in which his body was found after a violent fall.
3- A possible harmonization
The solution generally adopted since antiquity is the following:
- Judas hangs himself (Matthew 27.5).
- His body remains hanging for some time.
- The rope, or more probably the branch to which it was attached, gives way.
- The body falls in a steep place and is torn open by the impact of the fall (Acts 1.18).
Thus, Matthew reports the cause of death, while Luke describes what then happened to the corpse.
4- Ancient testimonies
Papias of Hierapolis already knew several traditions concerning the end of Judas, which shows that this episode aroused discussion among Christians very early. Later, Augustine of Hippo likewise considered the two accounts to be complementary rather than contradictory.
5- Another linguistic explanation
Some scholars point out that the verb used in (Acts 1.18) could simply describe a forward fall without specifying the cause. Luke would thus not be seeking to recount the suicide of Judas, already known to his readers, but only the spectacular consequence of that death.
6- The problem of the “field acquired by Judas”
Another difficulty is that Matthew states that the chief priests bought the field (Matthew 27.7-8), while Peter says that Judas acquired this land (Acts 1.18). Here again, the two statements can be reconciled: the land was bought with money belonging to Judas, which made it possible to regard it legally as his acquisition.
Conclusion
It is therefore possible to consider that:
- Matthew reports the suicide by hanging;
- Luke reports the discovery of the body after its fall;
- the two accounts are not necessarily incompatible, but emphasize different details.
If the authors had wanted to invent a harmonized story, they would probably have given exactly the same version. The fact that each keeps his own perspective is rather a usual characteristic of independent testimonies, such as are frequently found in the Gospels and in the book of Acts.