If you study the Apostles, Judas will be on your learning radar. There is a lot written about him in the New Testament (NT). In your study, you will be faced with two separate accounts of his death:
Matthew says that Judas died by hanging. Matthew 27:5–8
However, Luke says that Judas fell into a field and that his body ruptured. (Acts 1:18–19). Which account is correct?
Can they both be correct?
The Kiss of Judas - Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio
The book I am reading by John McArther states that both are true. The field that Judas hung himself in, was a very rocky terrain. In his attempt to hang himself, it's likely the branch broke and he landed on the rocks that cut him open.
Matthew seems to focus on Judas’ suicide. Luke’s focus is on the final state of Judas’ body. According to Jewish laws and customs, the Jews would not have wanted to go near a dead body. (Numbers 19.11) This would be especially true when that dead body belonged to a traitor. But how would someone who hanged himself have their guts burst out? This gruesome story doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense. Or does it? The Textbook of Forensic Medicine and Toxicology says: “Between 3 and 7 days, ever-increasing pressure of the putrefying gases associated with colliquative changes in the soft tissues may lead to softening of the abnormal parietes resulting in bursting open the abdomen and thorax.” So, we actually do have some medical data that fits with what we read in Matthew and Luke. Someone eventually cutting Judas’ corpse down, or the rope giving out, would explain how his body would have burst on the ground. Therefore, Matthew and Luke aren’t contradictory; they’re better viewed as complimentary. Each account ties up a loose end of the other. There are also cliffs that overlook the valley of Hinnom. Those cliffs could very well be the place where Judas hanged himself, and his dead body fell. Falling against the rocks, this could explain why he fell facedown.