According to all four canonical gospels, there was a prevailing Passover custom in Jerusalem that allowed Pontius Pilate, the praefectus or governor of Judea, to commute one prisoner's death sentence by popular acclaim. In one such instance, the "crowd" (ὄχλος: óchlos), "the Jews" and "the multitude" in some sources, are offered the choice to have either Barabbas or Jesus released from Roman custody. According to the Synoptic Gospels of Matthew,[3]Mark,[4] and Luke,[5] and the account in John,[6] the crowd chooses Barabbas to be released and Jesus of Nazareth to be crucified.[4] Pilate reluctantly yields to the insistence of the crowd. One passage, found in the Gospel of Matthew, has the crowd saying (of Jesus), "Let his blood be upon us and upon our children."[7]
Matthew refers to Barabbas only as a "notorious prisoner".[8] Mark and Luke further refer to Barabbas as one involved in a στάσις (stásis, a riot), probably "one of the numerous insurrections against the Roman power"[9] who had committed murder.[10]Robert Eisenman states that John 18:40 refers to Barabbas as a λῃστής (lēistēs, "bandit"), "the word Josephus always employs when talking about Revolutionaries".[b]
Three gospel state that there was a custom that at Passover the Roman governor would release a prisoner of the crowd's choice.[11][12][13] Later copies of Luke contain a corresponding verse,[14] although this is not present in the earliest manuscripts, and may be a later gloss to bring Luke into conformity.[15]
The custom of releasing prisoners in Jerusalem at Passover is known to theologians as the Paschal Pardon,[16] but this custom, whether at Passover or any other time, is not recorded in any historical document other than the gospels, leading some to question its historicity and make further claims that such a custom was a mere narrative invention of the Bible's writers.[17][18]
Name
Barabbas, according to a representation in The Bible and Its Story Taught by One Thousand Picture Lessons, from 1910
There exist several versions of this figure's name in gospel manuscripts, most commonly simply Biblical Greek: Bαραββᾶς, romanized:Barabbās without a first name. However the variations (Biblical Greek: Ἰησοῦς Bαῤῥαββᾶν, romanized:Iēsoûs Bar-rhabbân, Biblical Greek: Ἰησοῦς Bαραββᾶς, romanized:Iēsoûs Barabbâs, Biblical Greek: Ἰησοῦς Bαῤῥαββᾶς, romanized:Iēsoûs Bar-rhabbâs) found in different manuscripts of the Matthew 27:16–17 give this figure the first name "Jesus", making his full name "Jesus Barabbas" or "Jesus Bar-rhabban", and giving him the same first, given name as Jesus.[c]
The Codex Koridethi seems to emphasise Bar-rhabban as composed of two elements in line with a patronymic Aramaic name.[20][21] These versions, featuring the first name "Jesus" are considered original by a number of modern scholars.[22][23]
Origen seems to refer to this passage of Matthew in claiming that it must be a corruption, as no sinful man ever bore the name "Jesus" and argues for its exclusion from the text.[24] He however does not account for the high priest Jason (Biblical Greek: Ἰάσων, romanized:Iásōn) from 2 Maccabees 4:13, whose name seems to transliterate the same Aramaic name into Greek, as well as other bearers of the name Jesus mentioned by Josephus.[20] It is possible that scribes when copying the passage, driven by a reasoning similar to that of Origen, removed this first name "Jesus" from the text to avoid dishonor to the name of the Jesus whom they considered the Messiah.[25]
Etymology
Of the two larger categories in which transmitted versions of this name fall Biblical Greek: Bαῤῥαββᾶν, romanized:Bar-rhabbân, seems to represent Jewish Palestinian Aramaic: בּר רַבָּן, romanized: Bar Rabbān, lit. 'Son of our Rabbi/Master', while Biblical Greek: Bαραββᾶς, romanized:Barabbâs appears to derive ultimately from Jewish Palestinian Aramaic: בּר אַבָּא, romanized: Bar ʾAbbā lit. 'Son of ʾAbbā/[the] father, a patronymic Aramaic name.[20] However, ʾAbbā has been found as a personal name in a 1st-century burial at Giv'at ha-Mivtar. Additionally it appears fairly often as a personal name in the Gemara section of the Talmud, a Jewish text dating from AD 200–400.[26]
The similarities of the name (Biblical Greek: Ἰησοῦς Bαραββᾶς, romanized:Iēsoûs Barabbâs) in some manuscripts and the name of Jesus have led some modern scholars to argue that the counter-intuitive similarity of the two men's names is evidence of its historicity. They doubt a Christian writer would invent a similar name for a criminal, practically equating Christ with a criminal, if he were inventing the story for a polemical or theological purpose.[1][25]
Contrarian positions include Max Dimont, who argues against the believability of the Barabbas story by noting that the alleged custom of privilegium Paschale, "the privilege of Passover", where a criminal is set free, is only found in the Gospels. For Dimont, Barabbas' narrative lacks credibility from both the Roman and Jewish standpoint.[28]Raymond E. Brown contends that the Gospel narratives about Barabbas cannot be considered historical, but that it is probable that a prisoner referred to as Barabbas (bar abba, "son of the father") was freed around the period Jesus was crucified, and this gave birth to the story.[29]
Bart D. Ehrman notes the story is not in Pontius Pilate's character to release an insurrectionist for the Jews, as well as commenting that the name Barabbas "son of the father" is interestingly similar to Jesus' role as the son of God.[30]
A minority of scholars, including Benjamin Urrutia, Stevan Davies, Hyam Maccoby and Horace Abram Rigg, have contended that Barabbas and Jesus were the same person.[31][32][33][34]Robert Eisenman's thesis on Barabbas is not one of a petty criminal, but a zealot. The Gospels present him as guilty of stasis (insurrection) and phonon (murder), which Eisenman views as political rebellion. Arguing this was to later distance Christianity from Jewish militancy, though both Jesuses are two versions of the same figure.[35]
Two goats are set before the community, lots distinguish the goat for the Lord from the goat for Azazel, and the people witness the assignment[39]
Two prisoners are set before the crowd, Jesus of Nazareth and Barabbas, and the people determine the outcome by acclamation rather than by lots[40][41][42][43]
The goat for the Lord is killed as the sin offering[44]
Gospel Jesus is condemned and executed, which early Christian texts interpret as a once for all sacrificial offering that fulfills and supersedes temple sacrifice[45][46]
The scapegoat bears the iniquities of the community and is sent out alive to the wilderness[47]
Barabbas the ληιστης is released alive back into the social body, which typological readers construe as the bearer of communal transgression displaced from the innocent one[48][26]
The priestly rite involves confession over the scapegoat
The crowd's shouted choice and the Matthean cry "Let his blood be on us and on our children" function as the narrative moment of transfer in the typology, though Brown and others caution that the legal setting and absence of lots mark a transformation rather than replication[49][36][16]
On this reading the retelling encodes faith development from Judaism to Christianity. The cultic system of atonement is recast into a judicial narrative in which Jesus replaces the sin offering, temple sacrifice becomes Christological once for all atonement, and the released figure carries the narrative role of the living scapegoat into the world rather than into the sanctuary precincts.[36] Merritt argues that the Barabbas option at Passover functions as a civic ritual that could be read by early Christians in light of Yom Kippur patterns, while Benedict XVI acknowledges the connection yet restricts its scope to typology rather than direct dependence.[16][37] Maccoby underscores the naming and insurgent context, which increases the rhetorical contrast between the one killed and the one released, and so strengthens the two goat frame.[32] Jennifer K. Breanson reasons it is a literary creation, which encodes ritual symbolism with the transformation of Leviticus 16 into a passion drama.[50]
The story of Barabbas has played a role in historical antisemitism, because it has historically been used to lay the blame for the crucifixion of Jesus on the Jews, and thereby to justify antisemitism – an interpretation known as Jewish deicide.[37][51]
Barabbas appears in Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita (1967), rendered as Bar-Rabban, a rebel insurgent. In Chapter 2, "Pontius Pilate," the devil Woland recounts Yeshua Ha-Nozri's trial to Soviet atheists in 1930s Moscow. Amid Passover tumult, the crowd demands Bar-Rabban's release over Yeshua's, dooming the latter to crucifixion with thieves. This episode mirrors biblical events while amplifying Bulgakov's motifs of arbitrary authority, crowd frenzy, and Pilate's gnawing remorse, echoed later as the procurator's eternal curse, weaving ancient injustice into the novel's satire on Soviet repression.[52][53]
↑Contemporaries combining insurrection and murder in this way were sicarii, members of a militant Jewish movement that sought to overthrow the Roman occupiers of their land by force (Eisenman 177–84, et passim).
↑This version of the name in Greek can be found the Codex Koridethi, some minuscules of Family 1 manuscripts, and in Minuscule 700 – translations of this version name also exist in Syriac and Armenian sources, such as the Codex Syrus Sinaiticus, the Harklean version, and in the Bible used by the Armenian Apostolic Church. The Codex Koridethi spells the name Biblical Greek: Ἰησοῦς Bαῤῥαββᾶν, romanized:Iēsoûs Bar-rhabbân with an emphazied gap between the two Rhos.[19]
Maccoby, Hyam (1973). Revolution in Judaea. New York: Taplinger.
Merritt, Robert L. (March 1985). "Jesus (the nazarene) Barabbas and the Paschal Pardon". Journal of Biblical Literature. 104 (1): 57–68. doi:10.2307/3260593. JSTOR3260593.
Warren, William (2011). "Who Changed the Text and Why? Probable, Possible, and Unlikely Explanations". In Bart D. Ehrman; Daniel B. Wallace; Robert B. Stewart (eds.). The Reliability of the New Testament. Fortress Press. ISBN978-0-8006-9773-0.
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