Barabbas

Template:Short description Template:About Template:Confusion Template:Infobox person According to the New Testament, BarabbasTemplate:Efn (Template:Floruit) was a Jewish bandit and rabble-rouser who was imprisoned by the Roman occupation in Jerusalem, only to be chosen over Jesus by a crowd to be pardoned by Roman governor Pontius Pilate at the Passover feast.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Biblical account

According to all four canonical gospels, there was a prevailing Passover custom in Jerusalem that allowed Pontius Pilate, the Template:Lang 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,Template:Sfn Mark,<ref>Template:Bibleverse</ref> and Luke,<ref>Template:Bibleverse</ref> and the account in John,<ref>Template:Bibleverse</ref> the crowd chooses Barabbas to be released and Jesus of Nazareth to be crucified.<ref>Template:Bibleverse</ref> 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."<ref>Template:Bibleverse</ref>

Matthew refers to Barabbas only as a "notorious prisoner".<ref>Template:Bibleverse</ref> 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"<ref name="CambComm" /> who had committed murder.<ref>Template:Bibleverse, Template:Bibleverse</ref> Robert Eisenman states that John 18:40 refers to Barabbas as a λῃστής (lēistēs, "bandit"), "the word Josephus always employs when talking about Revolutionaries".Template:Efn

Three gospels state that there was a custom that at Passover the Roman governor would release a prisoner of the crowd's choice; Template:Bibleref2, Template:Bibleref2, and Template:Bibleref2. Later copies of Luke contain a corresponding verse (Template:Bibleref2), although this is not present in the earliest manuscripts, and may be a later gloss to bring Luke into conformity.Template:Sfn

The custom of releasing prisoners in Jerusalem at Passover is known to theologians as the Paschal Pardon,Template:Sfn but this custom, whether at Passover or any other time, is not recorded in any historical document other than the gospels, leading some to question its historicity and make further claims that such a custom was a mere narrative invention of the Bible's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.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>Template:Sfn

Name

File:GiveUsBarabbas.png

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 Template:Langx without a first name. However the variations (Template:Langx, Template:Langx, Template:Langx) 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.Template:Efn

The Codex Koridethi seems to emphasise Bar-rhabban as composed of two elements in line with a patronymic Aramaic name.<ref name=":0">Template:Cite book</ref>Template:Sfn These versions, featuring the first name "Jesus" are considered original by a number of modern scholars.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

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.<ref>Origen, Commentary on Matthew, Chapter 27, paragraph 17</ref> He however does not account for the high priest Jason (Template:Langx) 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.<ref name=":0" /> 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.Template:Sfn

Etymology

Of the two larger categories in which transmitted versions of this name fall Template:Langx, seems to represent Jewish Palestinian Aramaic: בּר רַבָּן, romanized: Bar Rabbān, lit. 'Son of our Rabbi/Master', while Template:Langx appears to derive ultimately from Jewish Palestinian Aramaic: בּר אַבָּא, romanized: Bar ʾAbbā lit. 'Son of ʾAbbā/[the] father', a patronymic Aramaic name.<ref name=":0" /> 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.Template:Sfn

Historicity

The majority of scholars such as Craig A. Evans and N. T. Wright accept of the historicity of the Passover pardon narrative, quoting evidence of such pardons from Livy's Books from the Foundation of the City, Josephus's Antiquities of the Jews, Papyrus Florence, Pliny the Younger's Epistles and the Mishnah.Template:Sfn

The similarities of the name (Template:Langx) 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 fictionalizing the story for a polemical or theological purpose.<ref name="britannica.com"/>Template:Sfn

Contrarian beliefs include Max Dimont's opinion the story of Barabbas as related in the Gospels lacks credibility from both the Roman and Jewish standpoint.Template:Sfn Dimont argues against the believability of the Barabbas story by noting that the alleged custom of Template:Lang, "the privilege of Passover", where a criminal is set free, is only found in the Gospels. Alternatively, Raymond E. Brown argues that the Gospels' 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.Template:Sfn

Bart D. Ehrman notes the story is not in Pontius Pilate's character and comments that the name Barabbas "son of the father" is interestingly similar to Jesus's role as the son of God.Template:Sfn

Another minority of scholars, including Benjamin Urrutia, Stevan Davies, Hyam Maccoby and Horace Abram Rigg, have contended that Barabbas and Jesus were the same person.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Template:Sfn

Levitical atonement allegory

Robert L. Merritt, Raymond E. Brown, Pope Benedict XVI, and Hyam Maccoby describe or register readings that compare the Barabbas pericope with the Day of Atonement rite in Leviticus 16, sometimes as deliberate narrative typology and sometimes as thematic echo.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Origen already noted the force of the variant name "Jesus Barabbas," which sharpens a two figure juxtaposition in Matthew and which later scribes may have muted.<ref>Origen, Commentary on Matthew, Chapter 27</ref>

Leviticus 16 (Day of Atonement)	Gospel Narrative
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 Template:Bibleverse	Two prisoners are set before the crowd, Jesus of Nazareth and Barabbas, and the people determine the outcome by acclamation rather than by lots Template:Bibleverse Template:Bibleverse Template:Bibleverse Template:Bibleverse
The goat for the Lord is killed as the sin offering Template:Bibleverse	Gospel Jesus is condemned and executed, which early Christian texts interpret as a once for all sacrificial offering that fulfills and supersedes temple sacrifice Template:Bibleverse Template:Bibleverse
The scapegoat bears the iniquities of the community and is sent out alive to the wilderness Template:Bibleverse	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 Template:Bibleverse Template:Sfn
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 Template:Bibleverse Template:Sfn Template:Sfn

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.Template:Sfn 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.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn 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.Template:Sfn

Antisemitism

Template:See also 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.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn

Pope Benedict XVI, in his 2011 book Jesus of Nazareth, dismisses this reading, since the Greek word ὄχλος (óchlos) in Template:Bibleverse means "crowd", rather than "Jewish people".Template:Sfn Template:Sfn

In literature

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.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Samuel Crossman's English hymn "My Song Is Love Unknown" (published 1684)<ref name=umc>Template:Cite web</ref> contains this verse alluding anonymously to Barabbas as "a murderer"

They rise, and needs will have

my dear Lord made away;

a murderer they save,

the Prince of Life they slay.

Yet cheerful He

to suffering goes,

that He His foes

from thence might free.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Barabbas is the main character in the novel Barabbas (1950) by Pär Lagerkvist.

References

Barabbas

Contents

Biblical account

Name

Etymology

Historicity

Levitical atonement allegory

Antisemitism

In literature

See also

References

Notes

Citations

Sources

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Barabbas

Biblical account

Name

Etymology

Historicity

Levitical atonement allegory

Antisemitism

In literature

See also

References

Notes

Citations

Sources

Navigation menu

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