Jesus Barabbas

Who Was Jesus Barabbas?

Most people, when hearing these names used in the same sentence, think of the story presented in Matt 27:15-27, where the Jews choose to set Barabbas, a notorious criminal, free instead of Jesus. However, as with most things concerning the Bible, it goes much deeper than that. Many early Christians used this story as an excuse to be antisemitic. Claiming that it was justified to mistreat Jews because they were the ones who supported killing Jesus. Even going as far as to say that Jews have a “blood curse”. They claim that Matt 27:25 “His blood be on us and on our children” is saying that the Jews have a blood curse. These claims are obviously silly, and demonstrate a lack of fundamental understanding of the Bible and how to interpret it.

Who Was Barabbas?

Barabbas was an insurrectionist, historically we know that around this time period there was a series of attempted overthrow of the Roman government. Unfortunately, we don’t have a Roman record of a “Barabbas”. This is to be expected as he was not a wealthy individual or an accomplished person. Usually, historical records are most fond of people who had the most historical impact.

Many skeptics raise questions as to how likely the whole story of Barabbas is. This is because the Roman government, in most cases, would have had insurrectionists executed on the spot. They also argue against the historicity of the Jewish tradition to release a prisoner, claiming it's only found in the gospels. These claims were undisputed until something very interesting was discovered in some of the early manuscripts of Matt. The original text did not just say “Barabbas” but “Jesus Barabbas”.

Part of the reason this took us such a long time to find is that our beloved early Christian scholars, such as Origen of Alexandria, discovered this in the 3rd century. They determined that it is impossible that such a holy name could have been given to Barabbas, and that some heretic must have written it in. Our current scholars have determined that it’s most likely that the original text indeed said, “Jesus Barabbas.”

What Does This Mean?

Many Christians now argue that it's highly unlikely that the story of Barabbas was added in. The reason for this is that it would not make sense to add in a character with the same name as Jesus, especially if the goal is to deceive people. This opened the door to all kinds of crazy theories from skeptics. Some say Jesus and Barabbas were the same person. Some still claim it's made up. Some think it could be a metaphor. To be honest, as a Christian, I want to know what is going on with “Jesus Barabbas.”

But first, let's look at the skepticism regarding the Passover prisoner release tradition.The main argument is that because we don’t have a record of Palate honoring this tradition, From the Roman or Jewish perspective, this did not occur. This is obviously an argument from silence, which is when to take a lack of data and make a positive conclusion from it. These sorts of arguments are fallacious by definition and can be stretched beyond reasonable proportions. For example, using this same standard, one could conclude that Joe Biden has a pet raccoon living in the white house, and you really couldn’t prove them wrong since Joe hasn’t told us that he does not have a raccoon living in the white house.

This is also Unreasonable Skepticism as we have plenty of examples of prisoners being released for various other reasons, even one that is during Passover time.

1. In the Mishnah (Jewish oral tradition, written in around AD 300) it records that “they may slaughter the Passover lamb for one….whom they have promised to bring out of prison”. This may not confirm the tradition directly, but this was written referring to a prisoner that was released around Passover time.

2. Josephus says that when the Roman governor Albinus was preparing to leave office he released prisoners who had been incarcerated for crimes other than murder."he was desirous to appear to do somewhat that might be grateful to the people of Jerusalem; so he brought out all those prisoners who seemed to him to be most plainly worthy of death, and ordered them to be put to death accordingly. But as to those who had been put into prison on some trifling occasions, he took money of them, and dismissed them; by which means the prisons were indeed emptied, but the country was filled with robbers.' (Antiquities 20.9.3).

3. Pliny the younger states this in regards to Roman prisoner release practices,"It was asserted, however, that these people were released upon their petition to the proconsuls, or their lieutenants; which seems likely enough, as it is improbable any person should have dared to set them at liberty without authority" (Epistles 10.31).

5. In his widely praised commentary on “The gospel of Mark”, the author William Lane states ‘There is….. a parallel in Roman law which indicates that an imperial magistrate could pardon and acquit individual prisoners in response to the shouts of the populace’(The Gospel according to Mark, p. 553).

3. A piece of papyrus also records a Roman governor of Egypt saying: “You were worthy of scourging but I gave you to the crowds.” (P.Flor 61, c. AD 85).

So such intense skepticism is clearly unwarranted. We have several examples of Roman prisoners being released for various reasons.

What's The Deal With “Jesus Barabbas”?

Jesus Barabbas is a strange coincidence in the Bible, however, it's a plausible one. The name “Jesus” is just our English word for “Yeshua”, this would have been the Greek name for “Joshua” a common name in Israel during this era. Barabbas also would have been a fairly common name, since “Abbas” Means “fathers” and “Ba-ra” means “sons of”. So, Barabbas means “Sons of the fathers”.

This leads to more questions than it does answers. The gospels never say it, but Jesus’s full name would have likely been “Yeshua Bar-Yoseph” Barabbas’s full name would have been “Yeshua Bar-abbas”. This sparks a whole new conspiracy because Jesus' name is so similar to Barabbas, many skeptics say it's the same person but it's not the same person. It's two different people with similar names. If these two names were not so common these claims would be better grounded but to claim Jesus and Barabbas were the same person does not make sense under this context. There is however a theory from Christians regarding this issue that I find very interesting.

Some Christians believe that Jesus and Barabbas’s story is a parallel. This theory does sound weird, however, it makes biblical sense. We can see that this incident where they choose to free Barabbas is the world of men choosing the doctrine of their fathers (who were considered murderous and rebellious toward God's truth and covenant - just like Barabbas, a murderer and rebel,), and placing their due judgment and curse upon Jesus, nailing him to a cross (read Matthew 27:25). God turns this into a blessing for all humankind, saving the remnant of Israel and revealing and glorifying the Gospel for all nations. We know that Jesus said that the scriptures are about him, and the scriptures are (in many places) a historical record of events. This implies that history has unfolded according to God's redemption plan for humanity. And perhaps, it still is. Perhaps God allows history to unfold in a way that we can learn lessons and be better prepared for future events...