Why Barabbas?

[Sexton Blake]

We are told that Jesus did miracles. He raised the dead, made the blind see and the lame walk as well as casting out demons.

 

There were crowds who sought him out to cure themself and family members.

 

5,000 people attended his "Sermon on the Mount".

 

Yet  the people preferred to let go Barabbas instead. Barabbas was a leader in a rebellion and a murderer.

 

It is said the Jewish elders persuaded the people but who would vote to let a known murderer go over someone who can provably cure people and do miracles?

 

 

[TABA]

Yes, this is one of those jarring moments in the New Testament: on “Palm Sunday” the people give Jesus a triumphal entry into Jerusalem, and only days later they are howling for his execution.  No explanation given.  Of course apologists conjure up explanations for everything, to satisfy those who really want to believe. 

[walterpthefirst]

I find the gospels to be hopelessly confused.

 

For instance, when Pontius Pilate asked the crowds whom he should release, they shouted, 'Barabbas'.

 

But in Aramaic the words Bar Abbas means, 'the son of the father'.

 

https://www.abarim-publications.com/Meaning/Barabbas.html

 

But didn't Jesus call himself the Son of the Father, many times?

 

So, who were the crowds calling to be released?

 

The man Barabbas or Bar Abbas, the Son of the Father?

 

 

Thank you,

 

Walter.

 

[TheRedneckProfessor]

 

[Joshpantera]

12 hours ago, Sexton Blake said:

We are told that Jesus did miracles. He raised the dead, made the blind see and the lame walk as well as casting out demons.

 

There were crowds who sought him out to cure themself and family members.

 

5,000 people attended his "Sermon on the Mount".

 

Yet  the people preferred to let go Barabbas instead. Barabbas was a leader in a rebellion and a murderer.

 

It is said the Jewish elders persuaded the people but who would vote to let a known murderer go over someone who can provably cure people and do miracles?

 

 

 

The short answer is that none of this has any historical credibility at all. So there never would have been such an incident to begin with. It must be another theological issue. 

 

8 hours ago, walterpthefirst said:

But in Aramaic the words Bar Abbas means, 'the son of the father'.

 

If you look at both names, Jesus means "Yahweh Saves" and is referred to as the or a son of god in the myths.  Bar Abbas means "Son of the Father." Both tend to convey the same general meaning.

 

So, from a literary theological view, Pilate is basically putting up a question as to which of the two presented versions of the 'son of the father' do they want to release. Maybe it has to do with Bar Abbas being into violent revolt and militantism and jesus more less representing a passive approach.

 

The people yell that they want the passive verson of the 'son of the father' killed instead of the militarized one from that perspective. 

 

If they were writing post fall of Jerusalem as most secularists assume, this could simply be another jab by the writer blaming the jews and their lust for a militarized action towards Rome for the fall of Jerusalem. The crowds voted for a warrior instead of passive approach. Both in the name of a son of god type motif.  

 

 

[TheRedneckProfessor]

20 minutes ago, Joshpantera said:

The people yell that they want the passive verson of the 'son of the father' killed instead of the militarized one from that perspective. 

The parallel to modern conservative fundamentalism is rather disconcerting. 

[mwc]

     In every gospel version of this Pilate is shown as having his hands tied by some Jewish tradition.  He's forced to execute an innocent man.  The Jews trump up some charges against jesus, then ask for the release of Barabbas using the tradition.  In an effort to release jesus Pilate makes appeal to the crowd to take jesus instead but they refuse so Pilate has jesus flogged and turned over to the Jews for crucifixion.

 

     Everything we know about Pilate from other sources tells us this is just a fiction.  Pilate would not have acquiesced in this way.  The stories we have of him have him placing (plain clothes) soldiers in the crowds with hidden weapons and when crowds didn't do as he asked he would signal the soldiers to attack the crowds.  He did not have any high level of respect for Jews nor their customs beyond what was required to keep things operating smoothly and this sort of incident would be so low priority he would just release jesus and let the Jews try to take it up with someone further up the chain of command instead of he having to explain giving a death sentence to an innocent man (even a non-Roman).  Tradition would not outweigh justice or protocol especially when it was clearly unjust and the Jews were trying to use him.  Pilate was recalled to Rome for killing some Samaritans for trying to find some artifacts of Moses (or one of them was a messiah like Moses?  I don't recall the specifics off-hand).

 

     One of the apologetics for this event is that round about this time (depending on when you date all this) is in Rome Tiberius had taken care of a potential take-over by Sejanus (who was effectively running the show in Rome while Tiberius was down on Capri refusing to return to Rome).  So anyone that might be tied to Sejanus, that hadn't been offed or otherwise dealt with, was acting in ways to escape notice.  The idea here is Pilate would have been appointed by Sejanus so once this all happened in Rome that Pilate suddenly rolled over for the Jews so they wouldn't bring him to the attention of Tiberius so he might be killed off himself.  So they had their dog on a leash and made him do their bidding thanks to goings on in Rome.  There's no evidence of any of this but it's what we're told is how this all played out.  It's also why when Pilate is recalled some years later it's because enough time had passed so he could resume his evil ways.  So jesus' death happened at the exact right moment in time.

 

          mwc

 

[◊ Weezer ◊]

If it actually happened, maybe jesus followers were the more common people who were not at these meetings??  The Jewish "officials" were the ones not happy with him and were there to call for his death?? 

[☆ DarkBishop ☆]

On 1/19/2022 at 4:36 PM, Joshpantera said:

If they were writing post fall of Jerusalem as most secularists assume, this could simply be another jab by the writer blaming the jews and their lust for a militarized action towards Rome for the fall of Jerusalem. The crowds voted for a warrior instead of passive approach. Both in the name of a son of god type motif.  

This makes sense. We already know most of the "prophecies" of the old testament were written after they had happened. Maybe after Jerusalem fell in the revolt this spoke to people more.