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BARABBAS WAS A Jewish terrorist in the custody of the Roman police in Jerusalem at the time Jesus was arrested and tried for sedition. It was customary at Passover that a prisoner be released by the Roman prelate. And since Pilate saw no valid capital guilt in Jesus, he offered to release him. At the instigation of Jesus' enemies among the Temple authorities, the crowds demanded Barabbas be freed instead. They got their wish. Pilate gave them Barabbas in place of Jesus of Nazareth. There are two ironies in the story that don't appear on the surface of English Bibles. The Missing Name In this episode involving these two Jewish radicals there is a variant in several Greek manuscripts of the Gospel of Matthew. The traditional text of Matthew 27:16-17 reads as follows in the New International Version (NIV): At that time they had a notorious prisoner, called Barabbas. So when the crowd had gathered, Pilate asked them, "Which one do you want me to release to you: Barabbas, or Jesus who is called Christ?" Several manuscripts, however, name the terrorist "Jesus Barabbas" and have Pilate ask: Whom do you want me to release for you, Jesus Barabbas or Jesus who is called the Messiah? (v. 17) Many textual scholars believe this double name ("Jesus Barabbas") was the original reading. They suggest that "Jesus" was deleted from their copies of Matthew out of reverence. The church father Origen (d. 254) said, "In the whole range of the scriptures we know that no one who is a sinner [is called] Jesus." [1] Father's Son The second and deeper irony in the reading "Jesus Barabbas" appears when we note that "Barabbas" (or "Bar Abbas") is the Hellenized form of the Aramaic name Bar Abba, meaning "son of the father." And the name "Jesus" (Greek, Yesous) is the Hellenized form the Hebrew name Yeshua. [2] Thus, in a seemingly inconsequential legal decision that still trembles through the centuries, Pilate was in essence asking the Jerusalem crowd: "Which one do you want me to release to you: Yeshua son of the father or Yeshua son of the father whom his followers call Messiah?" Pilate gave up one Jesus for another Jesus, one "son of the father" in place of another. He exchanged an assassin for an innocent man who died in his place. This is surely the fingerprint of God. • Paul Sumner [Top] NOTES 1 — The variant "Jesus Barabbas" in Matthew 27:17 is cited in: Israel Bible Society, Brit HaHadashah (Hebrew N.T.; 2d ed., 1991) David Stern, Jewish New Testament (text) Richard Weymouth, New Testament in Modern Speech (margin) James Moffatt, The N.T.: A New Translation (text: Jesus Bar-Abbas) The Message (text) RSV - Revised Standard Version (margin) NRSV - New Revised Standard Version (text) TNIV - Today's New International Version (text) GNT - The Good News Translation (text) CEV - Contemporary English Version (text) NCV - New Century Version (margin) HCSB - Holman Christian Standard Bible (margin) The NET Bible (text; good notes on this variant) [ www.bible.org/netbible ] [return to text] Origen's quote and a discussion of the passage in his commentary on Matthew are found in: Bruce M. Metzger, ed. A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament (2d ed., Stuttgart: German Bible Society, 1994), 56. [return to text] 2 — When the Aramaic bar precedes a proper name or noun it is in the construct or genitive form and means "son of." The "s" ending on Abbas is a common Greek pattern of adapting Hebrew names that end in the vowels "-a" or "-ah," as in: Yeshua (Hebrew) –Yesous (Greek) – Jesus (English) Yehudah – Youdas – Judas Kefa (Kepha) – Kefas – Cephas Hannan – Hannas – Annas Kayafa – Kaiaphas – Caiaphas The word bar appears in other NT names: • Bar-Jesus — son of Yeshua (Acts 13:6: "they found a certain magician, a Jewish false prophet whose name was Bar-Jesus") • Barjona (bar Yonah) — son of Jonah (Dove) (Matt 16:17: "Blessed are you, Simon Barjona") • Barnabas (bar Naba?) — (Acts 4:36: "Barnabas . . . which translated means, Son of Encouragement." Linguists aren't sure which Aramaic word "encouragement" represents.) • Bartholomew (bar Talmai; perhaps a form of Ptolemy) — son of Talmai (Matt 10:3: "The names of the twelve apostles are . . . Philip and Bartholomew . . . ") • Bartimaeus (bar Timai) — son of Timai (Mark 10:46: "a blind beggar named Bartimaeus, the son of Timaeus, was sitting by the road") Abba, Av The Aramaic noun abba is not used in the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), but it is related to the Hebrew av. Both mean "father." Interestingly, av is the first word in a Hebrew Bible dictionary and it consists of the first two letters of the alphabet: alef, beit. One could conclude that everything begins with father. [return to text] In the Bible, av can refer to one's natural father, a grandfather, a spiritual leader, or to a teacher (as Elijah, 2 Kings 2:12, "my father, my father—avi avi"). Or it may refer to God himself (2 Sam 7:14; Isa 63:16; Jer 3:19; Ps 89:26). In later rabbinic Judaism, Abba became a title for distinguished sages and teachers (rabbis) and even as a personal name (as in Abba bar Abba). In modern Jewish cultures abba often carries the more intimate connotation "daddy." As recorded in the gospel of Mark, Yeshua called out "Abba! Father!" when he is the olive orchard of Gethsemane and wants God to "remove this cup from me" (Mark 14:36). The use of Abba and the Greek Pater suggests Mark's readers were Greek-speaking and needed a translation of the Aramaic. Similarly, when addressing Greek-speaking congregations, Paul alludes to Yeshua's cry to the God: "You have received the Spirit of adoption as sons by which we [like Yeshua] call out, 'Abba! Father!" (Rom 8:15).  "God has sent forth the spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying 'Abba! Father!' " (Gal 4:6). [return to text] [Top]

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