Barabbas

"Give us Barabbas!," from The Bible and its Story Taught by One Thousand Picture Lessons, 1910

Barabbas was the Jewish insurrectionist whom Pontius Pilate freed at the Passover feast in Jerusalem in the Christian narrative of the Passion of Jesus. According to some texts, his full name was Yeshua bar Abba, (Jesus, the "son of the father").

The penalty for Barabbas' crime of treason against Rome—the same crime for which Jesus was also convicted—was death by crucifixion. However, according to the four canonical gospels and the Gospel of Peter, there was a prevailing Passover custom in Jerusalem that allowed or required Pilate to commute one prisoner's death sentence by popular acclaim. The crowd was offered a choice of whether to have Barabbas or Jesus released from Roman custody. According to the closely parallel gospels of Matthew (27:15-26), Mark (15:6-15), Luke (23:13–25), and the more divergent accounts in John (18:38-19:16), the crowd chose for Barabbas to be released and Jesus of Nazareth to be crucified. A passage found only in the Gospel of Matthew has the crowd saying, "Let his blood be upon us and upon our children."

The story of Barabbas has special social significances, partly because it has frequently been used to lay the blame for the Crucifixion on the Jews and justify anti-Semitism. The story may also have served to shift blame away from the Roman state, removing an impediment to Christianity's acceptance.

Background

Barabbas lived during a time when the independent Jewish state established by the Hasmonean dynasty had been brought to end by the unrivaled power of the Roman Empire. The Hasmoneans themselves were considered corrupt by strict religious Jews, and Jewish client kings such as Herod the Great created an atmosphere of widespread resentment. The two mainstream religious parties, the Sadducees and Pharisees, came to represent opposing poles, with the Sadducees generally controlling the Temple priesthood and the Sadducees appealing to a more popular piety. Consequently, the Sadducees came to be seen as Roman collaborators, while the Pharisees themselves were divided in the attitude toward Roman rule. In this context, the group known to history as the Zealots arose as a party of passionate opposition to Rome, willing to use violence against these foreign oppressors to hasten the coming of the Messiah.

Several claimants to the title of Messiah arose in decades immediately before and after the time of Jesus and Barabbas. Most of them led violent revolts in an attempt to overthrow Roman rule. The Essenes, meanwhile, prepared for the day when the corrupt Temple priesthood would be replaced by their own purified priests and the Day of the Lord would bring about the advent not only of the kingly Davidic Messiah but also the priestly Messiah, son of Aaron. The Book of Acts lists several messianic pretenders, as does the Jewish historian Josephus.

In the time of Barabbas, Rome no longer ruled Judah through a client king, or even an "ethnach," but through a Roman governor, Pontius Pilate. The New Testament explains that members of the priesthood and the ruling Sanhedrin were particularly concerned lest messianic movements become such a serious threat that Rome would clamp down even further on Jewish rights.

"If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation," the Gospel of John reports members of the Sanhedrin as saying. To this, the high prest Caiaphas replies: "It is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish." (John 11:48-50)

It is in this context that the story of Barabbas and Jesus is told.

Barabbas' and Jesus

John 18:40 refers to Barabbas as a lēstēs, "bandit." Luke refers to him as one involved in a stasis, a riot (Luke 23:19). Matthew calls Barabbas only a "notorious prisoner." (Matthew 27:16). However, Mark (15:7) makes his crime more specific, saying that he committed murder in an insurrection.

File:Jesus-money-changers.jpg

Jesus attacks the money-changers and merchants, while the Temple scribes observe.

Clearly, Barabbas was no mere murderer, but a leader of a group that had acted violently against Roman authority. Some scholars posit that he was a member Zealots or of the sicarii (dagger-men), militant Jews that sought to overthrow the Roman occupiers of their land by force.

Like Barabbas, Jesus of Nazareth was charged with treason against Rome. Shortly prior to his arrest, he had entered the Temple precincts to shouts of "Hosanna, son of David!" To Jews of the era, no clearer messianic declaration could be imagined. Not only that, but Jesus had immediate proceeded to a violent act against the authority of the Temple, overthrowing the tables of the money-changers and disrupting trade for sacrificial offerings needed for the Temple's busiest holiday, namely Passover.

This had prompted the high priest's family to move against him, bribing one of his disciples to betray him and arresting him at night at the Garden of Gethsemane. After a late-night, but probably illegal, religious trial at the home of Caiaphas' father-in-law, it was decided to hand him over to Rome on capital charges of treason.

Thus, both Barabbas and Jesus came to find themselves facing the death penalty, with their fate in the hands of the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate.

Pilate's choice

Although neither Jewish nor Roman sources speak of it, three gospels state unequivocally that there was a custom at Passover during which the Roman governor would release a prisoner of the crowd's choice (Mark 15:6; Matt. 27:15; John 18:39). The gospels differ on whether the custom was a Roman one or a Jewish one.

Pilate offers the crowd Jesus instead of Barabbas

In any case, the gospels agree that the crowd, urged on by the high priest's group, urge Pilate to release Barabbas. Although John's gospel refers to the crowd as "the Jews" and Matthew makes a clear attempt to blame the Jews collectively for the choice, the question emerges as to the composition of this crowd and whom they represented.

The gospels make it clear that the disciples of Jesus had all abandoned him when he was arrested, and even his chief disciple, Peter, denied him three times rather than being identified as his supporter. The insurrectionist Barabbas thus was much more likely to have among his disciples men who were willing to risk being publicly associate with him. This group would have made common cause with the high priest's faction to urge Pilate to release Barabbas and condemn Jesus.

Mark, thought generally to be the earliest of the gospels, reports: "The chief priests stirred up the crowd to have Pilate release Barabbas instead (of Jesus). 'What shall I do, then, with the one you call the king of the Jews?' Pilate asked them. 'Crucify him!' they shouted. 'Why? What crime has he committed?' asked Pilate." (Mark 15:11-14)

John's gospel makes the political ramifications of the decisions more clear. "If you let this man go," they argued, "you are no friend of Caesar. Anyone who claims to be a king opposes Caesar." (John 19:12)

In the end, Pilate released Barabbas, leaving Jesus to his fate.

Legacy

Little if anything is known of Barabbas' life after he gained his freedom. It may be that the two men crucified with Jesus at Golgotha were among his followers. Although they are normally thought of as "thieves," crucifixion would not have been the penalty for mere robbery. Mark's statement that "Barabbas was in prison with the insurrectionists who had committed murder in the uprising," makes it likely that other Zealots besides Barabbas had been scheduled for execution.

Although Barabbas himself disappears from the record, other insurrections. Pilate himself was clearly threatened by such events, for he was deposed by Rome for over-reacting to a Samaritan messianic movement a few years later. In the Book of Acts the Pharisaic leader Gamaliel refers to two would-be Messiahs who led revolts: Theudas and Judas the Galilean (Acts 5:36-37). A generation later, the oppression of Rome had grown to the point where a major Jewish revolt broke out in 66 C.E., leading the a full scale Roman invasion and the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem. In the next century, a revolt led by Simon Bar Kochba actually succeeded in establishing an independent Jewish state briefly, although Jerusalem itself remained in Roman hands.

In popular culture, Barabbas is variously portrayed as a patriotic rebel leader, a terrorist, or even a pseudonym for Jesus, since his name means "son of the father," and some sources indicate that his first name, like Jesus, was Yeshua.

In 1961, Anthony Quinn played the title role of Barabbas in a popular Hollywood movie. Here, Barabbas is haunted by Jesus' innocent blood being spilled in place of his, and his life is never the same. The movie is based a story by Noble Prize winning novelist Pär Lagerkvist.

External links

• John Dominic Crossan, "Crowd control": identity, purpose and size of "the crowd" in Mark and its adapted purposes in Luke and John, on the occasion of the Mel Gibson film of 2004.
• More on the interpretation that Jesus and Barabbas were the same person
• Why Barabbas Was Released Instead of Jesus

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