Barabbas

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"Give Us Barabbas!", From The Bible and its Story Taught by One Thousand Picture Lessons , 1910.

Barabbas (Greek Bαραββᾶς) was, according to all evangelical reports of the trial of Jesus, a man who was in Roman imprisonment at the time of the Passion . According to these reports, Pontius Pilate is said to have offered the assembled people the alternative of either releasing him or Jesus. This episode is reported in all the Gospels immediately before the crucifixion of Jesus ( Mt 27.15–26  EU , Mk 15.6–15  EU , Lk 23.18  EU , Joh 18.39-40  EU ).

The name

The name Barabbas , handed down in today's versions of the Passion of Jesus, is probably a patronymic , for whose Aramaic form the composition bar abbas or bar rabba (n) ("son of Abbas" or "son of the Lord" or "son of our Lord") Is accepted.

Some codices contain the name Jesoûs (hò) Barabbâs in passages 27,16.17 EU of the Gospel of Matthew . Even if the witnesses for this reading of the passage are neither numerous nor particularly old, it is often assumed in the New Testament exegesis that the name Jesus in Mt 27:16, 17 belonged to the original existence of the text, since it is considered unlikely that one would I changed the name of Barabbas to the variant Jesus bar Abbas, which is offensive for Jewish Christians . It is easy to imagine, however, that Jesus was deleted from these passages . The view already held by Origen that the name Jesus was not originally included in the text is still held.

Historical findings

For some historians, the fact that traditions of the name existed in the form of Jesus Barabbas is an indication that Barabbas was not a fictional person. Further knowledge about the circumstances of his arrest, the allegations directed against him and his legal situation cannot be obtained from the evangelical reports. According to Mark 15.7  EU , Barabbas was imprisoned or imprisoned together with some rebels who had committed murder. However , it cannot be inferred from this passage in the Gospel of Mark whether Barabbas was one of the rebels. In the Gospel of Luke (23.19 EU ) riot and murder are given as the cause of his arrest. The passage from the Gospel of Luke is seen as a borrowing from the Gospel of Mark. In Mt 27.16  EU Barabbas is only referred to as a “respected prisoner”, and the Gospel of John (18.40 EU ) only states that he was a “bandit” ( lestés ).

According to a thesis put forward by the French theologian Alfred Loisy at the beginning of the 20th century, Barabbas is not the name of a person, but a role in a masquerade. Loisy resorted to an episode handed down by Philo of Alexandria , which is said to have occurred during a visit by Herod Agrippa I in Alexandria. In order to mock Agrippa, a pack of Alexandrian residents disguised a "poor devil" named Karabbas with a carpet over his shoulder and a basket on his head as a king, mocked and finally beat him. Because of the similarities of this episode with the mistreatment that were inflicted on Jesus by the Roman soldiers according to the Passion Reports , and because of the "extreme improbability" of the Barabbas episode, according to Loisy it is conceivable that "Pilate had Jesus treated as Karabbas ".

The evangelical Passion Reports are not just the only sources that have passed down notes on Barabbas. The Roman custom, referred to in the Christian tradition as privilegium paschale , to free a prisoner on the occasion of the Passover festival , is only mentioned in these passages of the Gospels. It is considered unlikely that such a custom ever existed among Roman governors in Palestine: Nothing of the kind has come down to us in Roman or Jewish sources, and also the view expressed on the basis of Jn 18.39  EU that it is a Jewish custom acted, finds no confirmation.

Other interpretations

According to Hyam Maccoby and some other scholars, Jesus was known as "bar-Abba" because of his habit of calling God "Abba" when he prayed and preached. According to this, when the Jewish party shouted in front of Pontius Pilate to liberate “Bar Abba”, he could have meant Jesus. It is further claimed that anti-Semitic elements of the Christian church have changed the narrative in such a way that the wish was for someone else (robber or rebel), namely “Barabbas”. This is part of the intention to shift the blame for the crucifixion from the Romans to the Jews.

Benjamin Urrutia , one of the authors of The Logia of Yeshua : The Sayings of Jesus, claims that Yeshua Bar Abba or Jesus Barabbas is identical to the Nazareth Jesus and that the choice between the two prisoners is an invention. However, Urrutia contradicts the view that Jesus led or planned a violent uprising. In his view, Jesus was a strong proponent of resistance through non-violent but open disobedience. Thus Jesus was the founder and leader of the nonviolent resistance against Pilate's plan to set up Roman eagle standards at the Jerusalem temple. The story of this successful resistance is described in Josephus , who does not mention the leader, but tells the crucifixion of Jesus only two paragraphs later in a controversial credible passage .

The Swedish writer Hjalmar Söderberg also came to the conclusion in his religious studies research that Jesus and Barabbas were identical. For him, this Jesus Barabbas was not a purely peaceful resistance because he was rightly arrested and condemned by the Romans as the leader of a violent attack on the Jerusalem temple (in protest against the sacrificial cult). According to Söderberg, most of the evidence suggests that there was actually a release at the request of the Jewish crowd. Thus, in reality, Jesus was not crucified at all. In his books Jesus Barabbas and The Transformed Messiah. Jesus Barabbas II presented his theses to Söderberg in detail.

Barabbas in art

Remarks

  1. This variant of the name is handed down in the Codex Koridethi ( Θ or 038 ; IX year.) (P. Winter: On the Trial of Jesus. P. 95).
  2. From the Greek manuscripts this name is documented in the Codex Koridethi , in some minuscules of the Lake group ( f 1 ; XII. To XIV year.) And in the minuscule 700 ( Egerton 2610 ; XI. Year); From the non-Greek manuscripts in the Syrian translations of the Codex Syrus Sinaiticus ( sy s ; III.-IV.years.) And the Versio Harklensis ( sy h ; VII.years .) And in the Armenian translation. Versions of the Gospel of Matthew containing the name Jesus in these passages are mentioned by Origen and in a scholion of the Codex Vaticanus Graecus 354 ( S or 038 ; X. year). See: Nestle-Aland: Novum Testamentum Graece. critical app. to Mt 27,16.17; P. Winter: On the Trial of Jesus. P. 95.
  3. Cf.: W. Wiefel: The Gospel according to Matthew. Pp. 470-472.
  4. So in the New Jerusalem Bible (Herder, 1985), commentary on Mt 27:16: " Such a clarification, however, seems to come from an apocryphal tradition ".
  5. So P. Winter: On the Trial of Jesus. Pp. 91-99.
  6. The majority of text witnesses offer the reading metà tôn stasiastôn , "after / with the rebels". The variant ... systasiastôn handed down by some manuscripts could however suggest that Barabbas was one of the "rebels". Compare: Nestle-Aland: Novum Testamentum Graece to Mk 16.7; P. Winter: On the Trial of Jesus. P. 96.
  7. Most of the Bible translations have rendered the word epísemos as “notorious”. Etymologically, the word has the meaning "provided with a sign", "marked".
  8. In Flaccum , 36-38.
  9. ^ A. Loisy: L'évangile selon Marc. Paris 1912, p. 454f (quoted from P. Winter: On the Trial of Jesus. P. 94f).
  10. ^ Hyam Maccoby : Revolution in Judaea: Jesus and the Jewish Resistance. Taplinger Publishing, 1980, ISBN 0-8008-6784-X , pp. 165-166.
  11. https://www.discogs.com/de/The-Twinkle-Brothers-Rasta-Pon-Top/release/2679257 their repeatedly re-released debut LP
  12. The Barrabas font was apparently used in making the film.

See also

literature

  • Nestle-Aland: Novum Testamentum Graece. 27th rev. Edition, Dt. Bible Society, Stuttgart 2001.
  • Wolfgang Wiefel : The Gospel according to Matthew (Theological Commentary on the New Testament, Volume 1), EVA, Leipzig 1998.
  • Paul Winter: On the Trial of Jesus (Studia Judaica, Volume 1), de Gruyter, Berlin 1961.

Web links

Commons : Barabbas  - collection of images, videos and audio files