Jesus Barabbas or Jesus the Messiah?

[zionstructure]

In Matthew, Chapter 27. The jewish people are given a choice of who to let go. Jesus Barabbas or Jesus, the one who is called Christ.
Now they pick Jesus Barabbas, and in some other parts of the gospel they say he is a revolutionary, kinda what we imagine Judas probably was like, now the question. Jesus Barabbas. Bar means "son of" and "abba" as all christians know from Jesus dying scream ...means "Father"...So did the jews actually release a revolutionary Jesus, the Son of the Father?

http://www.hebrew-streams.org/works/ntstudies/yeshua-bar-abba.html

Where I was when posed with the question myself.

:cheers:

[Bill the Cat]

The Abba that Jesus uttered was aramaic, not Hebrew. Barabbas according to Hitchcock's Bible Names means:

son of shame, confusion
Hitchcock's New and Complete Analysis of the Holy Bible

[zionstructure]

Ok, just getting this straight bill....Jesus, when he said Abba which meant father, isn't the same Abba as Bar Abba which at first look looks like "son of the father" but isn't?

and this is according to an analysis of a bible that was written in the 1800's?

and dood, listen, i live wolverine too but...magneto is so much better. <starts fight>

:cheers:

[zionstructure]

ahem....I like wolverine...i don't "live" him though

:cheers:

[Jaltus]

The Hebrew for "son of the Father" would be Barab. There would be no double "b".

[Bill the Cat]

Like I said, the abba Jesus uttered was aramaic, the bar abbas you try to translate is Hebrew, not aramaic. They were 2 different languages.

[apologetics]

I guess I have two questions.....

1. Where exactly are you seeing that Barabbas name is every rendered "Jesus Barabbas?" You'll have to show me, because every single translation that I have checked (KJV, NKJV, NLT, NIV, NASB, RSV, Webster's, Young's, Darby's, ASV, Hebrew Names Version and even Jerome's Latin Vulgate) all have the name "Barabbas." Not in a single one of these 12 versions is Barabbas name EVER rendered Jesus Barabbas.

I understand that you listed a web site and I read what was there. Firstly, I have never seen ANY manuscripts that list Barabbas as "Jesus Barabbas." Secondly, there are nearly 5300 Greek manuscripts in existence. Not all of them are exhaustive, but "several manuscripts" would not lead, as the article suggests, "Many textual scholars believe this was the original reading," at least not any textual scholars worth their weight. It is telling that the author of this little piece does not list the names of ANY textual scholars who hold this opinion (when there are "many" this should be easy!) and it is also ironic that there is not a single listed Greek manuscript listed that has this "Jesus" attached to Barabbas. Also, the footnotes of this article states:

"[1] The variant "Jesus Barabbas" is cited by Revised Standard Version (1971) margin; New Revised Standard Version (1989) text; the Israel Bible Society's Hebrew New Testament [Brit Hadashah] (2d ed., 1991); and David Stern's Jewish New Testament (1989). See discussion in Bruce Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament (2d ed., Stuttgart: German Bible Society/United Bible Society, 1994), page 56."

The problem is that this is in the margin of the RSV and not in the body of the text. Why is this important? Because if this were a widely held textual contention, it would have been included in the body of the text and not in the margin! The margin is reserved to include the variants found in a text here or there. If it were truly the original reading then the evidence would support this and it would be in the text's body.

2. Can you support this statement:

Now they pick Jesus Barabbas, and in some other parts of the gospel they say he is a revolutionary, kinda what we imagine Judas probably was like, now the question.

Are you stating that Barabbas is spoken of in "some other parts of the gospel" and the gospel writers described Barabbas as a "revolutionary?"

Barabbas is mentioned in exactly 10 verses in the Bible:

Matthew 27:16 And they had then a notable prisoner, called Barabbas.
Matthew 27:17 Therefore when they were gathered together, Pilate said unto them, Whom will ye that I release unto you? Barabbas, or Jesus which is called Christ?
Matthew 27:20 But the chief priests and elders persuaded the multitude that they should ask Barabbas, and destroy Jesus.
Matthew 27:21 The governor answered and said unto them, Whether of the twain will ye that I release unto you? They said, Barabbas.
Matthew 27:26 Then released he Barabbas unto them: and when he had scourged Jesus, he delivered [him] to be crucified.
Mark 15:7 And there was [one] named Barabbas, [which lay] bound with them that had made insurrection with him, who had committed murder in the insurrection.
Mark 15:11 But the chief priests moved the people, that he should rather release Barabbas unto them.
Mark 15:15 And [so] Pilate, willing to content the people, released Barabbas unto them, and delivered Jesus, when he had scourged [him], to be crucified.
Luke 23:18 And they cried out all at once, saying, Away with this [man], and release unto us Barabbas:
John 18:40 Then cried they all again, saying, Not this man, but Barabbas. Now Barabbas was a robber.

Now, Barabbas is described as a robber, but this is the ONLY description that we have of him.

What exactly are you looking at? If I have missed something, I apologize, however, I do not believe that I have.

[Xmansmommy]

Zion, I'm not sure this article addresses your question specifically, but I found it quite interesting as I hope that you and others here will as well...

http://www.godisnowhere.org/Articles/jesusbarabbas.htm

[zionstructure]

Well i'm glad to have generated some conversation.

i read the site xmans posted and i think it answers my question.
though i've been doing more searching and found some other similar opinions and i'll post them.

For Bill and Jal, heres what the christian answers website says about Barabbas and its meaning.

http://www.christiananswers.net/dictionary/barabbas.html

<this site addresses the issue of what the name "Jesus" isn't infront of Barabbas>
http://www.beholdtheman.com/barabbas.html

and to answer your second question apolo, i would like you to read this.

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/james_still/absurd.html

they give references on the bottom
and incase you are wondering why i give sites instead of explaining it myself, well...call it laziness i guess :shrug:

:cheers:

[apologetics]

zionstructure:

I looked over the Still article upon which you based your comment on Barabbas. It was an enjoyable article, at least from the fact that it made me smile. However, factually, it is riddled with problems. You stated that other parts of the gospels speak of Barabbas. They do not. Still needed to make large assumptions that created gapping holes in his logic to arrive at the conclusion he did. Here are just the most noticeable problems:

The night of Jesus' arrest he had equipped his disciples with swords[8] in anticipation of trouble;

Is this really true? Still footnotes this and leads the reader to Luke 22:36-38. This is what Luke 22:36-38 says:

Luke 22:36 And He said to them, "But now, whoever has a money belt is to take it along, likewise also a bag, and whoever has no sword is to sell his coat and buy one.
Luke 22:37 "For I tell you that this which is written must be fulfilled in Me, 'AND HE WAS NUMBERED WITH TRANSGRESSORS'; for that which refers to Me has {its} fulfillment."
Luke 22:38 They said, "Lord, look, here are two swords." And He said to them, "It is enough."

From a proper reading of this passage, Jesus told them to take up their buy a “sword.” He did not, as Still claims, “equip” them with anything. In addition, it needs to understood what is happening….properly within the context of the text….something that skeptic commentators of the Bible seem to find impossibly difficult to accomplish. Jesus is serving his disciples notice as to the large change that is coming in all their lives. Matthew Henry wrote this in his commentary of this section of Luke:

“They must now in some degree suffer with their Master; and, when he is gone, they must expect to suffer like him. The servant is not better than his Lord. [1.] They must not now expect that their friends would be so kind and generous to them as they had been; and therefore, He that has a purse, let him take it, for he may have occasion for it, and for all the good husbandry he can use. [2.] They must now expect that their enemies would be more fierce upon them than they had been, and they would need magazines as well as stores: He that has no sword wherewith to defend himself against robbers and assassins (2 Co. 11:26) will find a great want of it, and will be ready to wish, some time or other, that he had sold his garment and bought one. This is intended only to show that the times would be very perilous, so that no man would think himself safe if he had not a sword by his side.”

Jesus was not stating that there was going to be a use for the sword. This is very evident from verse 38 where the disciples produce two of these swords and Christ say’s “it is enough.” If he really intended his followers to be armed for conflict, he obviously would have wanted more than two swords among 12 men.

Also, what is really meant by this word “sword.” Is this a samurai sword or gladiator sword? This word, in the original Greek is “mavcaira.” This was actually a sword that was really no larger than what we would consider a large dagger. It was commonly worn by Galileans for traveling to provide themselves some protection against robbers. This was much more of a defensiveweapon, NOT a weapon that a “revolutionary” Jesus would have wanted his armed band of thugs to be in possession of when trouble broke out…..as Still would like you to believe. Trying to use this verse to show that Jesus was a “revolutionary” simply fails when the context is properly understood.

Now this is an interesting statement:
Barabbas was likely a Zealot; a lestes or robber[10] (if you were pro-Roman) or a revolutionary hero if you were a fellow messianic Jew. Like Jesus, Barabbas was also involved in an insurrection in Jerusalem and was caught and arrested as a rebel on charges of sedition.[11] Also, like Jesus, Barabbas had many hundreds, perhaps thousands, of followers who were likely to riot in support of him.

Does a reading of any passage regarding Barabbas support these statement: “was likely a Zealot” and “like Jesus, Barabbas had many hundreds, perhaps thousands, of followers who were likely to riot in support of him.” How can either of these statement be supported from ANYTHING in the text? Because he is a common robber who was arrested with the other insurrectionists we can come to these unsupported conclusions? He has to place a Roman presupposition on this for his statement to make any sense to be understood: “(if you were pro-Roman)”. Look at the logic employed here! He was a revolutionary (because the Romans considered him to be one…another guess) and therefore, he had 1000’s of followers because Jesus had them. WRONG! Not what the text says in any place!

I like this statement of support for the “Jesus Barabbas” theory:
and the translators of the Scholars Version now include Jesus Barabbas as "probably the original reading" of the biblical texts.

The Scholars Version is the translation of the Jesus Seminar whose anti-supernatural presuppositions have been exploded by credible Biblical scholarship. I would suggest a reading of Gary Habermas’ The Historical Jesus, if you would like to learn more about what has become of the Jesus Seminar’s credibility.

Still follows this up with a laughable attempt to use Carl Jung psycho-babble to explain what thoughts may or may not have been going through Jesus’ head at that moment. He then makes this statement:

Wishing to be their king, he is abruptly taken aback by an unruly mob which demands his immediate crucifixion. The Anointed is now the rejected. Rejection then feeds denial.

Of course, what Still fails to mention, on accident we can only assume, is that Jesus had foretold this very moment when he would face execution. Using just Mark, the events described by Still occur in Mark 15, if Still would have looked back just one chapter, he would have found this:

Mar 14:8 "She has done what she could; she has anointed My body beforehand for the burial.
Mar 14:18 As they were reclining {at the table} and eating, Jesus said, "Truly I say to you that one of you will betray Me--one who is eating with Me."
Mar 14:27 And Jesus *said to them, "You will all fall away, because it is written, ‘I will strike down the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered.’
Mar 14:28 "But after I have been raised, I will go ahead of you to Galilee."

He knew that his death was going to happen BEFORE the situation with Barabbas ever arose.

On the edge of the precipice, Jesus ceases to be while the Christ and the shadow-self Barabbas come into being. The stage is literally set and consciousness interprets the fickle mob's din as enthusiastic shouts for Barabbas' release. While Barabbas steps triumphantly down from the precipice to embrace the cheering crowd (arms raised in victory!) the proxy stays behind to endure the absurd determinism of death. Jesus Barabbas now becomes the creator because his absence makes possible the Christ.

Too bad nothing within the historical record supports this! What a bunch of nonsense! The theory would work ONLY if Christ had NOT predicted his own death before this supposed Jung-like epiphany. However, since he did, the analytical psycho-babble that drives this theory is completely useless! But what else have we come to expect from infidels.org?