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Jesus and Barabbas

H. Z. Maccoby

New Testament Studies / Volume 16 / Issue 01 / October 1969, pp 55 - 60

DOI: 10.1017/S0028688500019378, Published online: 05 February 2009

Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0028688500019378

How to cite this article:

H. Z. Maccoby (1969). Jesus and Barabbas. New Testament Studies, 16, pp 55-60
doi:10.1017/S0028688500019378

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New Test. Stud. 16, pp. 55-60

SHORT STUDIES

JESUS AND BARABBAS

Paul Winter, in his On the Trial of Jesus.} points out the difficulties in the
story of Barabbas, but feels unable to offer a confident solution. The main
difficulty is the complete lack of evidence supporting the alleged custom of
pardoning a criminal at Passover. After a careful argument, Winter con-
cludes categorically, ' The privilegium paschale is nothing but a figment of the
imagination. No such custom existed.' He offers a tentative explanation
based on the fact that, in certain Gospel codices, Barabbas' name is given as
'Jesus Barabbas'. Winter suggests that there was some confusion in Pilate's
mind because two men called Jesus were in custody, and he simply asked
which was which. From this trivial incident the evangelists, wishing to put
the blame for Jesus' execution on the Jews and to exonerate Pilate as far as
possible, manufactured a story that Pilate wished to release Jesus, and the
Jewish crowd (to whom a custom of Passover reprieve gave the decision)
refused.
It would be unfair to subject this theory to rigorous attack, since Dr
Winter freely admits that it is unsatisfactory. I should like to offer an alter-
native theory which, while still admittedly speculative, seems to me to
provide a better understanding of how the present narrative may have been
built up. I agree with Dr Winter that an apologetic need to blame the Jews
and exonerate the Romans is the mainspring behind the formation of the
story as we have it in the Gospels.
There is an inconsistency in the evangelists' attitude towards the Jewish
common people. On the one hand, Jesus is portrayed as a popular hero, who
has the common people on his side, and is opposed only by the priests and
other leaders. On the other hand, at the crucial point of the story, the
common people are shown to be against him. There is a puzzling contra-
diction between the fear of the 'high priests and the elders' of Jesus' great
and growing popular support, and the fact that when Pilate gives the crowd
the opportunity to voice this support, they shout instead, 'Crucify him!',
prefer to rescue Barabbas, and take upon themselves and their descendants
the blame for Jesus' execution.
It seems that the Gospel writers, in their desire to throw the blame for the
Crucifixion on the Jews, find themselves somewhat handicapped by their
insistence, in the earlier part of the story, on Jesus' popularity with the
common people. While this insistence has been useful in highlighting
the villainy of the Jewish leaders and the charisma of Jesus, it becomes
1
Berlin, 1961, pp. 91-9.

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56 H. Z. MACCOBY
inconvenient when the apologetic aim is to shift the blame for the Crucifixion
on to the Jewish people as a whole. The scene in which the people cried
' Crucify him!' was the basis of developed Christian doctrine that the Jewish
people as a whole was guilty and under a curse. If the Jewish masses actually
supported Jesus, there would be no basis for this doctrine. In the immediate
post-Jesus era, when the Christian Church still hoped to convert large
numbers of Jews, it was the Jewish leaders who were blamed for the Cruci-
fixion. But when the resistance of the Jewish people to Christianity became
clear, the blame was shifted to the whole Jewish people.1
I suggest, therefore, that in the original pre-Marcan story the crowd
assembled in Jerusalem did support Jesus, in opposition to the 'high priests',
and in natural continuance of their previous attitude. The crowd outside the
procurator's palace shouted for the release of Jesus. This awkward fact had
to be dealt with somehow by the Gospel writers, if they were to carry out their
intention of proving the guilt not only of the Jewish leaders but of the Jewish
masses. The solution which they hit on was to admit that the crowd did ask
for the release of Jesus, but to assert that there was another Jesus, called Jesus
Barabbas, who was the man whose release the crowd demanded. In other
words, Jesus of Nazareth and Jesus Barabbas are really the same man. The
coincidence of two Jesuses being arrested at the same time was later felt to
be somewhat bizarre (the reason for the introduction of a second Jesus having
been forgotten), so the fact that Barabbas' first name was Jesus was sup-
pressed, except in a few tell-tale codices.
In order to add to the guilt of the Jewish crowd in asking for the release of
the wrong Jesus, an entirely fictitious right of reprieve, the privilegium
paschale, was added to the story. By the exercise of this alleged privilege, the
wrong man was not only demanded, but actually reprieved. Jesus of Nazareth
could have been rescued, but was not. The Jews, both leaders and masses,
were thus left without excuse. The cry ' Crucify him!' may have existed in
the original pre-Marcan story, as a cry, not of the crowd, but of the 'high
priests' (in which form it has survived in the Fourth Gospel).
I now proceed to detailed arguments in support of the thesis briefly
outlined above.

I. THE JERUSALEM CROWD IN THE GOSPELS

The Synoptists all report very clearly on the popularity of Jesus with the
Jerusalem crowd. Matthew, for example, says (xxi. 45), 'When the high
priests and Pharisees heard these parables, they knew that he was speaking
about them; they tried to get hold of him, but they were afraid of the crowds,
as the crowds held him to be a prophet'. 2 All three Synoptists report that the
1
See Winter, op. cit. p. 117.
2
Moffatt's translation.

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 JESUS AND BARABBAS 57
'high priests and elders' decided not to arrest Jesus during the festival
because they were ' afraid of the people' (Mk. xiv. 2, Matt. xxvi. 5, Lk. xx. 19,
xxii. 2).
Mark and Matthew report a triumphal reception given to Jesus by the
Jerusalem crowd on his final entry into Jerusalem (Mk. xi. 9-10, Matt.
xxi. 8-9). Luke, on the other hand (perhaps aware of the difficulty arising
from the later hostility of the crowd), is careful to call the celebrants 'the
multitude of the disciples' (TO TrAf}0os TCOV na0r|Tcov). John, however, seems
to accentuate the difficulty by calling the celebrants 'the great mass of
people who had come up for the festival' (6 ox^os TTOAUS 6 £A0cov E!S ~tt\v
£opTT)v). But when we examine John's account of the ' Crucify him!' scene,
we are surprised to find that the Jerusalem crowd is not involved in the scene
at all. According to John, it was ' the high priests and their attendants' who
yelled ' Crucify him!' and asked for the release of Barabbas. Does this mean
that John, unlike the Synoptists, does not blame the entire Jewish people for
the Crucifixion? On the contrary, strong antagonism to 'the Jews' as the pre-
ordained enemies of Jesus is one of the most striking characteristics of the
Fourth Gospel. The truth seems to be that, in this latest Gospel, the process
of condemning the whole Jewish people has gone so far that the evangelist
no longer makes any distinction between the leaders and the people. The
leaders are throughout presumed to stand for the spirit of the whole nation.
Though traces of the earlier story in which Jesus was the hero of the Jewish
masses still remain even in John, this aspect of the story has been largely
eradicated or watered down; for example, John says several times that the
crowd was 'divided' (vii. 12, vii. 43, ix. 19). It may be that John is able to
retain part of the original pre-Marcan ' Crucify him!' scene because he has
already performed so thoroughly his work of identifying the Jewish people
with their leaders. It is all the more surprising that John so unequivocally
describes the crowd's support for Jesus' triumphal entry. The tradition on
which he was relying must have been too strong to be omitted, or even
modified in the manner employed by Luke.
Mark and Matthew were evidently aware that the volte face of the crowd
from enthusiastic support ofJesus to betrayal constituted a difficulty. For they
try to explain the attitude of the crowd in the ' Crucify him!' scene by saying
that the 'high priests and elders persuaded the crowds' (Mk. xv. 11, Matt,
xxvii. 20). They do not attempt to explain how the 'high priests and elders',
who had previously been so ' afraid of the people', suddenly acquired this
influence over them. Luke evidently felt no need for any explanation, for he
simply says that they 'shouted one and all' for the release of Barabbas, and
for the crucifixion ofJesus. Luke has previously toned down, in the triumphal
entry scene, the crowd's support for Jesus, in preparation for their betrayal
of him. Luke represents, therefore, an intermediate step in the development
of the condemnation of the whole Jewish people. His account is more

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58 H. Z. MAGCOBY
consistent than that of Mark and Matthew, but not so wholehearted as that
ofJohn.
Various suggestions have been made by modern writers to explain the
attitude of the crowd, for example that it consisted only of' the chief priests'
men, including many Gentiles' (Schonfield),1 or that the shouters were not
the whole crowd but a claque organized by the 'high priests'. It should be
pointed out that these suggestions are contrary to the spirit and intention of
the Synoptists' accounts. Luke specifically mentions ' the people' (T6V ACCOV) .
Matthew emphasizes the collective guilt of the Jews by inserting the speech:
'His blood be on us and on our children!' Luke emphasizes their unanimity
by his insertion of the word Tra|xn"Ar|6Ei ('one and all'). Eduard Meyer's
theory2 (that the crowd was composed of partisans of Barabbas who came
to beg for his release and was quite different from the applauding crowd of
Palm Sunday) also ignores the polemical intention of the evangelists, namely
to cast blame on the whole Jewish people.

2. THE NAME BARABBAS

If Jesus and Barabbas are the same man, how can the name 'Barabbas' be
explained? I suggest that 'Barabbas' may be, not a patronym, as has hither-
to been assumed, but a title, by which Jesus was known to his followers.
'Barabbas' is evidently derived either from Bar-Abba or from Bar-
Rabba(n). The second is supported by the double p in several codices.
If the name is Bar-Abba, I suggest that it may mean 'Son of the Father',
i.e. Son of God. There is a strong tradition that Jesus habitually addressed
God in prayer as 'Abba, Father' (Mk. xiv. 35, Rom. viii. 15, Gal. iv. 6). He
may therefore have acquired the title Bar-Abba. It may be objected that the
doctrine of Jesus as Son of God did not exist in the pre-Marcan period. This
objection is valid if the doctrine referred to is that of the pre-existent and
divine Son of God. But the Judaic conception that the anointed Davidic
Jewish king, though entirely human, was the adopted Son of God, existed
long before Jesus, being based on Ps. ii. 7: ' The Lord hath said unto me,
Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee.'
If, on the other hand, the name' Barabbas' is derived from' Bar-Rabba(n)',
it can still be argued that it is a title of Jesus, meaning 'Teacher'. 3 The
Aramaic' bar', like the Hebrew ' ben', was often used so loosely in compound
expressions that 'son of a teacher' might easily be equivalent to 'teacher';
cf. WM "13 'man', ""KTiaK 13 'diver', N"W "13 'maniac'. However, in such
expressions the second term is more usually an abstract noun, e.g. XJDViN "13
'scholar', run 13 'rational being'. A better derivation may be from 'SIS or
1
The Passover Plot (London, 1965), p. 153.
2
Ursprung und Anftinge des Christentums (Stuttgart, 1921), 1, 195.
8
'Bar-Abba' could possibly mean 'Teacher', too, since 'Abba' was a title of scholars.

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 JESUS AND BARABBAS 59
''ana (literally 'house of the teacher') which was used as an honorific title
meaning 'Teacher'. This title is known to have been applied to several early
second-century Pharisaic teachers,1 and may possibly have existed in the
first century. The title, unlike <I3")) either follows the name of the teacher2 or
is used on its own.3
In either case, the name 'Barabbas' may well mean 'teacher'. Now Jesus
is very frequently addressed as 'Teacher' in the Gospels, and even applies
this name to himself, as a title, in Luke xxii. 11. 'Jesus Barabbas', therefore,
or 'Jesus the Teacher', may have been one of the designations by which
Jesus was known in his own day. This is especially possible if (as Winter and
others4 argue) Jesus was in fact a Pharisee teacher. A tradition could have
survived, therefore, that when Jesus was in custody, the crowd outside Pilate's
palace shouted for the release of'Jesus the Teacher' or 'Jesus Barabbas'.

3. THE STATUS OF BARABBAS

Paul Winter points out that the status of Barabbas is equivocal. The earliest
Gospel, that of Mark, does not state positively that he was a murderer or
robber or revolutionary, as the other Gospels do, but that he was 'bound
with the revolutionaries (or "rioters"), men who had committed murder in
the insurrection' (Mk. xv. 7). Mark's ambiguous expression makes it
possible to suppose that Barabbas was arrested as a revolutionary but was in
fact not one. This is a perfect description of the status of Jesus himself, if we
accept Paul Winter's thesis in On the Trial of Jesus. Mark's equivocal descrip-
tion of Barabbas may be a faint echo of the status of Jesus himself.

4. THE GROWTH OF THE STORY

I suggest, therefore, that the Gospel story of Barabbas may have grown in the
following way. The pre-Marcan story, in the time when relations between
the early Christian Church and the Jewish people were relatively friendly,
was that the crowd shouted for the release of Jesus Barabbas, i.e. 'Jesus the
Teacher', while the 'high priests' shouted 'Crucify him!' (There is a point
of contact here between my theory and that of Rawlinson,5 who suggests
that when the crowd demanded the release of Barabbas they used the name
Jesus: Pilate mistook them to mean Jesus of Nazareth and immediately
offered to release him.) Later, when the hatred grew between Christians and
Jews, the story was altered. Now it is the Jewish crowd who shout for the
1
E.g. R.Jose b. Halaphta, TB liullin, 137a.
2 E.g. 'aia NWIK •an, TB, Emb. 53a.
3
The confusion in the codices between single and double p may thus be due not to doubt between
'Abba' and 'Rabba', but between 'bar-' and 'be-'.
4
E.g. R. Graves and J. Podro, The Naiarene Gospel Restored (London, 1953).
6
A. E. J. Rawlinson, The Gospel according to St Mark (London, 1925), pp. 227 f. This theory was
revived, with certain additions, in Joel Carmichael's The Death of Jesus (London, 1963), p. 146.

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60 H. Z. MACCOBY
death of Jesus. It is another Jesus whose release they want, Jesus Barabbas,
who is a different person from Jesus of Nazareth. The duplication of desig-
nations becomes a duplication of persons. And now the story achieves a
certain drama, for a choice has entered the picture—a choice between two
Jesuses. This element of choice could be intensified if the Jewish crowd's
decision could be made more fraught with consequences. A mere preference
between two men, both of whom eventually suffer death, is not interesting
enough. So the privilegium paschale is invented, by which one of the two men
can be reprieved. (Winter points out that logically it should have been a
choice among many men, not between two, and this consideration brings
out clearly the unreality of the whole story.) The Jews now decide to reprieve
Barabbas instead ofJesus, and their desire to save Jesus has been transformed
into its opposite, a deliberate choice to doom him to death.
H. Z. MACCOBY

New Test. Stud. 16, pp. 60-75

DAS WORT VON DER

SELBSTBESTATTUNG DER TOTEN
BEOBAGHTUNGEN ZUR AUSLEGUNGSGESCHICHTE
VON MT. VIII. 22 PAR. 1

Seit J. Mill und J. A. Bengel ist es in der neutestamentlichen Textkritik

praktikabel geworden, die sanftere Lesart aus der harteren zu erklaren und
dieser den Vorrang zu geben: 'Proclivi scriptioni praestat ardua.' 2 Konnte
dieses Prinzip aber nicht mutatis mutandis auch fur die kritische Betrach-
tung der Auslegungsgeschichte eines neutestamentlichen Logions gelten?
Eine solche Vermutung entsteht besonders angesichts der unaufhorlichen
Entlastungsversuche, die seit Jahrhunderten bei der Auslegung skandalos
erscheinender Jesusworte unternommen werden, um einen moralischen oder
dogmatischen AnstoS abzuschwachen. Geht man davon aus, daB sich die
Tradition wohl kaum durch eigenwillige Erfindungen selbst die crux inter-
pretationis aufgeladen hat, so lafit sich mit einiger Wahrscheinlichkeit an-
nehmen, daB bei konkurrierenden Interpretationen eines neutestamentlichen
1
Fur den Zugang zur alteren exegetischen Literatur danke ich bes. Dr L. Schnurrer
(Reichsstadt-Archiv Rothenburg/Bav.); fur die anregende Diskussion der Problematik und
zahlreiche Hinweise bin ich Univ.-Ass. H. Merkel (Erlangen/Bav.) verpflichtet.
2
J. A. Bengel, Nov. Test. Graec. (1734), S. 433; vgl. auch A. Fox, J . Mill und R. Bentley (1954),
S. 147 f.

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