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Not many Christians are aware that early Syriac manuscripts of Matthew present Barabbas' name twice as Jesus bar Abbas: "Jesus Son (bar) of the Father (Abbas)". Copyists later might have omitted the name Jesus and shortened bar Abbas to Barabbas simply because they had to reconcile Matthew's text with Mark's and Luke's, which only give Barabbas. Interesting, however that Jesus bar Abbas, meaning "Jesus, Son of the Father" and Jesus the Christ who is the "Son of the Father" almost make them seem like brothers--one good and one bad.
This whole thing may go back to the custom of Yom Kippur where a "bad" goat is released into the wilderness while a good goat is sacrificed to atone for sins as per instructions given to the Jews in Leviticus 16.
Leviticus 16 is supposed to be prophetic of Jesus death, but it could also be--at least it has been theorized by Biblical scholars--that the whole Jesus/Barabbas incident was a story made up by Mark, who borrowed the Jewish custom from Leviticus and cut it to fit Jesus at His trial. The similarities are just too striking. Anyone who studies Pilate will know he was a ruthless governor who would never release a murderer and seditionist. His style was more having people crucified just for spitting on a sidewalk. The namby-pamby Mark and the other gospel writers paint of Pilate desperately trying to get Jesus off and even being willing to release Barabbas, an enemy of the Roman empire may have been designed more by the emerging Christian sect to paint the Jewish people as a Jesus-killer than painting Pilate as a gutless wonder who would risk running afoul of Caesar for letting a Rabbi proclaiming Himself to be a God go free. Remember, anyone who proclaimed himself to be God automatically made himself an enemy of Caesar because Caesar proclaimed himself to be God and there was room for only one God in the Roman empire.
Jesus was a common name in the Jewry. His other appelation - " Christ" is what differentiates him from the others. When I hear Christians call Jesus, I often wonder which one. His full name is Our Lord Jesus Christ.
Early Roman history comfirms the story of Jesus as true. Pilate was later invited to Rome to explain to Ceaser why he allowed Christ to be killed. Ceaser had also heard about the wonderful miracles performed by Christ and had hoped that one day he would invite him over to Rome to heal his own infirmity. You can imagine Ceaser 's frustration with his governor whose inaction led to the death of Christ.Ceaser ordered the execution of Pilate.
This had nothing to do with forgery as you imply in your write up. Pilate did not think Christ deserved crucifixion and his wife warned him about killing Christ. He could have put a stop to his execution, but he was blackmailed by Jewish leaders. His acquiesence ultimately led to his own death.
Not many Christians are aware that early Syriac manuscripts of Matthew present Barabbas' name twice as Jesus bar Abbas: "Jesus Son (bar) of the Father (Abbas)". Copyists later might have omitted the name Jesus and shortened bar Abbas to Barabbas simply because they had to reconcile Matthew's text with Mark's and Luke's, which only give Barabbas. Interesting, however that Jesus bar Abbas, meaning "Jesus, Son of the Father" and Jesus the Christ who is the "Son of the Father" almost make them seem like brothers--one good and one bad.
This whole thing may go back to the custom of Yom Kippur where a "bad" goat is released into the wilderness while a good goat is sacrificed to atone for sins as per instructions given to the Jews in Leviticus 16.
Leviticus 16 is supposed to be prophetic of Jesus death, but it could also be--at least it has been theorized by Biblical scholars--that the whole Jesus/Barabbas incident was a story made up by Mark, who borrowed the Jewish custom from Leviticus and cut it to fit Jesus at His trial. The similarities are just too striking. Anyone who studies Pilate will know he was a ruthless governor who would never release a murderer and seditionist. His style was more having people crucified just for spitting on a sidewalk. The namby-pamby Mark and the other gospel writers paint of Pilate desperately trying to get Jesus off and even being willing to release Barabbas, an enemy of the Roman empire may have been designed more by the emerging Christian sect to paint the Jewish people as a Jesus-killer than painting Pilate as a gutless wonder who would risk running afoul of Caesar for letting a Rabbi proclaiming Himself to be a God go free. Remember, anyone who proclaimed himself to be God automatically made himself an enemy of Caesar because Caesar proclaimed himself to be God and there was room for only one God in the Roman empire.
Jesus was a common name in the Jewry. His other appelation - " Christ" is what differentiates him from the others. When I hear Christians call Jesus, I often wonder which one. His full name is Our Lord Jesus Christ.
Early Roman history comfirms the story of Jesus as true. Pilate was later invited to Rome to explain to Ceaser why he allowed Christ to be killed. Ceaser had also heard about the wonderful miracles performed by Christ and had hoped that one day he would invite him over to Rome to heal his own infirmity. You can imagine Ceaser 's frustration with his governor whose inaction led to the death of Christ.Ceaser ordered the execution of Pilate.
This had nothing to do with forgery as you imply in your write up. Pilate did not think Christ deserved crucifixion and his wife warned him about killing Christ. He could have put a stop to his execution, but he was blackmailed by Jewish leaders. His acquiesence ultimately led to his own death.
Jesus was a common name in the Jewry. His other appelation - " Christ" is what differentiates him from the others. When I hear Christians call Jesus, I often wonder which one. His full name is Our Lord Jesus Christ.
Early Roman history comfirms the story of Jesus as true. Pilate was later invited to Rome to explain to Ceaser why he allowed Christ to be killed. Ceaser had also heard about the wonderful miracles performed by Christ and had hoped that one day he would invite him over to Rome to heal his own infirmity. You can imagine Ceaser 's frustration with his governor whose inaction led to the death of Christ.Ceaser ordered the execution of Pilate.
This had nothing to do with forgery as you imply in your write up. Pilate did not think Christ deserved crucifixion and his wife warned him about killing Christ. He could have put a stop to his execution, but he was blackmailed by Jewish leaders. His acquiesence ultimately led to his own death.
Marlbron, I'd love to read links to this early Roman evidence you speak of. I am a skeptic on certain things in the gospels, especially Jesus' trial where there are so many conflicting details. Biblical historians can find no evidence other than a few scant references to a Jesus by Pliny the Younger and Tacitus. Josephus famous little blurb has been thoroughly discredited as an interpolation added by Christians centuries after Josephus wrote his account of the Jewish Wars. Simply put: outside of the gospels and epistles there is no mention of a Jesus of Nazareth--no secular historical evidence at all. Please point me to it if you know of some. I'd like to read it.
I never meant to imply forgery. What I said was that the writer of Mark may have made up the story of Barabbas to make it symbolic of the custom in Leviticus 16: one "bad" goat released; one "good" goat slain to atone for the sins of the people. The setup given in Mark is just too contrived, too similar to the Leviticus custom to be anything else, just as John has Jesus being crucified at the same time the Passover lambs are being slaughtered to make it appear that Jesus is the "Lamb slain from the foundation of the world", while the other gospel writers give Jesus death occurring a day earlier than John's.
As I also tried to point out: what Roman records survive describe Pilate as ruthless, not someone who would allow himself to be pushed around by Jewish religious leaders. There is an obvious conflict of character. However, there is this from Tacitus:
Quote:
Christus,[or Chrestus] from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus
Whether this "Christ" (or "Chrest" in the original) is the same Jesus of the Bible is unknown; as someone said there were many Jesus the Christ's roaming the lands claiming to be the Messiah at the time.
Not many Christians are aware that early Syriac manuscripts of Matthew present Barabbas' name twice as Jesus bar Abbas: "Jesus Son (bar) of the Father (Abbas)". Copyists later might have omitted the name Jesus and shortened bar Abbas to Barabbas simply because they had to reconcile Matthew's text with Mark's and Luke's, which only give Barabbas. Interesting, however that Jesus bar Abbas, meaning "Jesus, Son of the Father" and Jesus the Christ who is the "Son of the Father" almost make them seem like brothers--one good and one bad.
Prove it please. If you're going to make the claim, provide evidence. Otherwise, it's just your opinion, or some scheme you made up. Sadly, this type of stuff is all too common coming from you.
What are the names of these scholars? What works did they write this in?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Vizio
Prove it please. If you're going to make the claim, provide evidence. Otherwise, it's just your opinion, or some scheme you made up. Sadly, this type of stuff is all too common coming from you.
The problem is fundamentalists don't research this stuff or they'd know it for themselves. I realize apologists have to defend their faith so they're not likely to go out of their way to check this stuff out, relying on the integrity of the Bible, but anyway here are some references:
Austin Cline holds a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Pennsylvania and a Master of Arts from Princeton University. He also studied for one year each at the University of Zurich and the Ludwig-Maximillian University in Munich, Germany. In America, Germany, and Switzerland, Austin has studied both religion and philosophy. He is a former Regional Director for the Council for Secular Humanism.
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There was no custom whereby the Romans would release a condemned prisoner on the occasion of a holy day, but even if there were Pilate would never consent to allow Barabbas go over Jesus. No one who tried to overthrow Roman rule was allowed to live. Jesus, even if he did claim to be King of the Jews, hadn’t done anything overt or violent yet.
Why did Mark make up Barabbas and the custom of letting prisoners go on a holy day? Probably for the same reason that he made up the image of crowds of Jews calling out for Jesus to be crucified: it allows him to shift the blame for Jesus’ death away from the Roman authorities and onto the shoulders of the Jews.Mark’s community of Jewish Christians lived outside Palestine and under Roman rule. They would have been watched and had the authorities found them developing a religious sect after a man executed by Romans for being a political revolutionary, they would have cracked down even harder.
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The story of Barabbas has special social significance because it has historically been used to lay the blame for the crucifixion of Jesus on the Jews, and to justify anti-Semitism Wikipedia
Quote:
As I am sure you [William Lane Craig] remember, in your debate with Richard Carrier (video/audio), he brought up the point about Barabbas possibly being a literary creation of Mark because of the name’s meaning as well as the possible parable to the Jewish practice of sacrificing goats for forgiveness of sins. And while I understand that the case for the resurrection does not depend on the general reliability of the Gospels, this would definitely cast doubt on Mark, or at least on his crucifixion/burial story. But the thing I find the most suspicious is that the other Gospels, who are supposed to be independent of Mark, also tell us the story of Barabbas.
MacDonald's thesis is that the Gospel of Mark is a deliberate and conscious anti-epic, an inversion of the Greek "Bible" of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, which in a sense "updates" and Judaizes the outdated heroic values presented by Homer, in the figure of a new hero, Jesus (whose name, of course, means "Savior"). Mark "thoroughly, cleverly, and strategically emulated" stories in Homer and the Old Testament, merging two great cultural classics, in order "to depict Jesus as more compassionate, powerful, noble, and inured to suffering than Odysseus"
Once again, instead of just making accusations out of hand e.g "Where do you get this stuff?" I don't ask readers, especially fundamentalists, to believe what they read, just read and consider whether these writers have a valid point to make, and if they do, then dig a little deeper yourselves.
Or take the gospels as "gospel" and drop the matter.
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