[lbo-talk] BarAbbas (was Re: Ruy Teixiera on what the recall portends for Repugs in CA in 2004)

[Shane Mage]

Crucial to the "Barabbas" myth is the fact that the name Bar Abbas
means nothing else but "Son of the Father."  This is also how Jesus
described himself.  Moreover, a variant teading in one of the
Gospels refers to "Jesus Barabbas."  The figures of Barabbas and
Judas Iscariot were used by the Pauline compilers as the mainstays
in their blood-libel of the Jews as "deicides."  But enough filtered
through their censorship to give clear evidence that Judas did
nothing except what Jesus had charged him to do, and that the
"Barabbas" whose release was demanded by the Jews was Jesus
himself (see "Revolution in Judea" by Hyam Maccoby, and his
articles "BARABBAS" and "JUDAS ISCARIOT" in Collier's Encyclopedia).

Shane Mage

"Thunderbolt steers all 
things."                                                         

Herakleitos of Ephesos, fr. 64


>
>  > Beyond that, it seems that the notion that Jesus was hung between
>thieves
>>  was a myth about a myth according to current scholarly opinion.  Peter
>J.
>>  Boyer, in his article, "The Jesus Wars", in the September 15, 2003 New
>>  Yorker, writes:
>>
>>     URL: http://www.wcnet.org/~bgcc/gibson.htm
>>
>>     Among the many errors that Gibson might have avoided had he followed
>>     the ecumenist guidelines is his portrayal of the two men who were
>>     crucified alongside Jesus as criminals. Although the men, described
>in
>>     Matthew and Mark, are identified as "thieves" in the King James
>>     Version of the Bible, as "robbers" in the International and American
>>     Standard versions, and as "plunderers" in the original Greek, the
>>     Bishops Conference prefers that they be identified as "insurgents."
>>
>>  It seems Barabas is now thought of not as a thug, but as a freedom
>>  fighter.
>>
>>  Michael
>
>========================
>
>"Now Barabbas was a bandit" John 18.40
>
>'Then Jesus said to the chief priests, the officers of the temple police,
>and the elders who had come for him, "Have you come out with swords and
>clubs as if I were a bandit"?'  Luke 22:53
>
>For a great, if controversial, use of Eric Hobsbawm's analysis of banditry
>adapted to the time of Jesus, see:
>
>Bandits, Prophets, and Messiahs: Popular Movements in the Time of Jesus
>by Richard A. Horsley, John S. Hanson
>
>We won't even go into the political economy of egalitarianism suggested by
>some members of the Jesus Seminar......
>
>Ian
>
>
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