Abba, Father and BarABBAs

[Giuseppe]

The prayer of Mark 14:36

“Abba, Father,” he said, “everything is possible for you. Take this cup of suffering away from me. But let what you want be done, not what I want.”

may be divided in three parts:

Abba	... Take this cup of suffering away from me	the fate of Jesus Bar-abbas
Father	.... But let what you want be done, not what I want.	the fate of Jesus called king of Jews

God, as Abba of Jesus, may free him, but as ''Father'', should put him to death as sacrificial victim.

The ''cup of suffering'' will be removed from Jesus Bar-Abbas...

...but the will of the Father will be done in Jesus called king of Jews.

The question: who is then Barabbas ?

Does he represent only the Mark's point that God is ultimately the real killer of Jesus ?

Or is he the true Jesus insofar he is freed as son of Abba ?

Mark seems to resolve a problem of theodicy: was God so cruel to free a man as Barabbas and kill a man as Jesus of Nazaret?

The answer of Mark would seem to be that God gave up to be an 'Abba' (a loving dad) for Jesus, wishing that his Son was to carry all the way his divine mission of death.

But was strictly necessary to free a criminal as Jesus Barabbas in his place, in order to make that theological point?


The midrash from Leviticus 16 doens't seem to explain at all the enigmatic occurrence of Abba in Mark 14:36 .

Has someone some solution of this enigma?

Very thanks.

[Giuseppe]

Maccoby offers a solution:

Hyam Maccoby and some other scholars have averred that Jesus was known as "bar-Abba", because of his custom of addressing God as 'Abba' in prayer, and referring to God as Abba in his preaching. It follows that when the Jewish crowd clamored before Pontius Pilate to "free Bar Abba" they could have meant Jesus. Anti-Semitic elements in the Christian church, the argument goes, altered the narrative to make it appear that the demand was for the freedom of somebody else (a brigand or insurrectionist) named "Barabbas". This was, the theory goes, part of the tendency to shift the blame for the Crucifixion towards the Jews and away from the Romans.

http://www.answering-christianity.com/w ... cified.htm

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MacDonald offers another interpretation, but differently from Maccoby, he fails to say us the meaning of Mark 14:36 :

Od. 18.1–123	Mark 15:7–19
• “A public beggar arrived who / used to beg in the town of Ithaca and was famous for his belly that raged / to eat and drink nonstop. . . . / All the young men all called him Irus.” (18.1–3 and 6)	“Now there was the man called Barabbas who was incarcerated with the rebels who had committed murder in the uprising.” (15:7)
• The nickname Irus is the masculine form of Iris, the divine messenger.	The nickname Barabbas means “son of the father”; Jesus was the Son of God.
• The suitors favored Irus to Odysseus.	The Jewish crowds favored Barabbas to Jesus.
• “They toasted him in a golden cup and said, / ‘Welcome, father stranger; may good luck be yours / in the future, even though now you have many hardships.’” (18.121–123)	“They began to salute him, ‘Welcome, king of the Jews!’ 19 They beat his head with a reed, spat on him, and knelt down to worship him.” (15:18–19)

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Adamczewski gives another distinct solution, but he also lacks an explanation of Mark 14:36 .

Philippians 2:19-23

I hope to send Timothy to you soon if the Lord Jesus allows it. Then I will be encouraged when I receive news about you. I have no one else like Timothy. He will truly care about how you are doing. All the others are looking out for their own interests. They are not looking out for the interests of Jesus Christ. But you know that Timothy has proved himself. He has served with me like a son with his father in spreading the good news. So I hope to send him as soon as I see how things go with me.

1 Cor 4:17

That’s the reason I have sent Timothy to you. He is like a son to me, and I love him. He is faithful in serving the Lord. He will remind you of my way of life in serving Christ Jesus. And that agrees with what I teach everywhere in every church.

Philippians 2:25-30

But I think it’s necessary to send Epaphroditus back to you. He is my brother in the Lord. He is a worker and a soldier of Christ together with me. He is also your messenger. You sent him to take care of my needs. He longs for all of you. He is troubled because you heard he was sick. He was very sick. In fact, he almost died. But God had mercy on him. He also had mercy on me. God spared me sadness after sadness. So I want even more to send him to you. Then when you see him again, you will be glad. And I won’t worry so much. So then, welcome him as a brother in the Lord with great joy. Honor people like him. He almost died for the work of Christ. He put his life in danger to make up for the help you yourselves couldn’t give me.

Gal 2:13

Peter’s actions were not honest, and other Jews in Antioch joined him. Even Barnabas was led astray.

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Joe Atwill has another solution:

In such a translation, the purpose of the character named Jesus Barabbas becomes clear. The New Testament is flatly stating that there was more than one "Jesus." Notice the humor in Pilate's statement below, "I will therefore chastise him and release him." The joke being that it is impossible to know which "Jesus" Pilate is referring to as "him."

(Caesar's Messiah, p. 149)

The Jesuses depicted at the conclusion of the Synoptics are the three Jesuses whom Pilate has previously released, Jesus Barabbas.

As the New Testament's final comic stroke, each Gospel concludes with a different individual as its Jesus. Of course, the final Jesus is the one described in John 21, the very end of the Gospels. That Jesus is Titus, the "true" Son of God whom Christianity worships.

(p.158)

I think that the Barabbas episode is very enigmatic when one looks for an explanation of Mark 14:36 (Abba), too.

The great problem of who thinks that the crucified Jesus continues to be the true Jesus of Mark 14:36 is that the irony behind the link (Abba in Mark 14:36 and Barabbas) is directed against him, against the crucified Jesus, and not against the people who cry ''Crucify him!''.

[Ulan]

The philosopher J.R. Lucas presents some of the models in this very readable text here:
http://users.ox.ac.uk/~jrlucas/theology/barabb4.pdf

Of the above, for example Maccoby's solution is included.

[Ben C. Smith]

The philosopher J.R. Lucas presents some of the models in this very readable text here:
http://users.ox.ac.uk/~jrlucas/theology/barabb4.pdf

Thanks, Ulan. I think the following datum from the article...:

Certainly, the name [Barabbas] turns up in Syria at a later date, though to the best of our present knowledge, not in funerary and other inscriptions in First-Century Palestine.

...ought to be supplemented. Abba (literally, "father") seems to have been a viable name in Aramaic, as evidenced by an inscription in a tomb from century I in Giv’at Ha-Mivtar. If so, then Bar-Abba (= Barabbas) would be a natural patronymic.

http://cojs.org/tomb_inscription_at_givat_hamivtar
http://www.galaxie.com/article/bsp03-2-04
http://www.bibleinterp.com/articles/201 ... 8008.shtml

Abba was certainly somewhat common as a name in rabbinical times. Israel Abrahams, Studies in Pharisaism and the Gospels, volume 2, pages 201-202 (writing before the discovery of the Giv’at Ha-Mivtar tomb):



Ben.

[Secret Alias]

Abba is also a diminutive of Abraham. (I'm traveling )

[Giuseppe]

Sid Martin gives another solution:

Mark 14:36 alludes to discomfort of Titus at the sight of the walls of Jerusalem, which requires a huge siege.
While the release of Barabbas and the condemnation of Jesus ''represents the cruel fate of the patriotic Jews who were taken prisoner following the fall of Jerusalem.'' (p.183, Secret of the Savior).

But as for Titus, he marched from that Caesarea which lay by the sea-side, and came to which is named Cesarea Philippi, and staid there a considerable time, and exhibited all sort of shows there. And here a great number of the captives were destroyed, some being thrown to wild beasts, and others in multitudes forced to kill one another, as if they were their enemies.

(War 7.2.1)

Obviously note the problem of Sid Martin here: Mark 14:36 represents the view of the Roman conqueror, while the Barabbas episode represents the view of the conquered people.
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Secret Alias gives another solution:

Abba is also a diminutive of Abraham.

So the condemnation of the true Jesus would free all the sons of Abraham ?
This still doesn't explain why Abba in Mark 14:36. Or maybe the explanation would be that Jesus, in his human nature (the nature of who sees God as an Abba), prays God to be freed from death, while in his divine nature (the nature of who calls God ''Father''), he prays God to be killed. But still we don't know why the son of Abba has to be a criminal of war (and therefore a negative figure).

[Giuseppe]

But wait. Secret Alias is very brilliant!

Abraham works as God in this parable (Luke 16:19-31):


The Rich Man and Lazarus

“There was a rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. And at his gate was laid a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who desired to be fed with what fell from the rich man's table. Moreover, even the dogs came and licked his sores. The poor man died and was carried by the angels to Abraham's side. The rich man also died and was buried, and in Hades, being in torment, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus at his side. And he called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am in anguish in this flame.’ But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that you in your lifetime received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner bad things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in anguish. And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, in order that those who would pass from here to you may not be able, and none may cross from there to us.’ And he said, ‘Then I beg you, father, to send him to my father's house— for I have five brothers—so that he may warn them, lest they also come into this place of torment.’ 29 But Abraham said, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them.’ And he said, ‘No, father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’ He said to him, ‘If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.’”

This would be evidence that not only Jesus could pray God calling him Abba/Abraham.

Then the point behind Jesus bar Abraham would be that a sinful mankind is freed.

But what kind of humanity?

Paradoxically the miracle happens that (a surprising marcionite antithesis!) to simbolize ALL the humanity (gentiles and Jews, without no more distinction) is a xenophobic anti-Hellenistic zealot seditionist.

If even Pilate frees a criminal Jew as Barabbas, then the old order of things (under the Law of the Demiurge) is very led to an end.

[Giuseppe]

In a marcionite interpretation, then Pilate would represent the Demiurge who is moved to release all the sinful humanity (allegorized by a seditionist Jew slave of YHWH) in exchange for the death of Jesus the alien.

Barabbas, when he is freed by Pilate, ends to be a seditionist, a zealot for YHWH.

1) Pilate represents the Demiurge
2) Barabbas represents the Jew who has ''the Demiurge only as master''.
3) therefore: the Demiurge frees his creatures.

[Giuseppe]

Mcn has this important verse 22:43 that is curiously absent in Mark, while Mcn obviously has not 'Abba' on the Mount of Ulives.

Luke 22:39-46

Coming out, He went to the Mount of Olives, as He was accustomed, and His disciples also followed Him. When He came to the place, He said to them, “Pray that you may not enter into temptation.”
And He was withdrawn from them about a stone’s throw, and He knelt down and prayed, saying, “Father, if it is Your will, take this cup away from Me; nevertheless not My will, but Yours, be done.” Then an angel appeared to Him from heaven, strengthening Him. And being in agony, He prayed more earnestly. Then His sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground.

When He rose up from prayer, and had come to His disciples, He found them sleeping from sorrow. Then He said to them, “Why do you sleep? Rise and pray, lest you enter into temptation.”

That 'angel' is absent in Mark. I think that that angel is an 'archons of this eon', the Demiurge himself, not an angel of God. Think about the diabolic temptation into the wilderness in a more marcionite scenario.

The proto-catholic Mark is embarrassed of it and therefore he removes that 'angel', by adding 'Abba' in his place.

Mcn is saying that the ''angel'' was really a tempter of Jesus. Jesus is conflicting against that temptation of escape.

The enigma behind Jesus Barabbas is resolved once you remember the Zealot slogan: 'YHWH only as master'. The irony is that to represent YHWH is just Pilate, in that moment.

[Ulan]

Secret Alias gives another solution:

Abba is also a diminutive of Abraham.

Just for completeness: The text by Abrahams that Ben quoted also talks about this at length with Bacher given as source. There is a hint to the word play in Isaiah 63:

16
For you are our father,
though Abraham does not know us
and Israel does not acknowledge us;
you, O Lord, are our father;
our Redeemer from of old is your name.