Jesus Barabbas episode as apology against some rabbis...

[Ben C. Smith]

In both the cases, only Mythicism alone explains perfectly the Barabbas episode.

The best explanation I have read of the Barabbas incident is that of Roger David Aus in Caught in the Act, Walking on the Sea, and the Release of Barabbas Revisited. He explains it as woven from Archelaus' handling at Passover of the insurrection in 4 BC (involving Herod's golden eagles), with a touch of Pilate's handling of the reaction against his bringing the Roman ensigns to Jerusalem (and I think of one other event). Needing a reason for Pilate to have handed Jesus (despite his innocence) over for crucifixion, a tradent used remembrances and motifs from the Jews' requests of Archelaus after Herod's death, including the release of prisoners, to fill in the gap.

[Giuseppe]

I have not read that, therefore I don't know if Aus explains perfectly the strange occurrence just of "Jesus Barabbas", because if he can't explain it (just as the theory of the midrash from Leviticus 16 can't, to my knowledge), then the most I can concede you is that Aus may have given a possible source of inspiration from the "tactical" point of view (the "how", not the "why" of the construction of the story) therefore I am even more entitled to think that ONLY ROBERTSON GIVES THE EXPLANATION OF THE WHY THE STRANGE OCCURRENCE OF A RIVAL "JESUS SON OF THE FATHER".

[Giuseppe]

From what I read about the Aus proposed solution to the enigma of the name "Jesus Barabbas", I see that he has not a satisfying solution at all:

The name Barabbas, according to Aus, can be traced back to the possible imprisonment of Judas the insurrectionist rabbi who was not specifically said to have been killed with Matthias. Judas was a rabbi or rabban. Perhaps the Jewish Christian chronicler invented a fictitious son of this Judas, called bar rabban, in Greek barabbas, in order to incorporate the earlier events while updating them to reflect the passage of time between the eagle episode and Jesus’s trial.

https://www.google.it/amp/s/davidchrist ... ausen/amp/

Therefore my conclusion above holds fully: only Robertson's mythicism explains perfectly the "Jesus Barabbas" affair.

[Ben C. Smith]

From what I read about the Aus proposed solution to the enigma of the name "Jesus Barabbas", I see that he has not a satisfying solution at all:

The name Barabbas, according to Aus, can be traced back to the possible imprisonment of Judas the insurrectionist rabbi who was not specifically said to have been killed with Matthias. Judas was a rabbi or rabban. Perhaps the Jewish Christian chronicler invented a fictitious son of this Judas, called bar rabban, in Greek barabbas, in order to incorporate the earlier events while updating them to reflect the passage of time between the eagle episode and Jesus’s trial.

https://www.google.it/amp/s/davidchrist ... ausen/amp/

Therefore my conclusion above holds fully: only Robertson's mythicism explains perfectly the "Jesus Barabbas" affair.

Aus' proposal is not mainly about the name; it is about the incident as a whole. I find his explanation of the name to be speculative; it is his explanation of the incident as a whole that I appreciate.

[Ben C. Smith]

I find Aus' proposal concerning the name Barabbas to be no more speculative than Robertson's proposal concerning the event itself; but that is not saying much. As for Aus' proposal concerning the event versus Robertson's proposal concerning the same, well, the former has much precedent in the gospel records (for example, Luke writing as if Jesus' birth had anything to do with the census under Quirinius), while the latter strikes me as a flight of fancy, piling one speculation upon another. I will readily affirm that the name Barabbas, the variant Jesus Barabbas, and the possible connection to the Abba prayer in Gethsemane ought to receive more attention, but I do not think that Robertson's proposal, which makes good on the name by speculating wildly as to the event, holds much value.

[Giuseppe]

About the basic thesis of Robertson, there is no half measure in accepting it: it can be right or wrong, tertium not datur.

But the fact remains that Robertson's theory is the unique one that is able to explain the occurrence of "Jesus Barabbas". To my knowledge, I have no other POSSIBLE solutions.

In particular, I like in Robertson's theory about the Barabbas episode the fact that it works as a kind of "missing ring" between the epistles and the Gospels.

Secondly, I like the possible explanation of an implicit feeling of "hostility", in the epistes, about the human(-oid) nature of the Crucified Christ. Something as:
The Christ is "hated" by Paul insofar he dies "poor" on the cross (i.e., the real victim of the old ritual of crucifixion was hated and derided, even as - and/or just as - acting as representative of the god.)

The bad rebel Barabbas becomes historically the real (invented) scapegoat of the hate proved by the same evangelists against the idea that the celestial Jesus had to be confused/euhemerized with a mere man. An unresolved problem at the origin of the docetic christology, too.

[Giuseppe]

I wonder if the same repulsion (by the evangelists) about the risk that Jesus is confused with who emulated him in the real History (in an old ritual, for Robertson, in the historical "Christ redivivus" as Simon Magus, for Price or Parvus) is at work behind the Simon of Cyrene figure: who claims that "Jesus" was Simon Magus is wrong, because Simon was only who did bear the Cross (and a Christian of the our community, father of Christian sons), but not the same crucified person.
Also in this case we have a figure deserving reverence: the Christian Simon father of Alexander and Rufus.
And a totally negative figure: Simon Magus.

[Ben C. Smith]

About the basic thesis of Robertson, there is no half measure in accepting it: it can be right or wrong, tertium not datur.

But the fact remains that Robertson's theory is the unique one that is able to explain the occurrence of "Jesus Barabbas". To my knowledge, I have no other POSSIBLE solutions.

In particular, I like in Robertson's theory about the Barabbas episode the fact that it works as a kind of "missing ring" between the epistles and the Gospels.

What do you make of the fact that the variant, Jesus Barabbas, appears in Matthew but not in Mark?

[Giuseppe]

The omission of "Jesus" from "Jesus Barabbas" is easily explained as the late embarrassment about the only possibility that a criminal was called with the nomen sacrum. While the entire name appears still in Matthew since Matthew was more interested (on the view of Robertson, even if he is expressly not committed to a particular hypothesis about which gospel comes before) to defend the Judaizer Christianity within the Jewish world (and the rabbis knew surely more about the old ritual, since the degrading euhemerization of Jesus to the mere victim "Son of the Father" came from them).

If Mark was a gentile Gospel (at least more than Matthew) the name "Jesus" was more easily removed from it insofar his apologetical meaning was not more realized (differently from the presumed embarrassment read later in it).

[Charles Wilson]

Josephus. Ant..., 18, 2, 4:

"About this time died Phraates, king of the Parthians, by the treachery of Phraataces his son, upon the occasion following: When Phraates had had legitimate sons of his own, he had also an Italian maid-servant, whose name was Thermusa, who had been formerly sent to him by Julius Caesar, among other presents. He first made her his concubine; but he being a great admirer of her beauty, in process of time having a son by her, whose name was Phraataces, he made her his legitimate wife, and had a great respect for her. Now she was able to persuade him to do any thing that she said, and was earnest in procuring the government of Parthia for her son; but still she saw that her endeavors would not succeed, unless she could contrive how to remove Phraates's legitimate sons [out of the kingdom;] so she persuaded him to send those his sons as pledges of his fidelity to Rome...
...
"However, they made a conspiracy against him, and slew him, and that, as some say, at a festival, and among their sacrifices; (for it is the universal custom there to carry their swords with them;) but, as the more general report is, they slew him when they had drawn him out a hunting. So they sent ambassadors to Rome, and desired they would send one of those that were there as pledges to be their king...

Before you go Somewhere Over the Rainbow, see if there is something in Josephus that might have been rewritten...