Was the Barabbas episode the proto-Catholic answer to the Cyrenaic substitution episode?

[Giuseppe]

Georges Ory, this authentic genius, makes me think again and again. (I thought that the German, if not the English, was the language of the biblical experts. I was wrong: it's the French).

Ory argued that the Barabbas episode was absent in the Earliest Gospel (Mcn).

Frankly, the Barabbas episode alludes to only a theological thing: the expiatory sacrifice of a Jesus who suffers in the place of a real sinner. This is pure proto-Catholic theology, isn't it? No wonder that just the proto-Catholic "Matthew" had no embarrassment to write in clear letters "JESUS Barabbas". The replacement had to be explicit : the proto-catholic Jesus opted deliberately for the his death. The reader has not to doubt about this fact.

While in the Cyrenaic episode the doubt was raised by Basilides et co: was really Jesus the crucified man on the cross? We have another replacement, one where, IF really a replacement has to be, surely an expiatory sacrifice is NOT meant. The Cyrenaic is not a martyr. He doesn't desire to die for Jesus.

So the proto-Catholic redactor inserted the Barabbas episode to sanitize (by a "correct" replacement story)
a previous Cyrenaic episode where a replacement happens along the lines of a heretical tradition, one where the Christ suffered only apparently.

[Giuseppe]

Note the difference:

Barabbas has all the requisites to be crucified: he is a criminal.

The Cyrenaic has all the requisites to not be crucified: he is foreign to the facts of Jerusalem (being from Cyrene) and is even father of two Gentile sons.

Another difference:

Jesus is the deliberate replacer of Barabbas, according to his (of Jesus) will.

The Cyrenaic is the replacer of Jesus, against the his (of Simon) will.

Another difference:

"JESUS" Barabbas is explicitly compared to Jesus called Christ.

The Cyrenaic is explicitly compared not to Jesus, but to the place of the his crucifixion: by the occurrence of KRN and by the bearing of the cross.

Another difference:

Jesus is the "so-called" Christ in comparison to Jesus Barabbas. But it is evident that HE is the real Christ. It is evident that it is a evident replacement (since both the people and Jesus want the death of Jesus and not of Barabbas).

While Simon is not even the "so-called Christ". Even if he is WHO bears the cross. And even if the presumed replacement happens secretly and implicitly.

So the two replacements are mutually exclusive: they cannot come from the same "Mark".

[Giuseppe]

The difference in short:

The Romans (Pilate in primis) can confirm that a replacement is happening (even if it happens against the desire of Pilate): Jesus replaces Barabbas.

The same Romans cannot confirm that a replacement is happening, even if it happens via their will: Simon replaces Jesus.

[Secret Alias]

You realize that 'bar Abba' could mean 'son of the father' or 'son of Abraham' where Abba is a short form of Abraham. https://books.google.com/books?id=_dQP4 ... am&f=false The connection of the Marcionites with Jewish proselytes (cf Adv Marc 3.2) makes it possible perhaps highly possible that the Passion represents some sort of 'new' conversion rite.

[Secret Alias]

Abba Saul was a contemporary of Akiva.

[Giuseppe]

I read:

II. WHY CHRIST'S COMING SHOULD BE PREVIOUSLY ANNOUNCED.
Coming then at once to the point, I have to encounter the question, Whether Christ ought to have come so suddenly? (I answer, No.) First, because He was the Son of God His Father. For this was a point of order, that the Father should announce the Son before the Son should the Father, and that the Father should testify of the Son before the Son should testify of the Father.

Apparently the entire point of the Barabbas episode seems to be that Jesus is the true "Son of the Father", and not that he is not the Son of YHWH (even if I don't doubt that the latter was the later - forced - marcionite interpretation).

But I don't think more so. The point is another: a visible replacement, in the open light of the day, against the secret replacement of Simon with Jesus.

If there was not the Cyrenaic episode, then there would be no Barabbas episode as reaction.

The Barabbas episode can be explained only in comparison to another episode of substitution of identity.

[Giuseppe]

The primary effect of the Barabbas episode is: the reader can't doubt that this Jesus wants to be crucified.

Without the Barabbas episode, the only episode of replacement is the Cyrenaic episode. With the doubt raised about the identity of the man on the cross.