Why Pilate? Because of: “PâLaT bar-Abbas” : “Free Barabbas!”

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
Giuseppe
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Re: Why Pilate? Because of: “PâLaT bar-Abbas” : “Free Barabbas!”

Post by Giuseppe »

I read that the Peshitta is a late Syrian version of the Gospels. A Christian work.

Even so, my point remains: could the Syrian translater be aware that Pilate is the deliverer of the evil goat of Lev 16? I doubt that he knew this.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
Secret Alias
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Re: Why Pilate? Because of: “PâLaT bar-Abbas” : “Free Barabbas!”

Post by Secret Alias »

I read that the Peshitta is a late Syrian version of the Gospels. A Christian work.
I don't think you get it. What business do you have - as someone who hasn't a clue how Semitic languages 'work,' who doesn't know how people converse, how they think - reconstructing the phrasing of a purported Hebrew gospel? It's fucking madness! It's like those commercials they have over here to illustrate the reliability of a particular wireless network where the surgeon tells his patients 'I've never done this before.' You haven't the tools to do this!
Last edited by Secret Alias on Tue Apr 09, 2019 12:46 pm, edited 2 times in total.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
Secret Alias
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Re: Why Pilate? Because of: “PâLaT bar-Abbas” : “Free Barabbas!”

Post by Secret Alias »

since some Talmudist (your Peshitta) translates "release Barabbas"
Putting aside your inexplicable terminology 'Talmudist' (!!!) no - the translator of the Peshitta clearly was a native speaker of Syriac. It's an indication or at least some hint for how the Greek was rendered in Semitic languages.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
Giuseppe
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Location: Italy

Re: Why Pilate? Because of: “PâLaT bar-Abbas” : “Free Barabbas!”

Post by Giuseppe »

The beauty of Dubourg's argument relatively to PLT is that it is not necessary to postulate a Hebrew Gospel to like the irony behind the use of the Latin name Pilate for who plays the role of "deliverer" (PLT) of the evil goat of Lev 16.

So the my real argument is:

1) if you think that the Barabbas episode was a midrash from Lev 16...

2) ...then you should read PLT in Pilate, so making Pilate an actor in the story not for historical reasons, but uniquely for midrashical reasons.

Totally beyond the existence of a Hebrew Gospel proto-Mark etc.

Note that Ehrman accepts the premise 1.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
Giuseppe
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Re: Why Pilate? Because of: “PâLaT bar-Abbas” : “Free Barabbas!”

Post by Giuseppe »

The Mythicist Maurice Mergui (author of Un étranger sur le toit: les sources midrashiques des Evangiles, Éd. Nouveaux savoirs, 2003) argues that Pilate is both a deliverer and a delivered, and in this sense he fulfills fully the meaning of PLT.
  • He is a “deliverer” insofar he delivers/set free Barabbas, the evil goat of Lev 16.
  • He is a “delivered/set free” insofar, in virtue of the his innocence (even by washing the hands), he alone escaped the guilt for the murder of Christ, in a context where all the other Actors are guilty towards the Christ. Hence the apocryphal legend of “Saint Pilate”.

The theme of the fugue as salvation is found not only in Mark 13, but also in Mark 4:11-12:

And he said to them, “To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for those outside everything is in parables, 12 so that
“‘they may indeed see but not perceive,
and may indeed hear but not understand,
lest they should turn and be forgiven.’”



By turning back, Pilate is forgiven.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
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ConfusedEnoch
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Re: Why Pilate? Because of: “PâLaT bar-Abbas” : “Free Barabbas!”

Post by ConfusedEnoch »

Secret Alias wrote: Mon Apr 08, 2019 8:14 am
He writes as a scholar, therefore he is a scholar.
You write as a scholar but you are not a scholar. Anyone can open up a Semitic language dictionary and make silly arguments from it. Only trust someone who has studied the language. In Italian for instance is there a relationship between figa and figo? Sounds good. Don't know if it's true. In English there are lots of words that sound the same but have no relationship with one another.
Ever heard of the concept of "triconsonantal roots"? It's an exclusively Semitic one, and it's the reason why two words that sound the same DO have a relationship with one another. In Semitic languages, the words for King (malek), Angel (malaak) and Ownership (melk), derive from the same root of M-L-K, itself meaning "possession".

What Giuseppe is saying makes a tad bit of sense, and I don't understand why you'd insult him just because "no one has ever made that connection". Isn't this how scholarly evolution works? One person notices something and others slowly but surely accept it, making it part of the "concensus".
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