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 »

Secret Alias wrote: Tue Apr 09, 2019 10:14 am You don't read the passage. You just take a snippet out of context. The passage says in Hebrew that if God kills the enemy of the Psalmist his life with escape or be free.
you are doing the my case, here.

"...his life": the life/soul of the Psalmist, not God!!! Just as if Pilate frees Barabbas, then his life - the life of Barabbas - will escape or be free from the crucifixion. Who plays an active role is God for the psalmist and Pilate for the crowd. Really you can't escape this only logical conclusion.


Rise up, LORD, confront them, bring them down; with your sword rescue me (my life) from the wicked.
the rescuer of the life of psalmist is God for the psalmist. The rescuer of Barabbas is Pilate for the crowd.
What's God going to do with his sword? Is he going to kill the Psalmist? No he's going to kill the enemy of the Psalmist. That's going to cause his life to escape.
Pilate isn't going to kill Barabbas. No he is going to set Barabbas free.
The passage literally say 'escape my life' with your sword (by killing) his enemy. Put another way 'let me escape by killing my enemy with your sword.' How does this possibly apply to the gospel?
Simply translated:
"Dear mr. Pilate, Let Barabbas escape by killing Jesus called Christ with your cross". Still zero differences between the two cases.
How is a crowd shouting - in Syriac - 'release' or 'untie' Barabbas remotely related to this?
Because of PLT occurring in "Pilate", the name"Pilate" remembers the original reader about the fact that a "deliverance" is going to happen and Pilate is probably the active subject of this "deliverance" in action. Hence the emphasis again and again on "release" and variants. Also the "festival" gives the same idea, since there is only a feast where an evil character receives a deliverance: the Yom Kippur. And obviously even a child realizes who is the deliverer in this case.

PLT, detached from any context, means basically Deliverance, liberation, by a fugue. But it can't decide alone, detached from any context, who is the deliverer or who is the fugitive. They can be distinct entities and in this case who should receive the title of PLT is who delivers the fugitive. Barabbas escapes thanks Pilate. The fugue of Barabbas is a mere result of the act of deliverance done ultimately by Pilate.
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 »

Let Barabbas escape
No but it can't be that direct. Think of the Psalm you cited. The formula would have to be 'let pilate do X so that Barabbas escapes.' It can't be 'Let Pilate escape Barabas' in Hebrew any more than in English.
“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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Re: Why Pilate? Because of: “PâLaT bar-Abbas” : “Free Barabbas!”

Post by Giuseppe »

"God, let me escape by killing my enemy with your sword".

becomes:

"Pilate, Let Barabbas escape by killing Jesus called Christ with your cross".

Therefore PLT appears in Pilate with more right than (it should appear) in Barabbas.
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 »

No that's not what the Hebrew says:
“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 »

Yahweh, confront his face/person cast him down, escape/free my life from with your sword
“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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Joined: Sun Apr 19, 2015 8:47 am

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

Post by Secret Alias »

But you wouldn't say 'Pilate escape Barabas.' It would be Pilate release, untie Barabas.
“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 »

A released Barabbas is a Barabbas who escapes. Which is the difference? I don't see it.

My and Dubourg's argument is that the original readers connect Pilate and the release/deliverance of Barabbas via PLT read in "Pilate".

Pilate is who sets Barabbas free just as God is who sets the Psalmist free.

How much is a mere coincidence the fact that PLT occurs in an episode of deliverance of a man by another man?

But you want that Pilate has to be the fugitive. Or that Barabbas has to be named "PaLaTabbas" because he is the only fugitive in the episode. But PLT is only a Semitic root. As abstract term it means only "deliverance". It means escape only in concrete contexts. From a mere root, nothing is said about who delivers or who is delivered, as effect of a fugue.

The Gospel context implies that Pilate is the author of PLT, the author of the deliverance that is taking place under the eyes of the readers.
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 »

If I say that Simon is "from QyReNe" because QRN means "force" in Hebrew, then "force" per se doesn't mean nothing. But the context may imply that Simon is who gives "force" to Jesus by bearing the cross in the his place. Whereas this is merely possible for the Cyrenaic episode, the case for read PLT in Pilate is decisively more probable, since the reader is warned by the many occurrences of release, by the fact that during a "festival" the release has to be made and that festival can only be the Yom Kippur described in Lev 16. And by the fact that Pilate releases, just as Herod releases, just as Festus releases.

Pilate releases even the corpse of Jesus.
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 »

A released Barabbas is a Barabbas who escapes. Which is the difference? I don't see it.
Languages aren't math equations. There are ways that languages are used. Theoretically at least you can invent your own way of speaking in a language. People speak the same language in different ways - i.e. different phrases, different expressions etc. But the way you are suggesting the phrasing in this passage originally read isn't a natural way of expressing oneself in Hebrew. This isn't surprising as you have just learned to embrace Hebrew as a concept. You have no familiarity about how Hebrew is used.

An example. I do not speak Italian. My mother could speak Italian among other languages. She lived in Lugano and her best friend was from Domodossola. Strangely though she spoke most of her Italian in Canada with Sicilians. In any event, I don't speak Italian but simple phrases like Va' fa' un culo or vafanculo make sense in Italian but when you translate them literally into English they sound ludicrous. You don't 'go' do ass. You simply do ass. You can 'go fuck yourself' but if you say 'go fuck someone else' or 'go fuck some ass' it doesn't make any sense. It's hard to put into words or explanations but if you transpose the Italian phrasing in English you sound like an idiot.

In this particular case you are asking people at the forum to accept your postulation that:

1. there was a Hebrew gospel even a Hebrew gospel of Mark
2. there was a historical Pilate
3. that in this Hebrew gospel there was a play on words involving the root PLT which was connected with PYLTWS

Let's suppose 1 is true for argument's sake. What it said is a matter of conjecture. But that this conjectured gospel's conjectured play on words would render 'release Barabas' in a different way than the Peshitta and in the way that you and a bunch of other theosophist poets want the phrasing to be is highly unlikely if not impossible. The crowds would not ask Barabas's captor (Pilate) to 'escape him.' It's not the way Hebrew or Aramaic is used. It's a phrase that sounds unusual. The crowd would ask him to 'release Barabas' exactly as we read in the Peshitta.
“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
Posts: 13732
Joined: Mon Apr 27, 2015 5:37 am
Location: Italy

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

Post by Giuseppe »

So your argument is that, since some Talmudist (your Peshitta) translates "release Barabbas" in the equivalent terms without mention of PLT, then PLT was not in the presumed Hebrew Gospel, too.

But to be PLT there, the Talmudist had to accept that Pilate fulfilled midrashically the role of who sets the evil goat free per Leviticus 16. Could he accept this without being a Christian? And a Christian insider?

It is identical to the case of Arimathea. Can it be translated as "best disciple's town" by who denies it that esoteric meaning a priori as mere outsider?

Or take the Martha and Mary episode. "Martha" means "mistress". The allegorical point is that she is the master of the house of Israel, i.e. the Jewish people, that ignores the Christ. Your claim that Peshitta had to translate with PLT in the place of "release" is equivalent to claim that someone had to translate Martha by "Mistress" to make it even more explicit the allegorical point.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
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