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

[Giuseppe]

mlt/plt [designates] the making escape possible

https://books.google.it/books?id=LJ2FES ... &q&f=false

[Giuseppe]

JohnKesler March 17, 2019:

“This Barabbas episode was firmly set in the early Christian memory of Jesus’ trial – it is found, with variations, in all four of the Gospels (Matthew 27:15-23; Luke 23:17-23; John 18:39-40). I do not see how it can be historically right, however; it appears to be a distorted memory.”
Since you don’t think that John knew the Synoptic Gospels, John’s account of the custom to release a prisoner means that the custom is multiply attested (assuming that Mark is the source for Matthew and Luke). How could John and Mark independently arrive at the same “distorted memory,” whose source you later say is the desire to blame the Jews for Jesus’ murder? It seems like a big coincidence that two writers independent of one another decided to invent a custom to release a prisoner as the vehicle to blame the Jews.

Bart Ehrman's answer:

Because the story was in wide circulation for years, decades, before either Mark or John heard it. Not a coincidence at all — it goes back to an oral tradition.

(my bold)

I'm sorry, “prof” Ehrman. The story is so intimately connected with Pilate in the role of “releaser” in virtue of hebrew PLT, that not even an oral tradition could invent it, if not sitting comfortably at a table to write it the first time it was invented.

[Secret Alias]

This is all fucking nonsense. You are trying to bend the meaning of a word simply because you want to make it serve your idiotic purposes. And then once this doesn't work in a matter of a few days you argue equally vehemently for another interpretation. It's pointless and madness.

[Giuseppe]

I am sorry, but you don't realize how the argument from a-coincidence-so-impossible-that-is-not-a-coincidence works.

It can't be a coincidence the fact that:

1) during a festival Herod releases a gift for Herodias,
2) during a festival Pilate releases a gift for the Jews,
3) during a festival, Festus releases Paul for the Emperor,
4) in “Pilate” the signs PLT occur,
5) PLT means "making escape possible".
6) during a festival, the evil goat is released

[Secret Alias]

Yes but the evidence is stronger for a relationship with 'redemption.' All the Church Fathers, heresies point in the direction of apolutrosis.

[Giuseppe]

Yes but the evidence is stronger for a relationship with 'redemption.' All the Church Fathers, heresies point in the direction of apolutrosis.

further midrash and allegory don't matter to me. I am interested only to prove that Pilate plays a role in the story not because of an “hard fact of History” (as historicists preach all the time), but merely for the resemblance of the name “Pilate” with PLT (and the related midrash by me explained above).

[Secret Alias]

But your 'interest' has no precedent. No one has ever connected this word PLT to Pilate. No one. So you have to have more of an argument than 'I like it.' You have no background or 'feeling' for what is and isn't possible with Semitic words and play on words. In short, you are the last person anyone should derive any analysis from. The fact that you don't know that you aren't qualified confirms that you are in fact an idiot.

[Secret Alias]

The best argument that anyone could make for Pilate being connected with the Semitic root PLT might be found in the apocryphal literature - i.e. if Pilate is described somewhere as 'escaping' Caesar after his trial in the Senate for killing Jesus or becoming a refugee. I don't know of such a document. That would be my suggestion. Look for such a reference. Indeed the myth of the eternal Jew is something to consider - i.e. that the freeing of Bar Abbas (leading to the crucifixion of Christ) caused the Jews to become refugees wandering the earth. Maybe something like this. But not what you suggest.

[Giuseppe]

But your 'interest' has no precedent. No one has ever connected this word PLT to Pilate. No one. So you have to have more of an argument than 'I like it.' You have no background or 'feeling' for what is and isn't possible with Semitic words and play on words. In short, you are the last person anyone should derive any analysis from. The fact that you don't know that you aren't qualified confirms that you are in fact an idiot.

I have a notice for you: it is not me the first to discover this connection.

Bernard Dubourg, L'invention de Jésus, tome I, p. 23:

Pour les circonstances de cette mise en liberté, je renvoie à Philon et à Flavius Josèphe. – Je note d’autre part que la racine PLT (qui figure dans « Pilate ») signifie en hébreu «libérer», «relâcher» – simple remarque en passant (Pilate n’est-il pas celui qui désire relâcher Jésus ?)...

So I think that you are the idiot, here.

[Secret Alias]

Does this person have a background in Semitic languages?