I just came across this comment on a TIL post (quoted below). I was wondering whether there's any truth to it - or rather, whether this is a common interpretation of the passage, as I understand that it's hard if not impossible to make specific statements about events in Jesus' life, even if most historians believe him to have really existed in some form.
Joshua was actually a fairly popular/common name among the Jews (think Mohammed among Muslims). In order to distinguish one Joshua from another, they might adopt various honorifics like "Son of ____" after their name. For example, Simon Barjonas is actually Simon, Son of Jonas (bar = Hebrew for "son of")
Jesus was known by many honorifics in his time, but one of them was Son of the Father. Father in Hebrew is "abba" so Joshua, Son of the Father would be Joshua Barabbas.
Now when Pilate wanted to release Jesus because he thought he was innocent, he set him up before the crowd opposite a known criminal/terrorist. That man's name?
Albert EinsteinJoshua Barabbas.
In other words, Pilate hoped to perform a bait and switch by presenting the guy he wanted to release with a criminal known by the exact same name.
http://www.hebrew-streams.org/works/ntstudies/yeshua-bar-abba.html
The text here is Luke 23:13-25, for those playing at home.
Firstly, yes, ‘Barabbas’ does translate to ‘Son of the Father’. Unlike your link, it’s not really correct to call this an honorific. It is true that Joshua would have been a common name. It is also true that indicating which person you meant would be accomplished by adding something to a name, usually a patronymic (David’s Joseph), or other distinguishing feature (Samuel, from Bethesda), etc..
Luke derives his narrative (most probably) from Mark 15:8-15, but with some expansion. There’s obviously debate about whether there was, in fact, a custom/law/habit of releasing a prisoner for Passover. It is not impossible, but it is not well supported. Technically, within the construct of the narrative, the fact htat Pilate finds Jesus innocent, this should lead to Jesus’ release. Pilate appears in the narrative to be trying to find a way to appease the Jerusalem Jews and still release Jesus. Suggestions that ‘a Roman governor would never do this’ flatten out the picture of Pilate’s governorship in Judea, which contains both incidents of Pilate riding absolutely roughshod over local concerns, and other incidents where Pilate is more circumspect precisely because having Judea revolt is not his aim.
Was Pilate trying to perform a bait-and-switch? I don’t think so. It’s true that some manuscripts name Barabbas as ‘Jesus Barabbas’, but in my view this is a later addition which is trying to bring out something else that Luke’s text is attempting to do, which is provide a narrative theologising of Barabbas’ release. Barabbas is introduced into the narrative in order to provide a foil to Jesus – here is a figure who, unlike Jesus, is guilty of insurrection, and is going to be released at the behest of the crowd. In contrast, Jesus the innocent one is about to be executed for, basically, insurrection. This is, on my reading, Luke’s narrative version of a substitutionary theology.
This passage in the bible makes little sense in the historical context. There is generally understood there was a person by the name of Jesus executed by the Romans, however it was not because the pharisees pressured a Roman provincial governor to do so. He was executed because he claimed to be the King of the Jews and would create a Kingdom in Judea. This was a direct threat to Roman authority as it was treason by a subject. Along with this, he was causing upheaval in province and as a source of this upheaval, he could have been executed.
Even ignoring this, no Roman who had attained that position would give up the choice of who to execute to the rabble of Jerusalem, they just would not give up that power to a subject people.
The passage was most likely written to show that the Romans did not see him as a threat however the vitriolic Jewish rabble would rather let a criminal go free than Jesus, lending credibility to Jesus as the Romans did not perceive him as a threat.