A poll and some questions for believers: Jesus or Barabbas

It seems matters came down to a moment. Pilate put the matter before the people. Jesus or Barabbas. Who would they save? Suppose you were there at the time.

Who would you have called out for?(the poll)

Why would you have called out for whoever you chose?

What would the consequences have been if Jesus had won the vote?

Sorry, couldn't resist. ;-)

Took me a sec to get the ref. :D You are forgiven.

but I probably would have just shut up. Anus Protectus.

"Bar Abbas" is Aramaic for "Son of God". Odd, heh?

bar-abba. 'Son of the father.' By extension it could be taken as equivalent to 'son of God' *only* if you've already bought into the 'God the Father' epithet.

The religious group that controlled the Temple in Jerusalem during the 1st century BCE through most of the 1st century CE -- and who, by extension, defined the official religion of Jerusalem and the Jewish people -- defined God as being distant and remote, inaccessable except by means of complicated sacrifices performed by a highly trained caste of priests. This group, the Sadducees, held that God could only be appeased, not communicated with, and cared only for the legalities of the Law and not for the day-to-day problems of the people.

In opposition, most other religious movements held that God was immediately accessable to anyone willing to pray and intimately interested in what you were doing and why. God was not a monarch, but a father. For this reason, the Pharisees, Zealots, Essenes and other religous groups used the Aramaic equivalent of "daddy" to mean God. That is what "abbas" is: an intimate form of the Aramaic word for "father."

"Abbas" is an Aramaic word, an intimate form for "father." It can be roughly translated as "daddy" or "papa." In using "Abbas" to mean God, Jesus was following a common practice of the time of emphasizing God as intimately present and immediately available to the common person through prayer, as opposed to being distant and remote, available only to a priviledged class of priests by means of ritual sacrifices.

The name "bar Abbas" was actually a fairly common surname for a male whose father hadn't recognized him or whose father wasn't known. As such, it can be translated as "son of his father." That Barabbas was a criminal would fit in with his presumed bastardy; without a father to teach him a trade, he would have been reduced to doing whatever he could to survive. That isn't to say that Barabbas is not an early Christian symbol, of course. But you can explain the name without having to make such a stretch.

referring to him in Aramaic. It is true that it means "Father", but I haven't seen evidence of a wide-spread use of "Bar Abbas" as a surname for bastards.

I've studied a fair bit of Christian and Jewish history over the last 20 years; facts remain but cites tend to fade. I will see what I can find.

Of course I think I'd call out Jesus. The guy had committed no crime, was doing good things.

But if we are going to believe in the story of jesus he was meant to die on the cross. You have to figure that spirit moved people to save the other guy. God doesn't interfere with free will but he will use it to carry out his plans.

Who had a choice here? We have bad guys in this story...but if this was Jesus's destiny who could interfere?

Peter got in trouble trying. When Jesus told him he'd be killed when he went to this place Peter did the loving thing, wanted to do what any of us would want to, keep him alive. What does he get for the normal, sane, loving reaction? Jesus said “Get thee behind me, Satan”
(Actually I think he overreacted because he, as a man, must have felt the same thing in some ways, though he accepted his destiny)

It seems a better plan to me if Jesus had won the vote. He was touching peoples hearts, had a message that mattered.

I don't have a God's eye view but it doesn't look like it has gone too well. He'd said he'd be right back...
Now I realize he was man and that a spiritual imperative carries a sense of immediacy...and that kairos doesn't translate well into chronos. Spiritual soon and human soon aren't the same thing.

Or maybe he thought he the person would be back soon and instead it is the Christ energy he was filled with and it is here and it grows in all of us.

If he had lived on and died a normal death in old age...perhaps there wouldn't be Christianity but would that be a loss?

Perhaps he had to have that experience...to open the door wider between man and God, heaven and earth. Physical evolution took a long, long time, perhaps his life and death sped up our spiritual evolution. But despite singing about how he brings peace on earth good will to men, so far that's not working out so well.

Sometimes I think sarcastically at Jesus that he is like all those men you hear about who go out for a pack of cigarettes and don't come back.
But sometimes I think about the story of how if you compress the history of earth into a year (you know fish come in August to Neolithic human beings coming on 12/31 at 11:30 p.m. and Columbus discovered America at 11:59:40) well then we've only been waiting a minute or two.

I've drifted, haven't I?
It just makes you wonder and I like to wonder.

I would have called out for Jesus. But, it's easy to be a "Monday morning quarterback."

Who knows. I wasn't there.

He was apparently a thief. You know, the whole Robin-Hood thing, one wonders who he robbed.

On the other hand, Jesus was a rabble rouser. He didn't tell most people they were doing good; he was tolerant, but preachy. And one of the possible nationalist antagonists that the Romans were contending with.

Why should I think I'd be different from the average Jew attending Pesach?

There would have been no salvation, as (according to Christian doctrine) it is only by Jesus' death and subsequent resurrection that people can be saved.

Doesn't it?

Had he not betrayed Jesus, Jesus would not have been executed and the "propitiary sacrifice" would not have taken place. There have been Christian movements from time to time in history that have venerated Judas as Jesus' most devoted disciple, the only one willing to do what was necessary for salvation to enter in to the world.

I always thought it was a very interesting and nuanced way of looking at the whole story. Judas would be considered to have been the "closest disciple", the one "in the know" who has the fullest understanding of Jesus' real mission. Very interesting idea...