Note 18 — Chapter XVI · THE TRIAL CRUX
Reading edition
It is not a case for very confident explanation; but when we note that Barabbas means “Son of the Father”; that the Karabbas of Philo is treated as a mock-king; and that the reading “Jesus Barabbas” in Matt, xxvii, 16, 17, was long the accepted one in the ancient church,18 we are strongly led to infer (1) that the formula “Jesus the Son of the Father” was well known among the first Christians as being connected with a popular rite—else how could such a strange perplexity be introduced into the text?—and (2) that the real reason for introducing it was that those anti-Christians who knew of the name and rite in question used their knowledge against the faith. The way to rebut them was to present Jesus Barabbas not only as a murderer but as the man actually released to the Jewish people instead of Jesus the Christ, proposed to be released by Pilate.