In defense of Barabbas

BY ANTONIO CONTRERAS       APRIL 27, 2019

CALOOCAN Bishop Pablo David painted what he thought was a clear choice for the voters in the upcoming May 13 elections. He cast that choice as being like choosing between Jesus Christ and Barabbas. We know that when Pilate asked the Jewish mob whom to set free, the crowd shouted the name of Barabbas. Bishop David wants the Filipino voters to choose candidates whom he likens to Jesus Christ, who is the messiah sent by God, and not Barabbas who is portrayed in popular culture as a thief. The obvious subtext is, of course, to shun and reject the thieving candidates in May and choose the virtuous and upright.

However, Bishop David may have either grossly misrepresented the symbolism of the crowd choosing Barabbas, or he grossly misrepresented who Barabbas was.

One can argue that when the people chose Barabbas over Jesus Christ, that it was simply to fulfill what had been prophesied. Christ needed to be crucified and die on the cross to redeem us from our sins. This is the Christian narrative. Barabbas was chosen to live because it was what God had willed.

Hence, to paint the narrative of the Jewish crowd as making a wrong choice as a template to exhort a virtuous and autonomous act of choosing the correct candidate in the May elections is simply inconsistent with the original context and meaning of the biblical text. There was no autonomous choice, considering that the event was in fulfillment of a prophecy that must happen in order for Christ to complete His mission on earth.

The choice in the May elections is supposed to be about voters exercising their free will, and of applying reason. It is erroneous and logically flawed to give Catholic voters the impression that choosing Barabbas over Jesus Christ was a grave mistake that should not be repeated again.

Hence, voters should vote for candidates who emulate the virtues of Christ and reject those that Bishop David would image as the present-day incarnations of Barabbas. One can just imagine the serious implications if the Jewish crowd had chosen to do what Bishop David frames as the right thing and freed Jesus and voted to crucify Barabbas instead. This would have led to the collapse of the entire logic of the Christian faith.

However, a more fundamental flaw in turning the May elections into a choice between the so-called “Jesus” candidates and the “Barabbas” candidates, thereby exhorting the electorate to vote for the former, is that it may even be based on the wrong premise that Barabbas is a notorious thief.

It should be stressed that even the scriptures may not necessarily support this view. Matthew 27:16 labels Barabbas as a “notorious prisoner.” The word used in Luke 23:19 is that Barabbas was involved in a stasis or a “riot.” Mark 15:7 was more precise in painting Barabbas as someone imprisoned together with the rebels for committing murder during an insurrection against Rome. John 18:40 refers to Barabbas as a léstés which is translated into “bandit.” Josephus, the famed Jewish historian, has often used the word “bandit” to refer to revolutionaries or those involved in an insurrection against Rome.

Thus, it is clear that the image painting Barabbas as a plain criminal, a thief, is inaccurate. There is enough reason to believe that he was an active participant, if not a leader himself, of the Jewish insurrection engaged in a violent resistance against the occupying Roman forces. Some historians and scholars even posit that he was a Zealot, or a member of the sicarii , a militant group of dagger-wielding Jews who were rebelling against the authority of the Roman Empire in Judea. In fact, Barabbas may even be a powerful representation of those who at present are fighting for political rights and are being persecuted by State authorities.

It behooves us to realize that Jesus Christ and Barabbas were both seen as threats to the political establishment at the time. Jesus Christ proclaiming Himself as King was a threat to Rome, even as His claim of being a messiah was an outright challenge to the religious authority of the Jewish Sanhedrin. Barabbas, on the other hand, was a threat to the political power of Rome, and collaterally, to the Sanhedrin’s and Herod’s residual authority, but was not a threat to Judaism as a religion.

It is here that one can even argue that the response of the Jewish people to Pilate’s question on who to free between Barabbas and Jesus Christ could even be interpreted as a rational one, and not necessarily an outcome of an illogical mob mentality. Jesus Christ carried a message that may not have resonated with the ordinary people at the time. After all, He was claiming to be the Son of God, which could have sounded abstract, if not crazy. Barabbas, on the other hand, represented a more political message of directly rebelling against a foreign occupying force. Thus, he represented a message that would have resonated more with the ordinary people. It was more concrete and material to which people who were suffering under Roman rule, and the complicity of the Jewish elites in Herod’s palace and among the members of the Sanhedrin, could have easily related.

In the end, it could even be said that while the crucifixion of Christ was foreordained by a prophecy, it was made possible by a people making a rational choice of setting free someone who was fighting the Romans and, therefore, was fighting for their liberation as Jews. The Jews choosing Barabbas, who was a symbol of their liberation from Rome, paved the way for Christ’s crucifixion to redeem us from our sins.

It is with this alternative reading that the fallacy of turning the May elections into an opportunity to make Barabbas into a symbol of thieving candidates collapses.

https://www.manilatimes.net/in-defense-of-barabbas/546001/