BARABBA (in Aramaic it means “son of the father”; spelling uncertain in the Greek text). - A criminal whose release the Jews requested from Pilate, thereby obtaining the crucifixion of Jesus (Mt. 27, 15-26; Mc. 15, 6-15; Lc. 23, 13-25; Io. 18, 39-40). In a few Evangelical codices of slight authority, and in the Armenian and Georgian versions, he is called “Jesus Barabbas”: according to this variant, already known to Origen, “Barabbas” would be a surname. B. was in prison at the time of Passover and was considered a “notorious prisoner” (Mt. 27, 16), and Mc. 15, 7 specifies the reason for his detention: “in a popular uprising he had committed murder.”
The Jewish custom (Io. 18, 39) for Passover, mentioned by Pilate, is not known to us from other sacred or profane sources; Lc. 23, 17 seems to allude to a privilege granted by the Romans who, like the Greeks, had similar practices. The fact that Pilate resorted, as a last expedient, to setting Jesus against B. in order to secure the release of the former attests to the abject character of the latter. But the Procurator’s intention (Act. 3, 14) failed: B. was pardoned, at the request of the people incited by the Sadducees and the elders, perhaps to continue his troubled life; he entered into a framework of legend, propagated by some apocryphon. Angelo Penna