Mr. J Barabbas...

Wow, I have to tell you, I am impressed that some of you got the name! Yes, Barabbas' first name was Jesus! (TCIE, MTA and Brenda, you were so close!)

In Hebrew, Jesus is Yeshua, which means "God saves" -- a pretty common name at the time (but how appropriate for the Messiah, no?)

Okay, so it gets even more interesting: Barabbas translates to "son of the father" (awesome job, Bonnie!). So, when the crowd was asked to choose one man to free and one man to punish, they were choosing between

Jesus, Son of the Father and Jesus, son of the father! 

Here's where it gets more interesting. I read this years ago when I was a subscriber to The Wanderer:

There had been an annual miracle -- which all Jews understood, knew, and expected -- of long-running tradition: Two goats were brought into the Temple by the Jewish priests, and a red ribbon was put around the neck of each. One ribbon would spontaneously turn white, and this would signal which goat would be sacrificed and its blood sprinkled in the Holy of Holies by the High Priest to atone for the sins of the people. 

The other goat -- the scapegoat -- was driven away from the city and killed outside its walls.

This miracle ended abruptly [40 years before the destruction of the Temple in A.D. 70], as the Talmud tells us....

....The exact time the miracle of the red ribbon ended was when the Jewish people were given the choice between crucifying Jesus or Barabbas.... Our Jesus and Barabbas are externally identical [Jesus, son of the father], just as the two goats were, but God chose one to be sacrificed outside the walls as a scapegoat. 

Forty years after Jesus was crucified (40 being the traditional time of conversion), the Temple was destroyed.

Anyway, I have just always thought that was super cool!!!

And Jenny, I will post this under: