Who is called Bar Abbas?

Abstract

In theJournal of Biblical LiteratureLXIV H. A. Rigg carefully developed the remarkable theory that Jesus of Nazareth was known to his contemporaries as Jesus bar Abba and that crowds of people called for his release at the time of his trial.1Twenty-five years later, inNew Testament StudiesXVI (1970), H. Z. Maccoby independently arrived at a virtually identical conclusion.2Both men based their arguments on the fact that the tradition of theprivilegium paschaleis unlikely to have had any historical foundation.3Rigg, further, makes a case that the reading ‘Jesus who is called Barabbas’, found in some early texts of Matthew, is authentic.4The intention of this short study is not to rehearse their arguments—and both men adduce more than mentioned above—but to show that there is even more evidence in support of their theory than their articles presented and that their theory is worthy of very serious consideration.