Bible Study · The Man Who Walked Free

Who Was Barabbas In The Bible?

A prisoner held for insurrection and murder, released in place of Jesus. His name means son of the father, and one famous detail about it is disputed.

By Apostle Johnny Ova · Sound of Heaven · 11 Min Read

The Short Answer

Who He Was

Straight Answer

Ask who was Barabbas and the answer is short. A prisoner held by Rome during Passover, released by Pilate in place of Jesus after the crowd asked for him. All four Gospels record it, which is rare. Mark says he was in prison with rebels who had committed murder in an uprising.

His name is not a name in the usual sense. Bar abba is Aramaic for son of the father. That is the detail everybody remembers, and it is real.

There is a second detail, about his first name, which is preached constantly and is much shakier than people are told. We will handle it honestly.

The Accounts

What The Four Writers Say

Mark 15:7

In prison with the insurrectionists who had committed murder in the uprising. Mark places him in a specific political event his readers apparently knew about.

Matthew 27:16

A notorious prisoner. Matthew gives the least detail about the crime and the most attention to Pilate's manoeuvring and the crowd.

Luke 23:19

Thrown into prison for an insurrection in the city and for murder. Luke says it twice, in verse 19 and again in verse 25, which is emphasis.

John 18:40

John calls him a lestes. The word covers a bandit, but Josephus uses it for armed rebels, so the political reading fits the other three.

Takeaway

He was not a petty thief. The picture across all four is a man involved in violent resistance to Rome, which is exactly the charge Jesus was falsely convicted under.

The Exchange

The Substitution Nobody Had To Explain

The structure of the scene does the teaching by itself, and the Gospel writers clearly know it.

The Guilty Man

Charged with insurrection and murder. Rome had him and had every intention of executing him. Walks out free, that morning, having done nothing to deserve it.

The Innocent Man

Pilate says three times in Luke that he finds no basis for a charge. Goes to the cross that had a name on it already.

Two men, one charge, one cross, and they trade places in public in front of the whole city. Nobody in the crowd understood what they were watching, and the Gospel writers report it without a single line of commentary, which is a choice.

“Wanting to satisfy the crowd, Pilate released Barabbas to them. He had Jesus flogged, and handed him over to be crucified.”

Mark 15:15

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Saying It Plainly

About His First Name

You have almost certainly heard this: that Barabbas was called Jesus Barabbas, so the crowd was choosing between Jesus son of the father and Jesus the Messiah. It is a superb illustration. It is also on shakier ground than preachers admit.

The reading exists

Matthew 27:16 and 17 in some witnesses reads Jesus Barabbas. It is genuinely ancient, so this is not an invention.

Origen knew it

In the third century he discusses it, treating Jesus Barabbas as the text in front of him with Barabbas as the variant.

A fifth century Syriac

A palimpsest at St Catherine's on Sinai preserves it, found by Agnes Smith Lewis and Margaret Dunlop Gibson in the nineteenth century.

But the Greek is thin

No Greek manuscript before the tenth century has it, which is the problem. The support is real but narrow and late in the language the Gospel was written in.

Where We Stand, Plainly

Dirk Jongkind of Tyndale House concludes the reading “is unlikely to be what Matthew originally wrote”, and traces it to a scribal slip in which the ending of the Greek word for to you was mistaken for the standard abbreviation of the name Jesus. That is a specific, checkable explanation, and it is better than the alternatives.

So we do not preach it as a fact. Some serious scholars accept the reading and the NIV and NRSV print it with a footnote, so anyone who teaches it is not being reckless. But it is a disputed reading, and building the centrepiece of a sermon on it while telling the congregation it is simply what the Bible says is not honest.

Here is the part that matters. The illustration does not need it. Bar abba already means son of the father, and that is not disputed by anybody. The contrast is sitting in the surname. You can preach the whole thing without ever touching the variant, and it is stronger for it, because a point that survives the footnote is a point that will survive somebody looking it up.

That is the general rule we work by. A good illustration is not worth a claim you cannot defend. People do eventually check, and when the illustration falls the doctrine often falls with it in their minds, even though it never depended on it.

What does the name Barabbas mean?

Rebel, in Greek

Son of the father, from the Aramaic bar abba

Man of the city

Bar means son and abba means father. It is a patronymic rather than a personal name, and it is undisputed, unlike the separate question of whether his first name was Jesus.

The Crowd

A Necessary Word About Blame

This passage has been used for centuries to justify violence against Jewish people, and no page on Barabbas should go up without saying so plainly.

It was a crowd

A gathering outside a Roman governor's residence one morning. Not a nation, not a people, and not anybody's descendants.

Rome executed Him

Crucifixion was a Roman penalty carried out by Roman soldiers on the order of a Roman prefect. The Gospels never obscure this.

Jesus was Jewish

So were the disciples, so were the women at the tomb, and so was the entire first church. Reading this as one people against another is a category error.

Acts 4:27 and 28

Peter names Herod, Pilate, Gentiles and the people of Israel together. The first sermon on this spreads the responsibility deliberately.

The honest reading has always been the uncomfortable one. Anybody asking which figure in the scene they resemble should notice that the crowd is the easiest role to fall into, and that it was made up of ordinary religious people who thought they were on the right side.

Where This Lands

What Happened To Him

Scripture never says. He walks out of the narrative in the middle of a sentence and is never mentioned again, and every legend about his later life is later invention.

Which leaves the one thing we do know about him, and it is the only thing that was ever the point. A guilty man went free because an innocent man took the cross with his name on it, on a specific morning, in public, and he did not ask for it and could not have arranged it.

The Gospel writers do not explain the symbolism because they do not have to. It is the clearest picture of substitution in the New Testament and it happens to be a historical event rather than a parable.

And he did nothing to qualify. That is worth sitting with, because it is the piece people quietly assume must have been there.

The Whole Thing In One Line

Barabbas was a man held for insurrection and murder whose name means son of the father, he was released in place of Jesus in front of the whole city, and the popular claim that his first name was Jesus rests on a disputed reading the illustration does not need.

If You Have Been Carrying Something You Think Disqualifies You

The man who walked free that morning had the worse record in the room. Send it in and somebody at Sound of Heaven will pray over it with you.

Questions People Ask

Questions About Barabbas

Who was barabbas and what had he done?

A prisoner held by Rome at Passover, released by Pilate in place of Jesus after the crowd asked for him. Mark 15:7 says he was imprisoned with insurrectionists who had committed murder in an uprising. Luke says the same twice. John calls him a lestes, a word Josephus uses for armed rebels. He was not a petty thief but a man involved in violent resistance to Rome.

What does the name Barabbas mean?

It is Aramaic. Bar means son and abba means father, so bar abba means son of the father. It is a patronymic rather than a personal name, which is why the exchange with Jesus reads the way it does. This part is undisputed and requires no textual argument at all.

Was Barabbas really called Jesus Barabbas?

It is disputed. Some witnesses at Matthew 27:16 and 17 read Jesus Barabbas, Origen discusses it in the third century, and a fifth century Syriac palimpsest preserves it. But no Greek manuscript before the tenth century has it. Dirk Jongkind of Tyndale House concludes it is unlikely to be original and traces it to a scribal slip. The NIV and NRSV print it with a footnote.

Why did the crowd choose Barabbas?

The Gospels do not fully explain it. Matthew says the chief priests and elders persuaded the crowd. Pilate's own motive is clearer: Mark says he acted wanting to satisfy the crowd, and Luke has him state three times that he found no basis for a charge against Jesus and hand Him over anyway.

What happened to Barabbas afterward?

Scripture never says. He leaves the narrative mid-sentence and is never mentioned again, and every story about his later life is later invention. What the account does leave is the clearest picture of substitution in the New Testament: a guilty man went free because an innocent man took the cross that already had his name on it.