Βαραββάν Barabbas (G912) is the Hellenized surname of בר אבא bar Abba (H1247 + H2) and means “son of a father.” The traditional text of Matthew 27:16-17 reads “Jesus Barabbas” in the New American Standard Bible (NASB) and New English Translation (NET) Bible. Some scholars believe Barabbas’ actual first name was omitted from several Greek manuscripts of Matthew out of reverence. The church father Origen (d. 254) said, “In the whole range of the scriptures we know that no one who is a sinner [is called] Jesus.”* However, Yeshua, was quite common in first-century Galilee. (Jesus comes from the transliteration of Yeshua from Hebrew into Greek and then English.) Archaeologists have unearthed the tombs of 71 Yeshuas from the period of Yeshua’s death. The name also appears 30 times in the Hebrew Bible in reference to four separate men—including a descendent of Aaron who helped to distribute offerings of grain (cf. 2 Chronicles 31:15) and a man who accompanied former captives of Nebuchadnezzar back to Jerusalem (cf. Ezra 2:2).
*Bruce M. Metzger, ed. A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament (2d ed., Stuttgart: German Bible Society, 1994), 56.)
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