Historicity Of Jesus

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<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->One of the reasons that the comic element of the many Jesuses was not noticed previously is that early in Christian history a redactor made an editorial change to the name of the New Testament character known today as Barabbas. Barabbas is a composite word made up from the Hebrew bar (son) and abba (father), which is to say "son of the Father." While the character is known today simply as Barabbas, this was not his name in the version of the New Testament early church scholars were familiar with. We know from Origen (c. 250 C.E.) and others that the versions of the New Testament they were familiar with referred to this character as not as Barabbas but as Jesus Barabbas.

<b>Origen wrote concerning his dismay over the fact that the name of the criminal when Jesus was imprisoned with was "Jesus Barabbas," that is, Jesus, the son of the Father. </b>Although he did not recognize the name as humorous, he sensed intuitively that there was The Puzzle of the Empty Tomb  something wrong with Jesus' cellmate having a name so similar to his own. This concern was evidently shared by later church officials
because all the earliest extant copies of the New Testament (Sinaiticus, Alexandrinus, Vaticanus) refer to this character only as Barabbas. However, based on modern scholarship, both the New English Bible and the Scholar's Version116 have decided to give Jesus Barabbas as the name of this character in their translations. pg 148-9<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->