John Morcos,Your English is good.
You wrote:
I like the symmetry and symbolism of the two birds and the two goats, but I really want to know where you got the two points I singled out up in the quote from...
Yes,
the symmetry of the two birds and two goats, wherein one of the paired animals is released and the other slaughtered, is a big part of what leads me to think that there was some symmetry between Jesus of Nazareth and Barabbas, one of whom was freed and the other marked for slaughter at the same time.
I didn't even think of the symmetry in
"that Jesus was captured with the same accusations as Barabbas, which is "causing disturbances"" , as you pointed out, which suggests even more the apparent symmetry between them, which could include a first name.
Plus, as you pointed out,
"Bar is truly aramaic for "son", or a suffix like serbian "-ovic", slavic "-ski" or scandinavian "-sson""So here, the possibility of symmetry is seen in a situation of names where:
Jesus Bar Joseph is Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified
____ BarAbbas is the person who the people cried for to be released.
I disagree that
"linking "Abbas" in Barabbas to Aramaic "Abba" (a word to call a father), is very weak", because the only differences are that
(1) Barabbas is joined together as one word, and this could be a simplification or confusion that turned Bar abbas into Barabbas
(2) Barabbas ends in "S", but the New Testament was written in Greek, which adds S to the end of some Israelite names, like turning Moisey into Moses.
Also, I'd like to add that Barabbas doesn't sound like a normal common first name to me, since I don't remember hearing anyone else by that name in the Bible or tradition, but I'm not sure either.
You wrote:
I am a native Arabic speaker, and I guess Western languages miss the gluttoral pronounciation 'Abbas, which I believe it originally is.
ʕ, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%CA%95, even the sound there does not say it correctly.
However, while you appear to assert that the word for father has a gluttoral letter at the beginning of the word ('Abbas), I highly doubt that it would make a difference in solving the problem, because as you said:
"Greek does not include such a letter, so it is transliterated barabbas".
So thanks for mentioning:
The link I included is the sound I meant by '.
Here it is again:
ʕ, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%CA%95, even the sound there does not say it correctly
Anyway, I have no idea of references, but my claim has to be studied well, either to accept it or refute it.
But unfortunately it doesn't seem to solve the problem, because the New Testament was written in Greek, and if the Greeks wrote his first name as "Barabbas", they wouldn't include the gluttoral letter. And if they decided that they were instead going to write "Bar 'Abbas" as a last name, then they still wouldn't include the letter anyway, because as you said, Greek lacks such a letter.
Likewise, since Greek lacks the letter, and the four gospels were written in Greek and certainly not Hebrew, it also wouldn't matter that
"this pharingeal consonant is represented in hebrew by the 16th letter, 'ayin.", except that there was at least one noncanonical gospel written in Hebrew or Aramaic. I'm not sure if that gospel has been lost, but if it were found, then the way barabbas is written there would show the true way the name was spelled in Aramaic, that is:
as bar'abbas (meaning of the father) or barabbas.
Either way, it would still leave the door open to whether barabbas here was a last name or first name.
However, you raise a possibly strong point when you said:
"Actually, I think it was present because I read it from a high-statured modern-day father, (died in 1979). He is Fr Bishoy Kamel. He served in Alexandria (Egypt) and then USA."It sounds like you mean that the gluttoral stop was included in the word "'Abbas" in Jesus' time. But like I said I think it wouldn't matter because the gospels were written in Greek.
If on the other hand you're saying that the New Testament actually said Bar'abbas, then it means that the scholars have some way to guess that the New Testament was written in Aramaic and said this, but I doubt it unless they actually have the Aramaic copy, because otherwise the Aramaic copy would still be transmitted to us through Greek or Latin, which lack the letter you mentioned. Or another possibility would be that there's a church tradition that says that it was written 'Abbas.
Still, even if you could find that the person's name was bar'abbas, it could still just as easily leave open the possibility that the name of barabbas- or as you could be proposing, bar'abbas- was really bar-ʕabbas, which is a last name. And in such a circumstance, we still wouldn't be closer to figuring out the first name.
However, if you mean that the second part of barabbas' name was really bar'abbas, and the word 'abbas didn't mean father, then you would be saying that the poetic, or even mythical, meaning of "son of the father" wouldn't be there anymore.
In my mind, the name's having a mythical meaning, as in "son of the father," would suggest against the event being a real factual event. But still, "son of the father" could be a criminal's alias or some other non-mythical last name.
As you explained here:
Sure...This does not relate in anyway to his first name, but it sure relates with attaching him to the word "father" or "Abba", just to find another similarity with Jesus, son of the Father.
But I'm sorry, I still didn't understand when you wrote:
And yes, I meant it is bar-ʕabbas
whether you meant that add the gluttoral stop is part of the word for father, but it sounds like that's what you mean, and that you also mean that you read that the name in the gospels "barabbas" had such a gluttoral stop.
Thank you for writing and sharing your views.
God Bless and Keep you
