Horace Abram Rigg, Jr. Source: Journal of Biblical ... - YoYo.pl

RIGG: BARABBAS
447
ft]jE,v 7rpos v/uas Ev rT lepcJ tt&OKCc.V.109 He does not say he
was "in the city" but clearly "in the Temple" - where, aside
from the crowds which would have made his capture difficult
and embarrasing, only the Sanhedrin had competence. Obviously
he was not always in the Temple and even while there he could
not have controlled the crowds who probably demonstrated in
his behalf. On this interesting point, note something else he
states at the time of his capture, Mk 14 48: COs Erl XnTTr)v
Er77XOarE T E,ra LaXaLpWv Kal vXcov ovXXaJSELv !/E.
There had been rioting, then; for no one could enter Jerusalem
as Jesus appears to have done without causing a disturbance of
some sort (whether it could have been stopped or prevented, and
whether Jesus realized his own danger in being connected with
such disturbances, does not here concern us), nor could one
"cleanse the Temple" as Jesus seems to have done, without
being at the head "of a large and determined crowd" (Lake,
Introduction to the N. T., 31; cf. JBL 56 [1937] 271) whose protection
would have prevented immediate arrest or execution.
There can be no doubt that Pilate had heard of these two
specific events, even had he not yet come to Jerusalem, and
certainly, had he already arrived, he must have watched events
thereafter very carefully. But it is unlikely that he could have
done much about the former, unless he had at his disposal a
larger body of troops than we have any reason to believe he had
and over the "cleansing" he had no jurisdiction whatever. The
peripheral rioting was, however, his concern, and presumably
that accounts for the men he had already incarcerated at the time
of the trial, for Barabbas was only one among others EETaE rwT
oTaoLaoaTWv 6EcEcevOS, O'TLVES Ev rTr OrTaeL (p6vov TreroL-
?7KEcrLav (Mk 15 7).
Pilate, then, having found nothing within his competence
concerning this Jesus-Barabbas, and the crowds being obviously
(perhaps clamourously) in his favour,IIo he dismissed the case.
o09
There is no grammatical warrant for the assertion, sometimes made,
that Jesus' words here imply a long period of daily teaching.
"o The crowd, thus, need no longer be ununderstandably fickle or ununder-
standably absent when most needed.