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

RIGG: BARABBAS
423
has ever met with more than occasional approval and all of them
have sooner or later been rejected as groundless, inadequate, or
inappropriate. Striking out elsewhere, attempts have recently
been made to make the incident something extraneous, grafted
to the Gospel texts.20 Akin to this kind of solution is that which
sees the whole Passion story as essentially liturgical creation2I
or, particularly the Barabbas scene, as a symbolic - even
mock - drama."
1125 ff. (a still worthwhile book, by the way). For the disposal of this and
others, see Merkel, op. cit. 298 ff.
20 Notable that of W. Brandt, Die Evangelische Geschichte (Leipzig, 1893)
94 ff.; cf. Schmiedel, Encycl. Bibl. s. v. Barabbas. This view seemed not
unacceptable to J. Weiss, Das alteste Evangelium (Gottingen, 1903) 327.
Should those who quite ignore the incident, such as Gressmann-Klostermann,
Das Lukasevangelium (Tiibingen, 1919), be included here?
21 Such as G. Bertram, "Die Leidengesch. Jesu u.d. Christuskult" (Forschung
z. Religion u. Lit. d. A. u. N. Testaments N. F. 15. G6ttingen, 1922)
5 ff., 62 ff., though he does not deny a historical core to the story; cf. C. G.
Montefiore, Synoptic Gospels, 2nd ed., I (London, 1927) 372 ff.; and M.
Goguel, Life of Jesus (New York, 1933) 515 ff. A Friedrichsen, Le Probleme
du Miracle dans le Christianisme Primitif (Strassbourg-Paris, 1925) 18 ff.,
seems to have held the same view (though I am now unable to check this
reference).
22 I do not know how or when this kind of solution arose. It seems to be
modern. It is possibly a hybrid product of the exuberant stage in the study
of comparative religion - say at the end of the last century. J. G. Frazer,
Golden Bough III, 2nd ed. (London, 1900) 186-98, seems to have thought well
of it. But in the 3rd ed., Part VI (The Scapegoat) 412 ff., he retains it only as
an appendix "on the chance that, under a pile of conjectures, it contains some
grains of truth which may ultimately contribute to a solution of the problem."
A passage in Philo, In Flaccum (ed. Mangey II. 520=ed. Colson [Loeb] IX.
323) suggested the parallel. See Parmentier-Cumont, Revue de Philologie
21 (1897) 143-53 and Wendland, "Jesus als Saturnalier-K6nig" (Hermes 33
[1898] 175-9); cf. P.-L. Couchoud, "L'enigme de Jesus" (Mercure de France
162 [1923] 344-406; I owe this reference to the kindness of Professor S. Baldwin,
of Akron University). See also Couchoud-Stahl, Hibbert Journal 25
(1926-7) 26 ff. and D. Masse, "Bar-Abbas" (Mercure de France 162 [1923]
29 ff.). More of the same is H. M. Cohn, "Christus Barabbas" (Jahrb. f.
jiid. Gesch. u. Lit. 8 [1905] 65-75). For all this it might be said: "Im Dunkeln
ist gut Munkeln" (cf. Guignebert, Jesus 473 ff.). This problem, by the way,
is not to be confused with the pagan Mimus caricatures of Christ during the
2nd and 3rd centuries, for which see H. Reich, Der Mimus (Berlin, 1902);