Is Barabbas a zealot, an actor in the Jewish revolts against the Empire or a literary character created by the evangelists? According to the Gospels, other Jews are arrested at the same time as Jesus. Two of them are crucified, a third is released, Barabbas. Why does the crowd prefer him to Jesus when the Roman governor offers to pardon a prisoner? To do so, Pilate invokes a custom which is attested only in the Gospels, but by no historian of antiquity... And Barabbas "the rioter", what can we know of him? Is he a zealot, an actor in the Jewish revolts against the Empire? Or a literary character forged from scratch by the evangelists for the needs of their cause? Why would Barabbas, according to some manuscripts, also be called Jesus?

The Serie : A historical and scientific enquiry into the origins of the New Testament and the life of Jesus Christ involving specialists from all over the world.