Barabbas Barabbas Barabbas (; "Bar ʾAbbaʾ", literally "son of the father") is a figure mentioned in the New Testament of the Bible, in which he is an insurrectionary held by the Roman governor at the same time as Jesus, and whom Pontius Pilate freed at the Passover feast in Jerusalem, while keeping Jesus as a prisoner. According to all four canonical gospels there was a prevailing Passover custom in Jerusalem that allowed or required Pilate, the "" or governor of Judea, to commute one prisoner's death sentence by popular acclaim, and the "crowd" ("ochlos"), "the Jews" and "the multitude" in some
Pontius Pilate "truth" listen to my voice", to which Pilate famously replied, "" (""Quid est veritas?"") ()... Whatever it be that some modern critics want to deduce from those differences, the end result was the same for Jesus and Pilate, as it was in all the other three Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke). In the same chapter of John 18 verse 38 (King James Version, compare with other versions) the conclusion Pilate made from this interrogation was: "I find in him no fault at all". Pilate agrees to condemn Jesus to crucifixion, after the Jewish leaders explained to him that Jesus presented a