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 the mountain of Pilatus. An old tradition is that Pilate went there and was banished to the mountain as a punishment "for his crime against Christ". The island of Ponza in the Bay of Naples, Italy, is believed to be named after Pontius Pilate; his family built grottoes named after him. The Pilat massif, in the French Massif Central to the south of Saint-Étienne, is also named after him. The references to Pilate, outside the New Testament: Pontius Pilate Pontius Pilate (; Latin: "Pontius Pilatus"; , "Pontios Pilatos") was the fifth prefect of the Roman province of Judaea, serving under