I recently chanced upon this article from wikipedia and it was most intriguing.
Barabbas full name was Jesus Barabbas -
offers them the choice of an insurrectionist named Barabbas or Jesus, somewhat confusing because Barabbas had the full name Jesus Barabbas, and Barabbas (bar-Abbas) means Son of the Father, so the crowd had been given the choice of Jesus Son of the Father or Jesus. The crowd states that they wish to save Barabbas (i.e., Jesus Son of the Father).
This means that Barabas full name was Jesus Son of the Father. Since that too was the Real Jesus true title, could they have been the same person? Were the Gospel authors attempting to teach a parable within their narration? Or was the Latin mistranslation due to Roman pressure? Did the Jews truly wished to save the true Jesus ie Barrabas being his official title?
I personally do wonder whether could it be expanded to prove that the Hypotastic Union of Christ is consistent in light of this passage.
There are 3 possible natures of Jesus Christ - fully human, fully divine or having both divine and human nature.
From Scripture, we know Jesus cannot be fully human since he was able to forgive sins, perform miracles, claiming to be God in the Temple, the Son of God etc. Moreover in the Crucifixion, a possible identity of an entity possesing a fully human nature would be the Good Thief. He was not able to save himself or others. He needed faith and Christ's sacrifice in order to be saved. As a result, this shows that Jesus Christ cannot be fully human alone for if he was, then all of us are potential Christs.
The Gospel Writers then used the oppurtunity to show that the crowd will reject the true Christ (Jesus Christ) for a false Christ (a sole divine person aka Son of the Father). Eventually the true Christ dies for all men and his sacrifice will provide salvation for many. As a result, I feel that the Gospel Writers were rejecting the notion of Christ being solely a Heavenly Spirit (Gnosticism) or solely possesing a divine nature. They were attempting to teach a parable of how Christ is not a divine being alone but rather a dual natured entitity.
This is hence consistent with the Doctrine of the hypostatic union of Christ.
