>> in all four gospel accounts, pilate offers the authorities a bizarre choice. >> there's a character called barabbas who is a violent revolutionary and he's been arrested, round about the same time that jesus has. >> you have a custom that i release someone for you at the passover. >> yes. >> it's the one chance he has to do a litmus test on what the crowd actually thinks about jesus. >> barabbas is offered as a dmois kind of a passover amnesty. >> who shall i release? barabbas or jesus? >> he has the power over life and death in judea, yet he's perfectly willing to throw this open to the crowd and say, you guys decide. barabs. >> sort of perplexing that pilate would have, under any circumstances, thought about letting go a rebel. >> barabbas. >> but of course, in the story, it's barabbas the violent