Commenting on the release of Barabbas (Matt 27;15-21, 26; Mark 15:6-15; Luke 23:18-25; John 18:39-40), two LDS scholars noted:
The practice of releasing prisoners at the Passover celebration, the privilegium paschale, is not known from external sources, and the Gospels do not explicitly state that this was an ongoing practice, but perhaps more of a remedy for Pilate’s decreasing popularity. The practice of releasing prisoners for political reasons is suggested in a number of ancient sources and fits the practice described in the Gospels (Pesahim 8.6; Josephus, Antiquities 17.205; 20.125). (Richard Neitzel Holzapfel and Thomas A. Wayment, Making Sense of the New Testament: Timely Insights and Timeless Messages [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2010], 24, emphasis in original)
Herbert Danby in his translation of The Mishnah offers the following translation of Pesahim 8.6:
They may slaughter for one that mourns his near kindred, or for one that clears away a ruin; so, too, for one whom they have promised to bring out of prison, for a sick man, or for an aged man that is able to eat an olive’s bulk. For none of these in particular may they slaughter, lest they cause the Passover-offering to become invalid. Therefore if aught befell any of them to make them ineligible, they are exempt from keeping the Second Passover, excepting him that clears away a ruin, since he was [liable to become] unclean from the first.
Whiston offers the following translation of the Josephus’ texts:
others of them required that he would take away those taxes which had been severely laid upon what was publicly sold and bought. So Archelaus opposed them in nothing, since he pretended to do all things so as to get the goodwill of the multitude to him, as looking upon that goodwill to be a great step toward his preservation of the government. Hereupon he went and offered sacrifice to God, and then betook himself to feast with his friends. (Antiquities 17:205)
But the principal of the Samaritans went to Ummidius Quadratus, the governor of Syria, who at that time was at Tyre, and accused the Jews of setting their villages on fire, and plundering them; (Antiquities 20:125)
