"Never mind what Mel Gibson says, Caiaphas was innocent"
Mark Goodacre has already commented. I don't know a great deal about the current state of the question on Caiaphas, so I decided to ask someone who does. You may recall that Dr. Helen Bond, of the University of Edinburgh, has recently finished a book about him. So I e-mailed her to ask what she thought of the article. She replies:
I agree with the general thrust
of Vermes' arguments, ie the difficulty of keeping law and order in
Judaea, particularly at the passover; that it would be ridiculous to
suggest that Caiaphas was in a position to 'bulldoze' Pilate (who,
after all, was the man who kept him in office); and that the Jewish
authorities would have regarded Jesus as a dubious charismatic
prophet with a potentially dangerous band of followers. Vermes is
also right to stress the apologetic nature of the gospel accounts
(though he could have stressed contemporary Christian-synagogue
controversies much more, as these are really the reason why the
gospels are so harsh towards their Jewish neighbours), but to
conclude that Caiaphas was 'unwilling' to hand Jesus over to Rome
is much too strong.
All four gospels (and Josephus in one of the more reliable sections
of the Testimonium Flavianum) suggest that leading Jews handed
Jesus over to Rome. In the crowded city at Passover it makes
perfect sense that Caiaphas and other chief priests would have
wanted to silence a charismatic prophet with a following,
particularly if he had been demonstrating in the Temple. A charge
of leading people astray (Dt 13), or being a false-prophet (Dt 18)
would have been enough - both were punishable by death. There is
no need to assign cynical motives to Caiaphas (as many
Christians tend to do) - he had seen with his own eyes what Rome
could do when provoked to enter the Temple in 4BC, and his whole
Sadducean upbringing would have convinced him that the Temple
had to be protected at all costs - even if it meant the life of a
peasant.
Vermes is right to question the gospel presentation of the Jewish
'trial' (particularly in the synoptic gospels) and the charge of
blasphemy (which in all probability reflects later Christian-
synagogue controversy), but he goes too far in assuming that,
once we have removed the apologetic of the evangelists, Caiaphas
emerges as a friend of Jesus. Not only did he have his reasons for
wanting Jesus silenced, but he may also have had good reasons
for not wanting to do it himself (even if, as Vermes argues, Jews
did have some limited right to execute in religious cases). The
High Priest - and all other priests for that matter - played an
important role in the passover ritual; it was imperative that
everything was carried out in precisely that way that it was laid out
in the Torah; any slight infringement might incur the wrath of
Yahweh and invalidate the entire festival. It would hardly be
surprising, then, if Caiaphas handed Jesus over to Pilate. The
priest could not have forced Pilate to act, but he would not have
needed to - both men essentially wanted the same thing - to
maintain law and order during the passover - and anyone who
worried Caiaphas would have worried Pilate. (Vermes is right to
note that Jewish accounts of Pilate paint him in negative hues, but
fails to note that these accounts - Josephus and Philo - are just as
apologetic and biased in their own ways as the gospel writers. The
truth regarding Pilate's character was probably somewhere in
between the weak Christian portrayal and the harsh Jewish one).
The most balanced judgement, it seems to me, is that Jesus was
put to death by the combined actions of both Caiaphas and Pilate.
Both men (for slightly different reasons) saw him as a danger, and
both men (once Jesus was dead and buried) would have
considered it a job well done.
Thanks Helen.
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