A Gospel Study: How Politics Made it Easy to Manipulate Caiaphas

Regardless of one's own personal opinion of the Bible and the New Testament in terms of its spiritual validity, there are some downright fascinating stories, especially in the New Testament. To anyone with an interest in Roman history, the situation surrounding the controversy of Jesus's life and death is an intriguing political thriller between a tenuously assigned military-governor and a tenuously assigned high priest. As the two heads of cultures that did not want to interact with one another met in the arena of the Roman forum, a row of controversy followed their steps.

Anyone who is familiar with the Gospels, or the film Jesus Christ Superstar, knows the primary antagonist to Jesus is Caiaphas, a Pharisee and the High Priest of the Temple. As the head of the Sanhedrin, he was in many ways the absolute legal and spiritual authority in the city, the end all be all of cultural and religious thought. But this came dubiously because of his father-in-law, Annas.

Why would this matter?

Because Anas, too, was the High Priest of Jerusalem.

According to Jewish law, much like Supreme Court Justices, the appointment of a High Priest was something done for life. There was no stepping down, there was no vote of no-confidence, once you were in, you were in. This made him the de factor leader of Judea, as the Jews saw him as a much more legitimate than Herod, whom they often dismissed as a mad, Roman puppet.

However, there were certain rules Rome expected the High Priest to uphold in thanks for the allowance of its semi-autonomous religious structure to remain intact. Partially for reasons of supremacy, partially because it wanted a uniformed code of laws, only Roman governors were allowed to issue death sentences in Roman provinces. This was the chief reason that the Sanhedrin brought Jesus before Pilate to begin with, as they were simply forbidden from passing a sentence of death onto him.

Annas, however, passed the sentence of death on a Jew after ten years of service, and as a result was dismissed by Governor Gratus. His son-in-law, Caiaphas took over the title, though many did not see him as the "legitimate" high priest and still turned to Annas for guidance. This was always a point of consternation for Caiaphas, who often towed the line as more of an adviser to Annas than his actual superior, even if he did indeed have the legal authority to do so.

To add to the lack of satisfaction the Jews had for Caiaphas, he did not outright inherit the position, but was actually appointed by Gratus himself - further fueling animosities and accusations that he was a "puppet" of Rome. While he often strove to quiet these accusations, he likewise had to be careful not to arouse suspicions of Roman forces who might have seen him as sided with the Zealots.

Therefore Caiaphas generally left Annas to making the major decisions as he consistently tried to patch relations with the Roman Empire.

The two of them both recognized the precarious situation Pontius Pilate was in when he ascended as Procurator however - already out of favor with Tiberius for marrying the daughter who represented all that he hated about his new life, they had consistently badgered the emperor with letters and petitions against him since his arrival in the city of Jerusalem. Therefore by the time the situation of a Galilean named Jesus came about, Pilate had since used all of his "anger the High Priest" cards.

In this, Annas was the prime agitator of accusations against Jesus - so much so that, in an illegal hearing, he had him brought to his own house before he was ever actually formally charged. As the situation spun increasingly out of control, and it became increasingly difficult to find anything with which to charge Jesus, Annas continued to press Jesus before finally having him dragged before Pilate and accused of inciting a rebellion against Rome.

All the while, Caiaphas was dutifully appearing as the front man for these operations, legally legitimizing them.

And this was all possible because of his respect - and in many regards fear - for Mosaic Law.

Sources:

Jewish Encyclopedia: http://jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=1554&letter=A&search=Annas, http://jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=26&letter=C&search=Caiaphas
The Illegal Trial of Christ by Steven W. Allen
Livius.org - http://www.livius.org/caa-can/caiaphas/caiaphas.htm
University of Missouri Kansas City - http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/jesus/jesuskeyfigures.html