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WASHINGTON — With
his long black robes and entourage of underlings, he has the aura
of a first-century Darth Vader, scheming and conspiring against
the story’s hero. His jewel-encrusted headdress adds an
air of imperial self-importance.
Throughout Mel Gibson’s gory blockbuster “The Passion
of the Christ,” the Jewish high priest, Caiaphas, seems
keenly interested — and complicit — in the scourging
and death of Jesus Christ.
Scholars, however, say Gibson has it all wrong. Caiaphas is presented
as a one-dimensional caricature — a sort of malevolent foil
to the suffering Christ. Such a depiction is too simplistic, they
say, and dangerous.
Unfortunately for Caiaphas, it’s nothing new. In most depictions,
“Caiaphas is, at best, a representative of the lowest side
of religion,” writes Helen Bond, a New Testament lecturer
at the University of Edinburgh, in her new book, Caiaphas:
Friend of Rome and Judge of Jesus?
“At worst, a representative of evil, a symbol of the depths
to which humanity can sink when pitted against its God.”
But just who was this holy man who handed Jesus over to the Romans
for crucifixion? Was he as ruthless, as sinister as the Gospels
and Gibson suggest, or was he actually an over-burdened diplomat
intent on preserving his people’s cherished link to God?
In her book, Bond paints an almost sympathetic view of Caiaphas
as a man dedicated to protecting the Jerusalem Temple from both
Jesus’ messianic rabble-rousing and Roman interference.
“Caiaphas probably genuinely believed that in doing away
with Jesus he was acting for the good of the nation,” she
writes. “What was the life of a deluded peasant when the
house of God was at stake?”
Bond and others scholars say if indeed Caiaphas wanted Jesus dead,
it wasn’t because he claimed to be the Messiah — rather,
it was a turf battle sparked by Jesus’ infamous demonstration
in the Temple.
What little is known of Caiaphas’ life comes not from the
Bible, but from Flavius Josephus, a first-century historian who
chronicled Jewish life for the Romans.
As high priest, Caiaphas would have been an aristocrat who commanded
automatic respect. His father-in-law, Ananus, was high priest
between 6 and 15 A.D., and Caiaphas was appointed to the post
in 18 A.D. by a Roman official.
His 18-year-year reign — he was deposed by Rome in 37 A.D.
— was the longest of any high priest from the first century.
His service overlapped with that of Pontius Pilate, the brutal
Roman governor who ultimately held the power to execute Jesus.
In 1992, archaeologists made a surprise discovery of an ossuary,
or limestone box, that contained the bones of a 60-year-old man
and several family members believed to be Joseph Caiaphas himself.
As high priest, Caiaphas would have overseen Temple affairs, especially
animal sacrifices. He alone could enter the Temple’s Holy
of Holies on the most sacred day of the year to beg forgiveness
from God for the sins of the people.
“He was the commander-in-chief of a very large corps of
priests,” said Rabbi Ismar Schorsch, chancellor of New York’s
Jewish Theological Seminary. In an interview, Bond described him
as a sort of “suped-up pope.”
It was his position as head of the Sanhedrin — the chief
Jewish tribunal — that brought the priest and prophet together
after Jesus’ uprising in the Temple. It was a fateful encounter
for both men.
Though the Gospels differ on its timing, they agree that Jesus
entered the Temple and overturned the tables of the money-changers
and animal vendors. He lambasted the authorities for turning the
sacred site into a “den of robbers.”
The Gospel of Matthew says Jewish leaders were “indignant”
at Jesus’ disruption. Later, after he was arrested, Jesus
was brought before the Sanhedrin and questioned about the uprising,
his claims to be the Messiah and predictions that the Temple would
be destroyed.
Caiaphas, overwhelmed, pronounced Jesus guilty of the ultimate
sin. “Why do we need any more witnesses?” he asked
in the Gospel of Mark. “You have heard the blasphemy.”
In the Gospel of John, Caiaphas seems more troubled by reports
of Jesus’ miracles. “If we let him go on like this,
everyone will believe in him, and then the Romans will come and
take away both our place and our nation,” he said. “You
do not realize that it is better for you that one man die for
the people than that the whole nation perish.”
Both the Jews and Romans were on watch for any signs of trouble
during the crowded Passover pilgrimage, and the priests especially
would have wanted to maintain calm. Jesus’ raucous followers
didn’t help matters.
Bruce Chilton, executive director of the Institute for Advanced
Theology at Bard College, said it was Jesus’ organized disturbance,
not his claims as the Messiah or his miracles, that raised the
ire of Caiaphas.
“For the authorities, this is a riot,” said Chilton,
an Episcopal priest. “Whatever it is, it has to be put down.
And if you can find the instigator, you’d be well-advised
to execute him to put down this kind of activity all together.”
Other scholars, who say the Gospels are notoriously inaccurate
as historical sources, doubt Caiaphas and Jesus ever met, or that
Caiaphas sought to have him executed.
“About all Caiaphas would have had to do is ... alert the
Temple police force that there is trouble out there, and make
sure to keep it quiet,” said L. Michael White, director
of the Institute for the Study of Antiquity and Christian Origins
at the University of Texas at Austin. “The rest is done
by the Roman authorities.”
Scholars agree that would-be Messiahs were not uncommon during
Jesus’ life, but most were quickly dismissed as annoying
pests. “I doubt if Jesus had just caused a disturbance up
in the north of Galilee that the high priest would have come into
play,” said the University of Notre Dame’s James VanderKam,
author of the upcoming book, From Joshua to Caiaphas: High
Priests after the Exile.
“The fact that he did so at the Temple made it different.”
Still, a key question remains. Who was responsible for Jesus’
death: Caiaphas, the prosecutor, or Pilate, the executioner?
As a matter of history, crucifixion was a Roman punishment. But
in terms of theology, Jews — led by Caiaphas — have
been the easiest to blame for rejecting Jesus as the Messiah.
“Caiaphas is not hard to demonize,” said Schorsch.
“When you treat this material polemically, you can do a
lot of harm with it.”
That’s the danger of Gibson’s film, argues White,
from the University of Texas. The “magnitude of evil”
heaped on Caiaphas over time is unjustified, and Gibson’s
film adds to the burden, he said.
“Gibson was scurrilously irresponsible on his part,”
White said. “The movie is horrendously anti-Semitic, and
the treatment of Caiaphas is not going to make matters any easier.” |
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