John 11:45-53.

So I'm sitting here reading my Bible and this popped out at me:

⁴⁵Therefore many of the Jews who had come to visit Mary, and had seen what Jesus did, put their faith in him. ⁴⁶But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. ⁴⁷Then the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the Sanhedrin.

"What are we accomplishing?" they asked. "Here is this man performing many miraculous signs. ⁴⁸If 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."

⁴⁹Then one of them, named Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, spoke up, "You know nothing at all! ⁵⁰You do not realize that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish."

⁵¹He did not say this on his own, but as high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the Jewish nation, ⁵²and not only for that nation but also for the scattered children of God, to bring them together and make them one. ⁵³So from that day on they plotted to take his life.

⁵⁴Therefore Jesus no longer moved about publicly among the Jews. Instead he withdrew to a region near the desert, to a village called Ephraim, where he stayed with his disciples.

⁵⁵When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, many went up from the country to Jerusalem for their ceremonial cleansing before the Passover. ⁵⁶They kept looking for Jesus, and as they stood in the temple area they asked one another, "What do you think? Isn't he coming to the Feast at all?" ⁵⁷But the chief priests and Pharisees had given orders that if anyone found out where Jesus was, he should report it so that they might arrest him.

I think this is the only time (that I can think of, at least) in the New Testament when the villains are actually sympathetic.

Matthew mentions Caiaphas in 26:3-5: "Then the chief priests and the elders of the people assembled in the palace of the high priest, whose name was Caiaphas, and they plotted to arrest Jesus in some sly way and kill him. ^'But not during the Feast,' they said, 'or there may be a riot among the people.'" This Caiaphas is the leader of a scheming group of pharisees.

Luke's only real account of Caiaphas is in Acts, where he presides over the questioning of Peter and John after the healing of the cripple. Again, he is the leader of a bunch of schemers unable to reckon their own weakness.

But John's Caiaphas is more detailed. John's Caiahpas has seen a vision. This Caiaphas was told that Jesus would die for the Jewish nation. His own ignorance and closed-mindedness prevented him from understanding what that meant. Instead, he took Jesus to be a God-given political sacrifice: crucified so that the Jews may be saved from Rome.

This one detail changes the complexity of Caiahpas' part of the Passion, wouldn't you say? It gives nuance to his character and motives. It is not just about keeping himself in power or putting down a man with revolutionary thoughts and power.


This really echoes the things I am reading about opponents in The Anatomy of Story. Too often, writers make their opponents into mustache twirling villains, one-dimensional and without any logical reason for action other than "I'm the bad guy." Instead, villains should have their own logic, their own values-driven reason for acting counter to the hero.

If you had been given a vision about Jesus' death rescuing the Jewish nation, would you have done differently?

This question, in my mind, makes John's telling of the Passion story much more interesting. I'm surprised that none of the passion stories I've seen capitalize on this complexity in Caiaphas.