Caiaphas the High Priest
Adele Reinhartz
As the Roman-appointed high priest who had a hand in orchestrating Jesus’s Crucifixion,
Caiaphas secured his place in infamy alongside Pontius Pilate. Viewing Caiaphas as more
than just a one-dimensional villain, Adele Reinhartz offers a thorough reconsideration of
representations of Caiaphas in the Gospels and other ancient texts as well as in subsequent visual arts, literature, film, and drama. The portrait that emerges challenges longheld beliefs about this New Testament figure by examining the background of the high
priesthood and exploring the relationships among the high priest, the Roman leadership,
and the Jewish population. Reinhartz does not seek to exonerate Caiaphas from culpability in the Crucifixion, but she does expand our understanding of Caiaphas’s complex
religious and political roles in biblical literature and his culturally loaded depictions in
ongoing Jewish-Christian dialogue.
By clarifying the role of the high priest in Second Temple Judaism and by explicating
the historical evidence on Caiaphis as the longest serving high priest of post-Herodian
Judea, Reinhartz offers a more balanced assessment of his motives and role in the death
of Jesus. This insightful reevaluation of Caiaphas also allows for a new appreciation of
the challenge Jesus posed to the high priest’s authority under Roman rule, and thus
Reinhartz’s work advances our understanding of both Caiaphas and Jesus as biblical and
historical figures.
Studies on Personalities of the New Testament • D. Moody Smith, series editor
July 2011, 264 pages, 10 illus.
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Adele Reinhartz is a professor of
religious studies at the University of
Ottawa. Her books include Why Ask My
Name? Anonymity and Identity in Biblical Narrative, Befriending the Beloved
Disciple: A Jewish Reading of the Gospel
of John, Scripture on the Silver Screen,
and Jesus of Hollywood.
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