Caiaphas (High Priest living at the time of the New Testament)

The sitting high priest at 3:2, named in the same breath as Annas. Josephus's list of rapid Roman-appointed replacements just before him, three high priests in as many years, makes Caiaphas's own unusually long eighteen-year tenure look like the exception, not the rule

Caiaphas was the Jewish high priest who presided over the council that condemned Jesus, arguing beforehand that it was better for one man to die for the people than for the whole nation to suffer, words John's Gospel treats as an unwitting prophecy of what Jesus's death would actually accomplish. He held the high priesthood for eighteen years under Roman oversight, an unusually long tenure that suggests he was skilled at managing the delicate relationship between Jewish religious life and Roman power. An ornate limestone ossuary discovered south of Jerusalem in 1990, inscribed with the name Joseph son of Caiaphas, is widely believed to be his family burial box.