<p>11:49 <i>But a certain one of them, Caiaphas, being high priest that year, said to them: You know nothing at all</i>- The Mosaic High Priest did the job for life, but the work had been reduced by Judaism into a much coveted position which was shared each year. The thrust of the argument seemed to be that they 'knew nothing' of the real threat posed- which was the whole Jewish nation &quot;perish&quot; in some terrible holocaust which would aim to destroy every Jew within Palestine. Caiaphas argues that they &quot;knew nothing at all&quot; compared to what really could happen; not just <i>they </i>would lose their place, but every Jew in Palestine would be murdered by the imagined Roman response to a Messianic revolution. This was taking their 'what ifs' to the ultimate moment. It was extremely unlikely that the whole Jewish nation would perish because of any Roman response. And the Old Testament promises would surely not allow that to happen; although Caiaphas had no faith in them to reason like this. He was of course leading up to his decision that one man must die so that Jewry did not perish completely.</p>