11:51: He did not say that on his own, but since he
was the high priest that year, he prophesied.
Prophecies without the knowledge and will of the
speaker are often mentioned within the rabbinic literature.
Babylonian Talmud Soṭah 12B: “This one זֶה is one of the children of the Hebrews” (Exod 2:6). R. Yohanan
(† 279) has said that זֶה “this one” teaches that she prophesied
without her knowledge שנתנבאה שלא מדעתה that
“this one” will fall (into the Nile), but no other child will fall in.—As the
passage goes on to explain, the edict to kill the Hebrew boys is said to have
been lifted by the Egyptians on that day. ‖ Babylonian Talmud Soṭah 12B: “Take הֵילִיכִי this child” (Exod 2:9). R. Hama b. Hanina (ca. 260) said, “She
prophesied and did not know what she prophesied: היליכי, that
is, הא שליכי, this one is yours!”—The same is said in Exod. Rab. 1 (67B). ‖
Babylonian Talmud Baba Batra 119B: “You will bring them in and plant them on
the mountains of your possessions” (Exod 15:17). It is not said, “You will
bring us in” (as one should expect in the mouth of the redeemed of Egypt), but
rather “You will bring them in (i.e., others).” This teaches that they
prophesied without knowing what they prophesied (for in fact it was later
decreed that those who were drawn out of Egypt would not enter the land of
Canaan).—A similar passage is in Mek. Exod. 15:17 (51A). ‖ Midrash Psalms 90 §
4 (194A): R. Eleazar (ca. 270) said in the name of R. Yose b. Zimra (ca. 220),
“All prophets who prophesied did not know what they prophesied, only Moses and
Isaiah knew. Moses said in Deut 32:3, ‘Let my teaching be like rain’; Isaiah said
in Isa 8:18, ‘Behold, I and the children whom Yahweh gave me are a symbol and a
sign of the miracles in Israel.’ ” (The proof lies in the fact that Moses
and Isaiah speak of themselves in the first person, see below). R. Joshua the
priest b. Nehemiah (ca. 350) said, “Elihu also prophesied and knew (understood
the content); see Job 33:3, ‘My lips (my words) know they speak
clearly.’ ” R. Eleazar said in the name of R. Yose b. Zimra, “Samuel, the
master of the prophets, prophesied and did not know; see 1 Sam 12:11, ‘Yahweh
sent Jerubbaal and Barak and Jephthah and Samuel.’ He does not say, ‘and me,’
but rather ‘Samuel,’ because he did not know what he prophesied.” (Hermann L. Strack and Paul Billerbeck, A
Commentary on the New Testament from the Talmud & Midrash, ed. Jacob N.
Cerone [trans. Jacob N. Cerone; Bellingham, Wash.: Lexham Press, 2022], 2:
627–628)
The High Priest as Prophet
John 11:50-51
says that the high priest Caiaphas “prophesied” that Jesus should die for the
people, thus the whole nation would not perish.
This priest’s
actual name was Joseph and his surname Caiaphas. He officiated as high priest
from ca. 18 to 36 C.E., unusually long in light of the one year or less enjoyed
by his three predecessors. He was one of the great families in Jerusalem which
supplied a large number of high priests, and his father-in-law was the better
known Annas (John 18:13, 24). His name probably derives from the word “ape” (קוף),
Aramaic קיפא, and not from the purported Arabic for “seer, foreteller.”
Many scholars
consider Caiaphas’ words an unconscious prophecy regarding the destruction of
Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 C.E. Regarding the phenomenon of unconscious
prophecy, they point to several rabbinic examples given by P. Billerbeck. ‘Avot
R. Nat. B 43 even has a list of ten different persons in the Hebrew Bible who
uttered unconscious prophecy. Other names could be added. While these sources
point to the phenomenon of unconscious prophecy as well-known in Palestine, but
one of them has to do with a high priest’s prophesying.
It is
primarily Josephus, writing approximately at the time of the Gospel of John,
who points out examples of the phenomenon of a high priest’s prophesying. He
calls each of the head priests of former times the “high priest” and describes
their prophesying primarily in the context of battles.
The Jewish
historian also notes that John Hyrcanus, who reigned from 135-105 B.C.E., not
only was the supreme commander of the Jewish nation. He also was the high
priest, and had the gift of prophecy so that he was never ignorant of the
future. On the basis of an experience in the Holy of Holies in the Temple, it
is related that the high priest Simeon the Righteous also foretold that he
himself would die.
Even in the
middle of the second century C.E., belief in the prophetic power of the high
priest still prevailed on a popular level. This is show in Justin Martyr’s “Dialogue
with Trypho the Jew” 52, where the Christian dialogue partner maintains that up
to the time of Jesus “there never failed to be a prophet among you [Jews], who
was lord, and leader, and ruler of your nation.” (ANF 1:221) This describes the
high priest very well, whom Josephus label “the captain of their [the Jews]
salvation” (Bell. 4.318), “entrusted with the leadership of the nation”
(Ant. 20.251, referring to the period after Herod and Archelaus).
The
characterization of the high priest Caiaphas as a prophet in John 11:50-51 thus
corresponds to popular belief in first-century C.E. Palestinian Judaism. It is completely
wrong to seek its origin elsewhere, for example in Hellenism.
The destruction
of the Temple (and Jerusalem) in 70 C.E. by the Romans was adumbrated according
to Josephus by numerous portents, including the very brass eastern gate of the
Temple inner court opening by itself during the night in 66 C.E. (Bell.
6.293-296). In b. Yoma 39b a baraitha states that the doors of the Temple
opened by themselves beginning with forty years before their destruction, thus
in 30 C.E. The same predating by forty years is found in the high priest Caiaphas’
“unconscious” prophecy of the 70 C.E. destruction of the Temple and Jerusalem
already ca. 30 C.E. (John 11:50). Again, the Jewish-Christian author of 11:45-54
betrays his Jewish roots here. (Robert David Aus, “The Release of Barabbas
(Mark 15:6-15 par.; John 18:39-40), and Judaic Traditions on the Book of Esther,”
in Barabbas and Esther and Other Studies in the Judaic Illumination of
Earliest Christianity [Studies in the History of Judaism; Atlanta: Scholars
Press, 1992], 56-58)
