Joseph Caiaphas was a great man in his day. In an time when high priests turned over faster than pancakes, Caiaphas was high priest for nineteen years. (In contrast, Jonathan, Caiaphas's successor, held the high priesthood for just fifty days.) Caiaphas was high priest for many years before and after the death of Christ, whose crucifixion he demanded. Peter stood before him in Acts 5.

One chilly day in November, 1990, Zvi Greenhut walked into a construction site on the south side of Jerusalem. He was surrounded by the equipment they were using to build a water park. Workers there had unearthed a tomb that appeared to be very old. As is usual in most large cities when this happens, construction stopped until an archaeologist could examine the tomb. Greenhut was the archaeologist.

The tomb, a cave, had partly collapsed. Still, Greenhut was able to get in and look around. What he found astonished him.

In those days, rich people would bury the body in a cave (think of Joseph's new tomb). They would leave it to decompose until only the skeleton remained. Then, they would gather the bones and throw them into a box called, a bone box. A bone box might hold the bones of several people. The name of the most important person whose bones it contained would be scratched on the outside.

Greenhut found six intact bone boxes in the cave. The one he found most interesting had an inscription scratched on two of its sides. On the long side it read (in Hebrew), "Yehosef bar Qayafa," and on the narrow side, "Yehosef bar Qafa." Translated, they mean "Joseph of the family of Caiaphas."

Work on the water park had to continue. Joseph Caiaphas's bones may have been first on that hillside (by almost 2,000 years), but they had to give way to the water park. So, his bones were reburied on the Mount of Olives, several miles away. Caiaphas did not even get to keep his bone box. It is a very pretty bone box. It was sent off to Washington, D.C. for tourists to look it.

Caiaphas thought he was a great man. He was-but not greater than two men who stood before him, Jesus and Peter. Two thousand years of history have not been kind to Caiaphas.

Men have tried to honor Christ by building the great Church of the Holy Sepulcher on the site where they thought His tomb was. Men have tried to honor Peter by building over his grave the magnificent St. Peter's Basilica, which dominates the skyline of Rome.

What have men done to honor the great, but terribly wicked Caiaphas? They have moved his bones to make way for a water park, and sent his bone box on tour.

"Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his" (Numbers 23:10).

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