Scapegoat

"But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, "You know nothing at all; you do not understand that it is expedient for you that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation should not perish." He did not say this of his own accord, but being high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus should die for the nation, and not for the nation only, but to gather into one the children of God who are scattered abroad. So from that day on they took counsel how to put him to death. Jesus therefore no longer went about openly among the Jews, but went from there to the country near the wilderness, to a town called Ephraim; and there he stayed with the disciples. "(John 11: 49-54)

When the powerful leadership has made a decision to sacrifice one person for the sake of the whole (scapegoat theory?), everything started to be done to accomplish that goal. Was that decision truly God's will? There's always justifiable argument to make something as God's will anyway.

Knowing many different situations and arguments, the powerful leaders anyway decided to make up one person as the cause of the problem, and decided to denounce him all the way to the end, for the sake of the unity of the whole. I don't know how much they seriously consider the consequences involved and to me, it sounds so crazy, but religion has a power to do such things.