One high-priestly family ran Jerusalem in the first century, and the same house that handed Jesus to Pilate had James, the brother of Jesus, executed thirty years later. This dossier follows the house of Annas through the Roman execution, the revolt it tried to contain, and the fire that ended the priesthood, the Sadducees, and the Temple all at once, marking at each turn what Josephus confirms and where he, the only witness, had reason to shade it.
The priestly aristocracy that executed both Jesus and James, and was destroyed with the Temple it controlled in 70 CE.