Apparently Caiaphas decided to question Jesus hoping to get Him to incriminate Himself since he could not get two witnesses to agree against Jesus. Jesus did not need to respond to the high priest"s first question. No one had offered any real proof against Him. [source][source][source]
"His [1] resolute silence loudly declared to the Sanhedrin His disdain for their lying efforts to establish a charge against Him." [2][source]
Then Caiaphas, trying a new strategy, asked if Jesus was the Messiah. "The Blessed One" is a synonym for God that the Jews used instead of the holy name of God. [3] The popular Jewish concept of Messiah was that he would be a human descendant of David. Caiaphas was not asking if Jesus claimed to be God, only a human Messiah. [source][source][source]
"In the formulation "the Messiah, the son of the Blessed One," the second clause stands in apposition to the first and has essentially the same meaning. In Jewish sources contemporary with the NT, "son of God" is understood solely in a messianic sense. Jewish hopes were situated in a messianic figure who was a man." [4][source]
"A Messiah imprisoned, abandoned by his followers, and delivered helpless into the hands of his foes represented an impossible conception. Anyone who, in such circumstances, proclaimed himself to be the Messiah could not fail to be a blasphemer who dared to make a mockery of the promises given by God to his people." [5][source]