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Priest/Priesthood (Biblical Studies)

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  1. Introduction
  2.  
  3. The topic of priests and priesthood in ancient Israel and early Judaism focuses the concentration of biblical scholars like few others, for to say anything sensible about the matter requires taking a stand on the related, contested issues of what can be known of ancient Israel’s and early Judaism’s history and the date and purpose of key literary traditions in the Hebrew Bible. Thus there are few points of consensus among those studying Israel’s priesthood, and virtually every general treatment of it showcases the author’s broader views on Israel’s and early Judaism’s history and literature. Yet there is one point of broad agreement (with some significant exceptions). Dating the so-called Priestly Work (parts of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers concerned especially with priestly, purity, and cultic matters) to the Persian period, many scholars take its portrait of the hierarchy of the priesthood in the days of wandering between Egypt and the land of Canaan as a reflection of the actual order under Achaemenid (Persian) rule. The Aaronites, descendants of Levi, were at the pinnacle of priestly power, providing the ruling high priest and altar priests, while their Levite brethren who could not trace their lineage back to Levi through Aaron only assisted the Aaronites in temple service in subservient and largely menial roles. Most scholars also credit Levites in this period with performing as judges and scribes. Beyond this narrow consensus, however, there are few agreements, leaving the history of the priesthood prior to and after the early Persian period a matter of debate. This is especially the case with respect to the centuries leading up to Persian rule. Making any attempt to reconstruct this period in the priesthood’s history is difficult because of the concomitant uncertainty among scholars regarding the historical reliability of the biblical text, which is the main evidence for Israel’s history before the Persian period. The lack of consensus for the following periods, the Hellenistic and Roman eras, has mostly to do with the fact that the office was so contested by vying claimants to it; indeed, the literature addressing it is tendentious in the extreme. To give readers bibliographic access to these debates, this article covers general surveys, the priesthood in cross-cultural perspective in Antiquity, and general histories of the priesthood. It continues with period-specific bibliographies of works addressing the history of the office with a focus on the texts that provide the most substantial evidence for the priesthood in each period.
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  5. General Overviews
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  7. Encyclopedia articles and several book-length treatments provide a good entrée to the general topic of the priesthood in ancient Israel and early Judaism. Although dated, Abba 1962 remains useful (but see also the update provided by Levine 1976). Rehm 1992 offers the next stage among the encyclopedia entries, and Kugler 2009 has the most recent word in the genre. An article-length general overview is provided in Geller 2012. Monographs that offer substantial general discussions of the priesthood include Vaux 1997 and Blenkinsopp 1995. Nelson 1993 is a brief, full-length book treatment.
  8.  
  9. Abba, Raymond. “Priests and Levites.” In The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible. Vol. 3. Edited by George Arthur Buttrick, 876–889. Nashville: Abingdon, 1962.
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  11. A straightforward, text-based discussion of the priests and Levites in Israel.
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  13. Blenkinsopp, Joseph. Sage, Priest, Prophet: Religious and Intellectual Leadership in Ancient Israel. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1995.
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  15. A rather overlooked resource, Blenkinsopp’s focus on primary texts and sensible observations prior to devoting attention to the debates in the secondary literature makes his treatment a reliable way for the uninitiated to make their way into the thicket of texts and ideas related to Israel’s priesthood. See pp. 66–114.
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  17. Vaux, Roland de. Ancient Israel: Its Life and Institutions. Biblical Resource Series. Translated by John McHugh. Grand Rapids, MI: W. B. Eerdmans, 1997.
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  19. First published in French in 1961, this remains a reliable survey that treats the “priests” and “Levites” in separate chapters on the basis of the biblical evidence, and then offers a history of the office in two parts: before the exile, under the monarchy; and after the exile. See pp. 345–405.
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  21. Geller, Stephen A. “Priests and Levites in the Hebrew Bible.” In The Wiley-Blackwell History of Jews and Judaism. Edited by Alan T. Levenson, 35–52. Chichester, UK, and Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012.
  22. DOI: 10.1002/9781118232897Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  23. A brief survey that addresses terms, the sources in the Hebrew Bible, and a short history of the office. A good overview for the beginner.
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  25. Kugler, Robert. “Priests and Levites.” In The New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible. Vol. 4. Edited by Katherine Doob Sakenfeld, 596–613. Nashville: Abingdon, 2009.
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  27. A survey article that builds its history of the priesthood on the Wellhausenian view of the Persian-period stasis, but that also assumes a later date for the pre-P material, and therefore that little may be said with confidence about the office’s career before the exile.
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  29. Levine, B. A. “Priestly Writers.” In The Interpreters Dictionary of the Bible: Supplementary Volume. Edited by Keith Crim, 683–687. Nashville: Abingdon, 1976.
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  31. A significant update to Abba 1962; the two should be read together.
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  33. Nelson, Richard D. Raising Up a Faithful Priest: Community and Priesthood in Biblical Theology. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1993.
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  35. A theologically oriented treatment of the history of the priesthood that updates important earlier works in this vein by Baudissin 1889 and van Hoonacker 1899 (both cited under Histories of the Priests and Levites) from the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
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  37. Rehm, Merlin D. “Levites and Priests.” In The Anchor Bible Dictionary. Vol. 4. Edited by David Noel Freedman, 297–310. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1992.
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  39. A discussion dependent on the chief elements of F. M. Cross’s theory regarding the origins of the priests and Levites.
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  41. The Ancient Near East and the Greco-Roman World
  42.  
  43. Study of the priesthood in ancient Israel and early Judaism long focused almost exclusively on the biblical evidence, rarely straying into comparative analyses—see Smith and Bertholet 1902. That has changed gradually in recent years, but the number of works taking a comparative approach remains small. Moreover, those who are explicitly concerned to compare priesthood in early Israel or Judaism with congeners in other cultures and religions tend to take a very narrow perspective, examining only Hittite, or only Egyptian, or only Roman parallels, and so on. Apart from Sabourin 1973, there are no other notable comprehensive comparative studies, and Sabourin acknowledges that his is afflicted by inexpert assessments of the non-Israelite models. For now, at least, Sabourin’s broad study and other more specialized ones, such as Taggar-Cohen 2011 on the “Biblical and Hittite Priesthood,” Edelman 2010 on Egyptian priests and prophets, or Helck 1982 on Egyptian priests, will have to suffice. One should also consult Johnston 2004, for some comparative evidence, and see the essays in Horster and Klöckner 2012 for priests in Athens from the Hellenistic period to Late Antiquity. For anything more one must turn to separate treatments of priesthood in the contemporary cultures in Antiquity, or general studies of those cultures’ religions. For example, Beard, et al. 2001–2002 and Connelly 2007 provide two different ways to approach the topic in the classical world.
  44.  
  45. Beard, Mary, John North, and Simon Price. Religions of Rome. 2 vols. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2001–2002.
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  47. An essential work for understanding the Roman priesthood(s). The first volume is synthesis and the second is an invaluable sourcebook.
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  49. Connelly, Joan Bretton. Portrait of a Priestess: Women and Ritual in Ancient Greece. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007.
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  51. A convenient entrée to understanding priests in the Greek world, with the added bonus of dealing with the neglected topic of priestesses as well.
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  53. Edelman, Diana. “Of Priests and Prophets and Interpreting the Past: Egyptian ḤM-NT̲R and ḪRY-ḤBT and the Judahite NĀB̲Îʾ.” In The Historian and the Bible: Essays in Honour of Lester L. Grabbe. Edited by Philip R. Davies and Diana V. Edelman, 103–112. New York: T&T Clark International, 2010.
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  55. A very good example of the sort of specific studies that constitute the most helpful contemporary work on cross-cultural phenomena and understanding Israelite priesthood.
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  57. Helck, H. “Priester, Priesterorganisations, Priestertitel.” Lexicon der Ägyptologie 4 (1982): 1084–1097.
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  59. A significant resource for studying the Egyptian priesthood.
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  61. Horster, Marietta, and Anja Klöckner, eds. Civic Priests: Cult Personnel in Athens from the Hellenistic Period to Late Antiquity. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2012.
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  63. A recent, useful collection of essays that address priests and other cult personnel in the Athenian setting.
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  65. Johnston, Sarah Iles, ed. Religions of the Ancient World: A Guide. 288–310. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004.
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  67. Although the essays treating particular religions and topics within the study of religion do not include any explicitly focused on the priesthood, patient use of the volume does yield a wealth of material pertinent to the topic across a variety of ancient world religions; see especially the section “Religious Personnel” (pp. 288–310).
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  69. Sabourin, Leopold. Priesthood: A Comparative Study. Studies in the History of Religions 25. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 1973.
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  71. Still the standard work that provides a broad view. Sabourin, though, is the first to admit that his book is not in-depth enough to constitute anything resembling an end point for such study. Few, however, have hearkened to his implicit invitation to take up the endeavor.
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  73. Smith, W. R., and A. Bertholet. “Levites.” In Encyclopedia Biblica. Vol. 3. Edited by T. K. Cheyne and J. S. Black, 2770–2776. New York: Macmillan, 1902.
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  75. One of the first attempts in modern scholarship to examine the priests of Israel within their wider ancient Near Eastern context.
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  77. Taggar-Cohen, Ada. “Covenant Priesthood: Cross-Cultural Legal and Religious Aspects of Biblical and Hittite Priesthood.” In Levites and Priests in Biblical History and Tradition. Edited by Mark Leuchter and Jeremy Hutton, 11–24. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2011.
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  79. Like Edelman 2010, a solid example of contemporary cross-cultural analysis of the priesthood.
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  81. Histories of the Priests and Levites
  82.  
  83. Beginning with Wellhausen 1994, various general accounts of the history of Israel’s priesthood have appeared in the modern period. Wellhausen, though not offering a detailed history, established the general framework within which virtually all others have since navigated, making his brief discussion the starting point for all overviews, acknowledged as such or not. The heart of Wellhausen’s argument is that Josiah’s reform in the 7th century that centralized sacrifice and worship in the temple in Jerusalem precipitated the division of the Levites into altar priests, the Zadokite/Aaronite descendants of Levi, and their much more lowly-ranked assistants, the rest of the Levites. Ezekiel 44, with its sharp division between Levites and Zadokites (rationalized by condemnation of “the Levites” for preexilic apostasy), articulated for the first time the division that had been necessitated when Josiah restricted access to altar sacrifice through centralization. The Priestly Work then confirmed and solidified that division in the Persian period by retrojecting into the wilderness wandering the origins of the bipartite Levitical priesthood. Subsequent surveys of the history of the priesthood rarely depart from this basic schema, making their own contributions mostly as refinements of Wellhausen’s basic schema. However, Baudissin 1889 and van Hoonacker 1899 responded to Wellhausen to offer more optimistic reconstructions of the earlier period (see also Smith and Bertholet 1902, cited under Ancient Near East and the Greco-Roman World). Two other key moments in the history of scholarship that supplemented or mildly contradicted Wellhausen are Möhlenbrink 1934 and Cross 1973 (cited under Before the Monarchy), for their (not uncontested) contributions to explaining the priesthood prior to Josiah’s reform. Cody 1969 remains a significant contribution to attempts to see the priesthood through the combined lenses of the biblical witness and the evidence from the wider ancient world, and Gunneweg 1965 is a classic expression of the text-based approach. Albertz 1994 is an essential resource. Leucther and Hutton 2011 offers a collection of essays that revive much of the debate about the history of the priesthood that had largely gone silent in recent decades.
  84.  
  85. Albertz, Rainer. A History of Israelite Religion in the Old Testament Period. 2 vols. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1994.
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  87. A very thorough study of the Israelite religion, firmly rooted in a critical reception of the textual evidence and the little material evidence available. The consistent treatment of the development of the priesthood is authoritative.
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  89. Baudissin, Wolf Wilhem Graf von. Die Geschichte des alttestamentlichen Priesterthums untersucht. Leipzig: Hirzel, 1889.
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  91. Baudissin was an important successor to Wellhausen who sought to reconstruct earlier eras than Wellhausen thought possible. See also his “Priests and Levites,” in Hastings Dictionary of the Bible, edited by James Hastings (New York: Scribner, 1902) 4: 67–97.
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  93. Cody, Aelred. A History of Old Testament Priesthood. Analecta Biblica 35. Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1969.
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  95. A fairly conventional treatment of the history of the priesthood that is rooted in a tradition-historical reading of the biblical text, yet it also manages to offer a history of the office with some attention to the wider context.
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  97. Gunneweg, Antonius H. J. Leviten und Priester: Hauptlinien der Traditionsbildung und Geschichte des israelitisch-jüdischen Kultpersonals. Forschungen zur Religion und Literatur des Alten und Neuen Testaments 89. Göttingen, West Germany: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecth, 1965.
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  99. A work heavily focused on the tradition history of the biblical texts relating to the priesthood; less a history of the office than of the views on it held by the various thinkers who attempted to shape Israelite history and thought through their writings.
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  101. Leucther, Mark, and Jeremy Hutton, eds. Levites and Priests in Biblical History and Tradition. Ancient Israel and Its Literature 9. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2011.
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  103. A good collection of essays addressing some of the standing questions. The essays are gathered under three sections: “Priests and Levites in Social Context,” “Priests and Levites in Scriptural Context,” and “Priests and Levites in Exegetical Context.”
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  105. Möhlenbrink, Kurt. “Die levitischen Überlieferungen des Alten Testaments.” Zeitschrift für die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft, new ser., 11 (1934): 184–231.
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  107. Landmark form-critical study of “Levitical” genres dated as far back as the conquest up to the Persian era. The result is a skeletal “history” of the priests and Levites prior to and beyond the Archimedean point of Josiah’s reform.
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  109. van Hoonacker, Albin. Le sacerdoce lévitique dans la loi et dans l’histoire des Hébreux. London: Williams & Norgate, 1899.
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  111. Similar to Baudissin 1889 as a follow-up to Wellhausen, but also theologically interested.
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  113. Wellhausen, Julius. Prolegomena to the History of Israel. Translated by J. S. Black and Allan Menzies, with a preface by W. Robertson Smith. Reprinted with a foreword by Douglas A. Knight. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1994.
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  115. This edition of the Prolegomena was first published in 1885 and is the classic starting point for modern study of the priesthood in Israel, and a warning against seeking the history of the office before the exilic or Persian period. See pp. 121–167.
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  117. Before the Monarchy
  118.  
  119. The history of the Israelite priesthood in this period is shrouded in mystery: the literary sources that would help us lift the veil are generally late and tendentious, and the material evidence that might help is almost nonexistent. Nonetheless, scholars have attempted to trace the outlines of the office in the early period, and scholarship on the texts cited as evidence for the office have also received plenty of attention, in the course of which the issue has been addressed. Particularly of interest has been the origin of the Levites as the (ostensible) progenitors of all priestly personnel. Cross 1973 offers one of the more widely accepted attempts to address the question, as well as to trace the origin of the Aaronites. Stager 1985 provides a comparative-historical angle on the origins of priestly lines. Schulz 1987 offers a European view that also pays heed to the wider ancient Near Eastern context. Ackerman 1991 and Ackerman 2002 offer studies that hint at ritual acts by nonpriests (including a woman), providing an opening to consider the question of whether deed or ontology made one a priest in the period before Israel had an office defined as such. Miller 2000 addresses related matters in an introduction to Israelite religion. Niditch 2008 provides a recent discussion of the relevant material in Judges.
  120.  
  121. Ackerman, Susan. “The Deception of Isaac, Jacob’s Dream at Bethel, and Incubation on an Animal Skin.” In Priesthood and Cult in Ancient Israel. Edited by Gary Anderson and Saul Olyan, 92–112. Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series 125. Sheffield, UK: Sheffield Academic Press, 1991.
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  123. A careful study of ritual activity by nonpriests that raises the question of what makes someone a priest in the absence of a defined office—function or designation?
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  125. Ackerman, Susan. “Why Is Miriam Also Among the Prophets? (And Is Zipproah Among the Priests?).” Journal of Biblical Literature 121.1 (2002): 47–80.
  126. DOI: 10.2307/3268330Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  127. A study suggesting a quasi-priestly, liminal status for Zipporah in the circumcision of Moses in Exodus 4:24–26. Suggestive of a broad range of premonarchic sacerdotal functionaries.
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  129. Cross, Frank Moore. Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic: Essays in the History of the Religion of Israel. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1973.
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  131. Traces Levites, at least in part, to a Mushite priesthood of Dan and Shiloh and Aaronites to Bethel and Jerusalem, and posits a conflict between them. The Levites and Aaronites of the Deuteronomic and Priestly traditions were the later literary embodiments of these competing priesthoods. This is essential reading for those interested in the history of the priesthood. See pp. 195–215.
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  133. Miller, Patrick D. The Religion of Ancient Israel. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2000.
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  135. A solid introduction to ancient Israelite religion that addresses, in due course, sacerdotal functions and functionaries.
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  137. Niditch, Susan. Judges: A Commentary. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2008.
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  139. Niditch’s commentary on Judges provides the best entrée to the important material on the Levite in Judges 17–18 (pp. 19–20).
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  141. Schulz, Hermann. Leviten im vorstaatlichen Israel und im mittleren Osten. Munich: Kaiser, 1987.
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  143. An important German contribution to the attempt to trace the origins of the priesthood in the centuries before the Exile and the Persian period. Also useful for its attention to the wider ancient Near Eastern context.
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  145. Stager, Lawrence E. “The Archaeology of the Family in Ancient Israel.” Bulletin of the American School of Oriental Research 260 (1985): 1–35.
  146. DOI: 10.2307/1356862Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  147. Suggests that the priesthood originated with the clan systems in the 12th–10th centuries BCE.
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  149. The Monarchy
  150.  
  151. Particular focal points for studies of the priesthood during the monarchy include the realia of the office and its practice, at least as the material and literary evidence give access to it—see Aharoni 1969 and Herzog 2001. Of course, the key issue in this case is which text (and how many) scholars think can provide evidence for the priesthood in this period. Traditional documentarians assign the Yawhist and Elohist strands of the Pentateuch to this era, and thus view the testimony regarding sacerdotal matters and leaders as evidence for the era—see White 1991. Prophetic books dating to the period of the monarchy addressing the priesthood fit in this category; see Nelson 2004 on Hosea, Patton 2004 and Tiemeyer 2009 on Jeremiah, and Hrobon 2010 on Isaiah. In addition, many see evidence of actual historical practice in the Deuteronomic collection’s testimony regarding the priesthood from Moses to the Babylonian Exile. Clearly, the reflections on the office related to Josiah’s reform are also viewed as giving valuable evidence of its development; on this see, for example, Monroe 2011.
  152.  
  153. Aharoni, Yohanan. “The Israelite Sanctuary at Arad.” In New Directions in Biblical Archaeology. Edited by David Noel Freedman and Jonas C. Greenfield, 28–44. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1969.
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  155. An argument for an Iron Age I cult site of considerable duration at Arad that draws significant connections between the archaeological record and the biblical account, opening up concomitant space to speculate on priestly practices outside of Jerusalem in the era before Hezekiah’s and Josiah’s reform efforts.
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  157. Herzog, Ze’ev. “The Date of the Temple at Arad: Reassessment of the Stratigraphy and the Implications for the History of Religion in Judah.” In Studies in the Archaeology of the Iron Age in Israel and Jordan. Edited by Amihay Mazar and Ginny Mathias, 156–178. Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series 331. Sheffield, UK: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001.
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  159. A revision of the dating of the sanctuary at Arad that limits the period of its operation substantially and confirms its suppression under Hezekiah. An important balance to Aharoni 1969, and useful testimony to the difficulty of using archaeological evidence in the study of the priesthood.
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  161. Hrobon, Bohdan. Ethical Dimension of Cult in the Book of Isaiah. Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 418. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2010.
  162. DOI: 10.1515/9783110247497Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  163. Argues that no part of Isaiah is anticult; rather, it is concerned to promote the ethical dimension of cult (and critique the priests’ violation of it; cf. Isa. 1:10–17; 43:22–28; 58:1–14).
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  165. Monroe, Lauren A. S. Josiah’s Reform and the Dynamics of Defilement: Israelite Rites of Violence and the Making of a Biblical Text. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011.
  166. DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199774166.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  167. Particularly useful as a most current discussion of the nature of Josiah’s reform (with concomitant bibliography), but especially noteworthy for relating the reform and the account of it in 2 Kings 22–23 to Deuteronomic and Holiness traditions and their respective understandings of priests.
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  169. Nelson, Richard D. “Priestly Purity and Prophetic Lunacy: Hosea 1.2–3 and 9.7.” In The Priests in the Prophets: The Portrayal of Priests, Prophets, and Other Religious Specialists in the Latter Prophets. Edited by Lester Grabbe and Alice Ogden Bellis, 115–133. Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series 408. New York: T & T Clark, 2004.
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  171. A study of Hosea’s prophetic act of marriage with a prostitute as a mockery of the priesthood’s claims to ritual purity.
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  173. Patton, Corrine. “Layers of Meaning: Priesthood in Jeremiah MT.” In The Priests in the Prophets: The Portrayal of Priests, Prophets, and Other Religious Specialists in the Latter Prophets. Edited by Lester Grabbe and Alice Ogden Bellis, 149–176. Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series 408. New York: T & T Clark, 2004.
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  175. Detects differing perspectives on the priesthood in the Masoretic text of the Jeremiah.
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  177. Tiemeyer, Lena-Sofia. “The Priests and the Temple Cult in the Book of Jeremiah.” In Prophecy in the Book of Jeremiah. Edited by Hans M. Barstad and Reinhard G. Kratz, 233–264. Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 388. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2009.
  178. DOI: 10.1515/9783110212815Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  179. Argues that while the material in Jeremiah addressing priests regards them negatively as leaders of Judah, it is not critical of them as cultic personnel. Useful for gaining access to earlier work on the relationship between Jeremiah and the priesthood.
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  181. White, Marsha. “The Elohistic Description of Aaron: A Study in the Levite-Zadokite Controversy.” In Studies in the Pentateuch. Supplements to Vetus Testamentum 41. Edited by John A. Emerton, 149–159. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 1990.
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  183. An argument for Exodus 32:25–29 (in particular) as a Northern, state-period Elohistic attack on the ascendancy of the Aaronite line in Jerusalem. A parade example of a Documentarian approach to reading the Pentateuchal witness regarding priests for historical evidence.
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  185. Exile
  186.  
  187. The Babylonian Exile presented an obvious challenge to the Israelite priesthood: with the temple destroyed and the city of Jerusalem and the land lost, the priests had no place or reason to engage in their vocation. That the priests, as leaders of Judah, were implicated in the loss of the land prompted considerable rumination about the office in the literature from the exilic period. Allan 1982 and Fechter 2004 reflect the typical perspectives on the office in general, and on the critical role Ezekiel 44 has played in engendering those perspectives from Wellhausen to the present.
  188.  
  189. Allan, Nigel. “The Identity of the Jerusalem Priesthood during the Exile.” Heythrop Journal 23.3 (1982): 259–269.
  190. DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-2265.1982.tb00641.xSave Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  191. Argues that remaining Levites served the ritual needs of the remainees in Judah, and for their trouble were repudiated by Ezekiel 44:6–16 and assigned subordinate status to Zadokites upon the restoration of the temple after the return.
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  193. Fechter, Friedrich. “Priesthood in Exile According to the Book of Ezekiel.” In Ezekiel’s Hierarchical World: Wrestling with a Tiered Reality. Edited by Stephen L. Cook and Corrine L. Patton, 27–41. Society of Biblical Literature Symposium Series 31. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2004.
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  195. Discerns in the evidence of Ezekiel 43:18–27 and 44:4–31 multiple layers of redaction not attributable to Ezekiel, but rather to someone expressing the exilic Zadokite sensibilities that assign altar priesthood to the descendants of Zadok and suppress the Levites.
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  197. Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomistic History
  198.  
  199. Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomistic history are key components in attempts to recreate the history of the priesthood, both because they are dependably dated to the late 7th and early 6th century BCE, and because Wellhausen, depending on that dating, treated their testimony as the Archimedean point for the rest of his dominant reconstruction. Most of the work on the priesthood and the D traditions builds on Wellhausen or tinkers at the edges of his dominant theory. Altmann 2011 purports to identify different American and European views on the topic. On that reading, Dahmen 1996 would be representative of the European perspective, with its focus on literary analysis; while Duke 1987 is representative of the North American approach, focusing on sociohistorical reconstruction, as are Leuchter 2007 and Spencer 1995. Nelson 1991 is an important representative of a perspective that seeks neither to write the history of the priesthood from the texts, nor to merely trace the text’s history; rather, Nelson focuses on the theological and ideological perspectives expressed in the texts (and by their authors).
  200.  
  201. Altmann, Peter. “What Do the ‘Levites in Your Gates’ Have to Do with the ‘Levitical Priests?’ An Attempt at European-North American Dialogue on the Levites in the Deuteronomic Law Corpus.” In Levites and Priests in Biblical History and Tradition. Edited by Mark Leuchter and Jeremy Hutton, 135–154. Ancient Israel and Its Literature 9. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2011.
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  203. A recent discussion of the varying views on the Levites in the Deuteronomic corpus that tries to draw clear distinctions between European and North American views on the matter. Useful mostly for its summing up of recent and past scholarship on the topic.
  204. Find this resource:
  205. Dahmen, Ulrich. Leviten und Priester im Deuteronomium: Literarkritische und redaktionsgeschichtliche Studien. Bonner Biblische Beiträge 110. Bodenheim, Germany: PHILO, 1996.
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  207. A major contribution to the topic that focuses on the literary portrait of the sacerdotalists in Deuteronomy and related literature.
  208. Find this resource:
  209. Duke, Rodney K. “The Portion of the Levite: Another Reading of Deuteronomy 18:6–8.” Journal of Biblical Literature 106.2 (1987): 193–201.
  210. DOI: 10.2307/3260631Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  211. Argues against the Wellhausenian consensus that the Deuteronomic tradition makes all Levites altar priests, and suggests that instead the key passage is only concerned to address the socioeconomic conditions faced by Levites as nonaltar priests. Updates and engages the critical contributions on the topic; see footnote 2 for relevant bibliography.
  212. Find this resource:
  213. Leuchter, Mark. “‘Levites in Your Gates’: The Deuteronomic Redefinition of Levitical Authority.” Journal of Biblical Literature 126.3 (2007): 417–436.
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  215. An important update to the ongoing discussion of the Levites and their sacerdotal and scribal roles in relationship to legislation in Deuteronomy (and related literature). Useful for coming up to speed on the debate.
  216. Find this resource:
  217. Nelson, Richard D. “The Role of the Priesthood in the Deuteronomistic History.” In Congress Volume: Leuven 1989. Proceedings of the 13th Congress of the International Organization for the Study of the Old Testament, Louvain, Belgium, 27 August–1 September 1989. Edited by J. A. Emerton, 132–147. Supplements to Vetus Testamentum 43. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 1991.
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  219. A study of the priesthood in the Deuteronomistic History to get at that tradition’s theological and historiographic interests; notable for its resistance to using the text to write the history of the priesthood per se, but rather to see how the office was used as a construct in a larger literary-theological endeavor.
  220. Find this resource:
  221. Spencer, John R. “Priestly Families (or Factions) in Samuel and Kings.” In The Pitcher Is Broken: Memorial Essays for Gösta Ahlström. Edited by Steven Holloway and Lowell Handy, 387–400. Sheffield, UK: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995.
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  223. Identifies in these central books of the Deuteronomistic History evidence of an awareness of conflict among priestly parties—the Aaronites, Levites, and Zadokites.
  224. Find this resource:
  225. Ezekiel
  226.  
  227. Wellhausen’s argument that Ezekiel 44 effectively reified the division of the priesthood between Levites and altar priests made the prophetic book a focal point of a great deal of subsequent study. Much of the recent work on the topic has taken issue with Wellhausen’s basic view, from different angles. Cook 1995 rereads Ezekiel 44 as inner-biblical interpretation, not history; Duke 1988 and Patton 2004 ask what reading the text in light of the larger portrait of Ezekiel in the book produces; and Schwartz 2004 takes a fresh look at the actual evidence that Ezekiel was concerned with priestly practice in his own time. Other important voices include Haran 2008, which assigns Ezekiel and P (Priestly Work) to the same school of thought and gives (modest) priority to P; McConville 1983, which in some ways can be seen to have laid the foundations of the current debate; and Tuell 2005, which draws Ezekiel into conversation with Third Isaiah. These merely give a taste of a fairly vigorous literature.
  228.  
  229. Cook, Stephen L. “Innerbiblical Interpretation in Ezekiel 44 and the History of Israel’s Priesthood.” Journal of Biblical Literature 114.2 (1995): 193–208.
  230. DOI: 10.2307/3266935Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  231. A reasonable place to come up to speed on the various perspectives in the debate up to the 1990s.
  232. Find this resource:
  233. Duke, Rodney K. “Punishment or Restoration? Another Look at the Levites of Ezekiel 44: 6–16.” Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 13.40 (1988): 61–81.
  234. DOI: 10.1177/030908928801304004Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  235. An important argument against the Wellhausenian consensus that Ezekiel 44 established the separation between Levites and priests that was then taken up and developed in the Priestly Source; instead, suggests Duke, P is preexilic and Ezekiel is in fact dependent on the P traditions.
  236. Find this resource:
  237. Haran, Menahem. “Ezekiel, P, and the Priestly School.” Vetus Testamentum 58.2 (2008): 211–218.
  238. DOI: 10.1163/156853308X265954Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  239. Defends the notion that Ezekiel and P do not stand in succession, the first influencing the second, but rather reflect two manifestations of the same school, with P being the first and Ezekiel the second, a loose reflection of P.
  240. Find this resource:
  241. McConville, J. Gordon. “Priests and Levites in Ezekiel: A Crux in the Interpretation of the Israel’s History.” Tyndale Bulletin 34.1 (1983): 3–31.
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  243. A key entry into the debate that Duke 1988 addresses and updates. Among those participating at earlier stages in the debate, perhaps the most essential to read.
  244. Find this resource:
  245. Patton, Corrine L. “Priest, Prophet, and Exile: Ezekiel as a Literary Construct.” In Ezekiel’s Hierarchical World: Wrestling with a Tiered Reality. Edited by Stephen L. Cook and Corrine L. Patton, 73–89. Society of Biblical Literature Symposium Series 31. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2004.
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  247. An argument that the character of Ezekiel in the book of his name is, in fact, an embodiment of the author’s priestly ideal—without need for purification, a mediator between God and humanity.
  248. Find this resource:
  249. Schwartz, Baruch J. “A Priest Out of Place: Reconsidering Ezekiel’s Role in the History of the Israelite Priesthood.” In Ezekiel’s Hierarchical World: Wrestling with a Tiered Reality. Edited by Stephen L. Cook and Corrine L. Patton, 61–71. Society of Biblical Literature Symposium Series 31. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2004.
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  251. Argues that Ezekiel’s views on the priesthood have only to do with his own lineage, and nothing to do with continuing priestly activity anywhere (least of all in Jerusalem; cf. Allan 1982, cited under Exile); argues that all priestly activity came to an end with the destruction of the temple.
  252. Find this resource:
  253. Tuell, Stephen S. “The Priesthood of the ‘Foreigner’: Evidence of Competing Polities in Ezekiel 44:1–14 and Isaiah 56:1–8.” In Constituting Community: Studies on the Polity of Ancient Israel in Honor of S. Dean McBride, Jr. Edited by John T. Strong and Steven S. Tuell, 183–204. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2005.
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  255. Argues that while Ezekiel 44 represented the views of the ascendant Zadokite priests in the return to Jerusalem, Isaiah 56:1–8 was the “prophetic sponsor” for the Levites. Refreshing in its more innovative advance over the Wellhausenian consensus than some others.
  256. Find this resource:
  257. The Persian Period
  258.  
  259. Since Wellhausen, views on the priesthood in the Persian period have generally held to the position he articulated—that there was a decisive division at the beginning of the Second Temple period between Levites and altar priests (the latter being Aaronites/Zadokites). Work on the priesthood in this period has either been devoted to refining and upholding that consensus—see Schaper 2000—or quibbling with relatively small elements of it. The exception to this are those who challenge Wellhausen at a more fundamental level, assigning the key text of the era, the Priestly Work (P), to the preexilic period; see Blenkinsopp 1998. Two other major issues in this period have drawn substantial interest: accounting for the high priests under Persian rule, as seen in VanderKam 1991, and relating the ascent of the priests to the authority structures Persian imperial policy imposed on Judah, as in Frei and Koch 1984; see Watts 2001 for an evaluation of Frei’s argument for Persian authorization of priestly control in Judea. Another focus has been on the social and theological character of the office under Achaemenid rule—see Plöger 1968. See also Nurmela 1998 on the formation of the Levites as a second-class priesthood by the mid- to late Persian period.
  260.  
  261. Blenkinsopp, Joseph. “The Judean Priesthood during the Neo-Babylonian and Achaemenid Periods: A Hypothetical Reconstruction.” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 60 (1998): 25–43.
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  263. An alternative reconstruction of the history of the priesthood in the named periods that features an argument for Bethel as the origin for Aaronites. A challenging article for the advanced student.
  264. Find this resource:
  265. Frei, Peter, and K. Koch. Reichsidee und Reichsorganisation im Perserreich. Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis 55. Göttingen, West Germany: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1984.
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  267. The essential work for understanding the still popular theory that the Persian authorities authorized priestly control of postexilic Judah. For an English version of the argument, see Watts 2001.
  268. Find this resource:
  269. Nurmela, Risto. The Levites: Their Emergence of a Second-Class Priesthood. South Florida Studies in the History of Judaism 193. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1998.
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  271. Although the work treats the title topic from the late exilic period, it concludes in the Persian period with the Chronicler’s account of the office. A useful work chiefly for its attention to the relevant primary texts.
  272. Find this resource:
  273. Plöger, Otto. Theocracy and Eschatology. Translated by S. Rudman. Oxford: Blackwell, 1968.
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  275. A foundational study that sees the origins of Jewish sectarianism in the Persian period and relates it to developments in the priesthood.
  276. Find this resource:
  277. Schaper, Joachim. Priester und Leviten im achämenidischen Juda: Studien zur Kult- und Sozialgeschichte Israels in persischer Zeit. Forschungen zum Alten Testament 31. Tübingen, Germany: Mohr, 2000.
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  279. A study of the priesthood during the Persian period that draws on the complete range of literary and material evidence and that hews closely to a Wellhausenian view of the development of the office in the period. An approachable work for the German-reading scholar.
  280. Find this resource:
  281. VanderKam, James C. “Jewish High Priests of the Persian Period: Is the List Complete?” In Priesthood and Cult in Ancient Israel. Edited by Gary A. Anderson and Saul M. Olyan, 67–91. Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series 125. Sheffield, UK: Sheffield Academic Press, 1991.
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  283. An early entry in VanderKam’s long-standing work on the high priesthood.
  284. Find this resource:
  285. Watts, James. Persia and Torah: The Theory of Imperial Authorization of the Pentateuch. Society of Biblical Literature Symposium Series 17. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2001.
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  287. A critical reassessment of the theory advanced in Frei and Koch 1984. Although the rest of the book is mostly for advanced readers, the summary at the beginning of the Frei-Koch hypothesis in English is indispensable.
  288. Find this resource:
  289. Haggai-Zechariah 1–8
  290.  
  291. This pair of Second Temple prophets mention priests in significant ways (Hag. 2:10–14; Zech. 3:1–10; 6:9–15; cf., 4:8–14). Haggai’s consultation of the priests for a ruling on purity assigns to them a scribal-judicial role, and the passages in Zechariah concern the apparent appointee to the high priesthood among the returnees, Joshua. In short, they are both closely affiliated with priestly matters. Meyers and Meyers 1987 remains a very strong commentary on the two books, as do Petersen 1984 and Wolff 1988. Among specialized studies, see also Kasher 2009 for a recent assessment of Haggai’s relationship to Ezekiel (as it pertains to priest and temple matters) and Segal 2007 and VanderKam 1991 on the significance of Zechariah 3.
  292.  
  293. Kasher, Rimon. “Haggai and Ezekiel: The Complicated Relations between the Two Prophets.” Vestus Testamentum 59.4 (2009): 556–582.
  294. DOI: 10.1163/156853309X445016Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  295. Reexamines the recurring interest among scholars in drawing a connection between Haggai and Ezekiel to conclude that they do address common themes—including temple and priestly matters—but in different ways owing to their different social and political contexts.
  296. Find this resource:
  297. Meyers, Carol L, and Eric M. Meyers. Haggai, Zechariah 1–8: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary. Anchor Bible 25B. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1987.
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  299. A well-respected commentary that reflects the expertise of its authors on the material culture of postexilic Judah.
  300. Find this resource:
  301. Petersen, David. Haggai and Zechariah 1–8: A Commentary. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1984.
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  303. Especially strong on the historical context, through careful reading and analysis of the text. Also particularly strong on the Zechariah material related to priesthood/Joshua.
  304. Find this resource:
  305. Segal, Michael. “The Responsibilities and Rewards of Joshua the High Priest According to Zechariah 3:7.” Journal of Biblical Literature 126.4 (2007): 717–734.
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  307. Rejects the view that this verse gives greater power to the Second Temple priesthood. Rather, it only assigns to Joshua the functions performed by First Temple priests in order to reinitiate the temple and its maintenance, and it rewards Joshua with the promise of a dynasty, not ascent to the heavenly councils.
  308. Find this resource:
  309. VanderKam, James C. “Joshua the High Priest and the Interpretation of Zechariah 3.” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 53.4 (1991): 553–570.
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  311. Remains an important study of this crucial text.
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  313. Wolff, Hans Walter. Haggai: A Commentary. Translated by Margaret Kohl. Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House, 1988.
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  315. Though somewhat dated, still a very good technical commentary on Haggai.
  316. Find this resource:
  317. Priestly Code
  318.  
  319. Discussion of this body of literature (“P”) in general is manifold, and the focus on the priesthood that it obviously entails has likewise produced a large literature of its own. It is enough here to list major commentaries on Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers that provide suitable access to the wider literature and make their own contributions to the debates on priests and priesthood in the P literature—see Levine 1993, Milgrom 1991, and Propp 2006. Also important to take into account are the chief proponents of the First Temple dating of P, who thus depart from the Wellhausen consensus—see Kaufmann 1960 and Haran 1977. Jenson 1992 is a useful synchronic look at the worldview proposed in P as it relates to temple and priests, and Rendtorff and Kugler 2003 offers a wealth of individual essays attending to sacerdotal matters in Leviticus.
  320.  
  321. Haran, Menahem. Temple and Temple-Service in Ancient Israel: An Inquiry into the Character of Cult Phenomena and the Historical Setting of the Priestly School. Oxford: Clarendon, 1977.
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  323. A disciple of the Kaufmann approach to P. Essential reading for seeing this side of the debate, as well as a wealth of insight on priestly practice, quite apart from dating P.
  324. Find this resource:
  325. Jenson, Philip Peter. Graded Holiness: A Key to Priestly Conception of the World. Sheffield, UK: JSOT Press, 1992.
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  327. A widely used work that addresses the conceptual framework that the Priestly Work uses to order persons, rites, and spaces. A useful “synchronic” look at the worldview that shaped the Priestly Work, a book unconcerned to date P.
  328. Find this resource:
  329. Kaufmann, Yehezkel. The Religion of Israel: From Its Beginnings to the Babylonian Exile. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960.
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  331. The progenitor of the school that holds P to be preexilic, and thus its account of the priesthood and the temple to reflect First Temple realities.
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  333. Levine, Baruch A. Numbers 1–20: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary. Anchor Bible 4. New York: Doubleday, 1993.
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  335. A very strong commentary on Numbers (to be used in conjunction with Levine’s Numbers 21–36: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary [AB 4A, 2000], on the remainder of Numbers), which contains substantial P material relating to the cult and priesthood. A useful counterbalance to the early-dating approach to P so strongly represented in Milgrom’s commentaries on Leviticus.
  336. Find this resource:
  337. Milgrom, Jacob. Leviticus 1–16: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary. Anchor Bible 3. New York: Doubleday, 1991.
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  339. A commentary on the central P book dealing with the priesthood (to be used in conjunction with the two further volumes on Leviticus from the same author, Leviticus 17–22: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary [AB 3A, 2000]; and Leviticus 23–27: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary [AB 3B, 2001]). Holds to an early date for P. Very detailed treatments of the priestly practices described in Leviticus.
  340. Find this resource:
  341. Propp, William. Exodus 19–40: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary. Anchor Bible 2A. New York: Doubleday, 2006.
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  343. A reliable commentary on Exodus, especially the portions most vital to the P tradition and its material on priesthood. See also Propp’s commentary on Exodus 1–18, Exodus 1–18: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB 2, 1999).
  344. Find this resource:
  345. Rendtorff, Rolf, Robert A. Kugler, and Sarah Smith Bartel. The Book of Leviticus: Composition and Reception. Supplements to Vetus Testamentum 93. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2003.
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  347. A collection of essays, many of which touch on matters related to the priesthood as they are addressed in Leviticus. For advanced readers.
  348. Find this resource:
  349. Holiness Code
  350.  
  351. Many would not treat the Holiness Code as a separate body of literature from P, on the premise that it is part of the latter work, having been incorporated by P editors into that larger corpus. Others, however, view it as a separate body of literature that is, in varying degrees, in competition with P. Indeed, that perspective has been gaining ground in recent years, something especially evident in the essays gathered in Shectman and Baden 2009. Knohl 1995 offers the fullest (if also most idiosyncratic) discussion of the Holiness Code as a separate work from P. But see also Marx 2011 for a French-speaking scholar’s reading of the text.
  352.  
  353. Knohl, Israel. The Sanctuary of Silence: The Priestly Torah and the Holiness School. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995.
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  355. The most significant and complete defense of separating the Holiness Code from the Priestly Work, but also a proponent of a much earlier date for P and, consequently, H as well. See also Milgrom 1991, cited under Priestly Code.
  356. Find this resource:
  357. Marx, Alfred. Lévitique 17–27. Geneva, Switzerland: Labor et Fides, 2011.
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  359. A recent commentary on the Holiness Code portion of Leviticus from a very reliable commentator on the biblical book.
  360. Find this resource:
  361. Shectman, Sarah, and Joel S. Baden. The Strata of the Priestly Writings: Contemporary Debate and Future Directions. Abhandlungen zur Theologie des Alten und Neuen Testaments 95. Zürich, Switzerland: Theologischer Verlag Zürich, 2009.
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  363. A collection of essays from an international conference in 2007 that mainly address the relationship between P and the Holiness Code, and in the course of doing so touch in many ways on priestly and temple matters. Also an important resource for further bibliography.
  364. Find this resource:
  365. Third Isaiah
  366.  
  367. Isaiah 56–66 has some of the strongest antipriest material in the Hebrew Bible (e.g., 58:1–3; 63:7–64:11), and thus rightly wins the attention of those interested in the history of the priesthood in the Persian period. Two recent works, Blenkinsopp 2003 and Tiemeyer 2006, suffice as entries here because they include such comprehensive bibliographies of earlier work.
  368.  
  369. Blenkinsopp, Joseph. Isaiah 56–66: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary. Anchor Bible 19B. New York: Doubleday, 2003.
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  371. An important commentary on Third Isaiah that gathers the relevant bibliography to around two thousand and that treats the most relevant texts with Blenkinsopp’s characteristic close attention to textual detail and judicious analysis. Presently the place to start and finish in examining the priesthood in Isaiah 56–66.
  372. Find this resource:
  373. Tiemeyer, Lena-Sofia. Priestly Rites and Prophetic Rage: Post-exilic Prophetic Critique of the Priesthood. Forschungen zum Alten Testament 19. Tübingen, Germany: Mohr Siebeck, 2006.
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  375. Treats the material concerned with priests, and particularly their misdeeds in the judgment of Third Isaiah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi.
  376. Find this resource:
  377. Malachi
  378.  
  379. Like Third Isaiah, Malachi includes a very sharp critique of the Second Temple priesthood (Mal 1:6–2:9), but it also takes an optimistic view of the priesthood on the day to come when it would be purified and returned to the state God intended in electing Levi to the office (3:1–4). Glazier-McDonald 1987 and Meyers 1986 remain important earlier works on Malachi. Frevel 2007 offers a solid update, and Schaper 2004 addresses the narrower question of the identity of the priestly figures in the short book.
  380.  
  381. Frevel, Christian. “‘Mein Bund mit ihm war das Leben und der Friede’: Priesterbund und Mischehenfrage.” In Für immer verbündet: Studien zur Bundestheologie der Bibel. Edited by Christian Frevel and Christoph Dohmen, 84–93. Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 2007.
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  383. Argues that the condemnation of the priests in Malachi 2:4–5 has mixed marriage in view, and echoes Genesis 34 more than Deuteronomy 33:8–11, which is the usual referent in critical imagination.
  384. Find this resource:
  385. Glazier-McDonald, Beth. Malachi: The Divine Messenger. Society of Biblical Literature Dissertation Series 98. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1987.
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  387. Although dated by now, Glazier-McDonald’s study remains valuable as a means of gaining purchase on the earlier literature on the key passages.
  388. Find this resource:
  389. Meyers, Eric. “Priestly Language in the Book of Malachi.” Hebrew Annual Review 10 (1986): 225–237.
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  391. An important proponent of the influence of Priestly and Deuteronomic teachings on Malachi 1:6–2:9.
  392. Find this resource:
  393. Schaper, Joachim. “The Priests in the Book of Malachi and their Opponents.” In The Priests in the Prophets: The Portrayal of Priests, Prophets, and Other Religious Specialists in the Latter Prophets. Edited by Lester Grabbe and Alice Ogden Bellis, 177–188. Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series 408. New York: T & T Clark, 2004.
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  395. An attempt to assign lineage identities to the priests castigated in Malachi.
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  397. 1 and 2 Chronicles/Ezra-Nehemiah
  398.  
  399. These are works generally thought to reflect the victory of the Priestly worldview, and they contain considerable material relating to priests and Levites (e.g., 1 Chronicles 6, the genealogy of Levi; 2 Chronicles 23–24, duties for the Levites and priestly divisions); as such, they deserve a place in this bibliography. And although their common authorship is in dispute, they are treated together here for convenience (and certainly not as an expression of any commitment to either side of that debate). On 1 and 2 Chronicles, see the commentaries and articles from Knoppers (Knoppers 1999, Knoppers 2003, and Knoppers 2004) for the view that the author sought to harmonize differences among the postexilic sacerdotal groups. See Schweitzer 2007 for an alternative view that treats the Chronicler as a utopian visionary. Also see Knoppers, et al. 2009 for useful studies relating to Ezra and Nehemiah and the priesthood. See Blenkinsopp 1988 for a commentary on Ezra-Nehemiah.
  400.  
  401. Blenkinsopp, Joseph. Ezra-Nehemiah: A Commentary. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1988.
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  403. Remains one of the best commentaries, and is particularly good on the most significant passages relating to the priesthood.
  404. Find this resource:
  405. Knoppers, Gary N. “Hierodules, Priests, or Janitors? The Levites in Chronicles and the History of the Israelite Priesthood.” Journal of Biblical Literature 118.1 (1999): 49–72.
  406. DOI: 10.2307/3268224Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  407. A key entry in Knoppers’s argument that the Chronicler sought to harmonize differences among the postexilic sacerdotal groups, in this case showing that the Chronicler mediates among the various antecedent traditions (e.g., Deuteronomic and Priestly) on the identity and functions of priests and Levites.
  408. Find this resource:
  409. Knoppers, Gary N. “The Relationship of the Priestly Genealogies to the High Priesthood in Jerusalem.” In Judah and the Judeans in the Neo-Babylonian Period. Edited by Oded Lipschits and Joseph Blenkinsopp, 109–133. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2003.
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  411. A further element in Knoppers’s argument that the Chronicler sought to harmonize differences among the postexilic sacerdotal groups.
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  413. Knoppers, Gary N. 1 Chronicles 1–9: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary. Anchor Bible 12. New York: Doubleday, 2004.
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  415. The most recent commentary on the books, one that includes careful consideration of the material relating to the priesthood.
  416. Find this resource:
  417. Knoppers, Gary, Lester Grabbe, and Deirdre Fulton, eds. Exile and Restoration Revisited: Essays on the Babylonian and Persian Periods in Memory of Peter R. Ackroyd. Library of Second Temple Studies 73. London: T & T Clark, 2009.
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  419. Significant contributions on Ezra and Nehemiah, including several that address priests and Levites in Ezra and/or Nehemiah directly or in significant, yet oblique ways. See especially Fulton on Nehemiah 12:10–11.
  420. Find this resource:
  421. Schweitzer, Steven J. Reading Utopia in Chronicles. New York and London: T & T Clark, 2007.
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  423. Reads the construction of the royal and priestly worlds in 1 and 2 Chronicles as utopian, not descriptions of reality in the author’s day.
  424. Find this resource:
  425. Greco-Roman Period
  426.  
  427. The Second Temple period from the rise of the Hellenistic kingdoms to Roman rule provides sparser sustained testimony regarding the priesthood, but what does come down to us testifies to a number of closely related issues that preoccupied those concerned with the office. Corruption in the priesthood in general was a common focus of concern—see Collins 1998 and Collins 2000—and following quickly on its heels was anxiety over the reliability of the holders of the office of the high priest, a concern that was exacerbated by the trading of the office among high bidders and Seleucid rulers in the 2nd century BCE, and that spawned a complex and uncertain record of the office in the literature of the period—see Brutti 2006 and VanderKam 2004. See also Rooke 2000 on the high priesthood from its putative origins to the Hasmoneans. Because confidence in the priesthood was declining so precipitously, and because certain biblical traditions held the view that the people’s own holiness might stand in for the mediation of a professional sacerdotal class, others began to ask in various ways whether the office might not be necessary at all, whether the people could be their own “kingdom of priests”; on this, see Himmelfarb 2006.
  428.  
  429. Brutti, Maria. The Development of the High Priesthood during the Pre-Hasmonean Period: History, Ideology, Theology. Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism 108. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2006.
  430. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  431. A useful study to use alongside VanderKam 2004.
  432. Find this resource:
  433. Collins, John. The Apocalyptic Imagination: An Introduction to Jewish Apocalyptic Literature. 2d ed. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1998.
  434. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  435. Because so much of the concern regarding priesthood in the Second Temple from the rise of the Hellenistic kingdoms to the Roman period was expressed in apocalyptic literature, this essential survey of the primary texts and relevant secondary literature is the place to start.
  436. Find this resource:
  437. Collins, John J. Between Athens and Jerusalem: Jewish Identity in the Hellenistic Diaspora. 2d ed. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2000.
  438. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  439. Like his book on apocalyptic texts (Collins 1998), this one on the other texts of the period described in the title—works that also address priesthood in significant ways, even though they hail from the diaspora—remains the authoritative starting place for solid study.
  440. Find this resource:
  441. Himmelfarb, Martha. A Kingdom of Priests: Ancestry and Merit in Ancient Judaism. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006.
  442. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  443. An engaging study of the ways a wide range of later Second Temple period texts reflect on the necessity and nature of the priesthood for a people who can claim their own sacred status.
  444. Find this resource:
  445. Rooke, Deborah W. Zadok’s Heirs: The Role and Development of the High Priesthood in Ancient Israel. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.
  446. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  447. A comprehensive survey of the evidence for the high priesthood from its putative origins in the premonarchic period to the Hasmonean era.
  448. Find this resource:
  449. VanderKam, James C. From Joshua to Caiaphas: High Priests after the Exile. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2004.
  450. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  451. The authoritative work on the vexed question of the succession of high priests in the Second Temple period.
  452. Find this resource:
  453. 1 and 2 Maccabees
  454.  
  455. These two books are important for understanding the history of the priesthood in the Hasmonean period, even if they reflect a rather one-sided view of matters, seeking in large part to legitimize the Hasmonean possession of the office. Bickerman 1979 and Kampen 2007 are important studies seventy years apart from one another. Goldstein 1984 and Schwartz 2008 provide reliable commentaries on the two books. Knibb 2005 is a solid entrée for study of these and other texts from the Hasmonean period. Schofield and VanderKam 2005, a narrow but significant study, also deserves mention for its argument regarding the lineage of the Hasmoneans.
  456.  
  457. Bickerman, E. J. The God of the Maccabees: Studies on the Meaning and Origin of the Maccabean Revolt. Translated by Horst Moehring. Studies in Judaism in Late Antiquity 32. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 1979.
  458. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  459. Originally published in 1937 in German, this is an important study of the Maccabees that attends closely to their relationship to the priesthood and the high priestly office.
  460. Find this resource:
  461. Goldstein, Jonathan. 1 Maccabees: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary. Anchor Bible 41. Garden City: Doubleday, 1984.
  462. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  463. Remains the best commentary on 1 Maccabees and the relevant texts. First published 1976.
  464. Find this resource:
  465. Kampen, John. “The Books of the Maccabees and Sectarianism in Second Temple Judaism.” In The Books of the Maccabees: History, Theology, Ideology. Papers of the Second International Conference on the Deuteronomical Books, Pápa, Hungary, 9-11 June, 2005. Edited by Géza G. Xeravits and József Zsengellér, 11–30. Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism 118. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2007.
  466. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  467. An authority on the Maccabean literature, Kampen argues that 1 Maccabees defends the Hasmonean high priesthood as central to Jewish self-understanding against sectarian claimants to the contrary, while 2 Maccabees focuses on the tension between Judaism and Hellenism, arguing for the superiority of the priesthood and the temple.
  468. Find this resource:
  469. Knibb, Michael A. “Temple and Cult in Apocryphal and Pseudepigraphical Writings from before the Common Era.” In Temple and Worship in Biblical Israel. Edited by John Day, 410–416. London: T & T Clark, 2005.
  470. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  471. A convenient survey of attitudes toward the priesthood in a collection of texts clustered around the persecution of Antiochus, among them 1 and 2 Maccabees. A good starting place for study.
  472. Find this resource:
  473. Schofield, Alison, and James C. VanderKam. “Were the Hasmoneans Zadokites?” Journal of Biblical Literature 124.1 (2005): 73–87.
  474. DOI: 10.2307/30040991Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  475. The article answers the title question in the affirmative, giving cause to reconsider some of the usual views on why there might have been resentment of Hasmonean possession of the high priesthood.
  476. Find this resource:
  477. Schwartz, Daniel. 2 Maccabees. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2008.
  478. DOI: 10.1515/9783110211207Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  479. An up-to-date commentary on 2 Maccabees with good bibliography on relevant texts.
  480. Find this resource:
  481. Wisdom of Ben Sira
  482.  
  483. Mulder 2003 is an important work in the history of the priesthood, in part because of its long passage on a high priest named Simon (in chapter 50), but also because the book as a whole seems to bear the imprint of priestly imagination and interests; for a variety of discussions of this feature see Olyan 1987, Fabry 2003, Wright 2008, and Skelton 2009. Some works, most notably Stadelmann 1980, argue that the author was himself a priest.
  484.  
  485. Fabry, Heinz-Josef. “Jesus Sirach und das Priestertum.” In Auf den Spuren der schriftgelehrten Weisen: Festschrift für Johannes Marböck anlässlich seiner Emeritierung. Edited by Johannes Marböck, Johannes Schiller, Ursula Rapp, and Irmtraud Fischer, 265–282. Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 331. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2003.
  486. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  487. Argues that the focus on the Zadokite line in Wisdom of Ben Sira is either meant to eulogize the end of that line with the Hasmonean assumption of the high priesthood (but see Schofield and VanderKam 2005, cited under 1 and 2 Maccabees) or to urge God to restore the line.
  488. Find this resource:
  489. Mulder, Otto. Simon the High Priest in Sirach 50: An Exegetical Study of the Significance of Simon the High Priest as Climax to the Praise of the Fathers in Ben Sira’s Concept of the History of Israel. Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism 78. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2003.
  490. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  491. A recent study of the key text as it is evinced in Hebrew and Greek that benefits from improved access to important manuscripts.
  492. Find this resource:
  493. Olyan, Saul M. “Ben Sira’s Relationship to the Priesthood.” Harvard Theological Review 80.3 (1987): 281–286.
  494. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  495. An assessment of the view of the priesthood in Sirach that argues for the author’s close identification with the Aaronites in what Olyan suggests was an intense dispute among the Aaronites, Zadokites, and Levites as to who rightly possessed the priesthood.
  496. Find this resource:
  497. Skelton, David A. “Ben Sira’s Imaginative Theodicy: Reflections on the Aaronide Priesthood under Gentile Rule.” Restoration Quarterly 51 (2009): 1–12.
  498. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  499. A novel argument that Ben Sira is concerned to address decreased confidence in Israelite religion in general, with a theodicy that argues for the superiority of Israel’s God over Gentile rulers and the certainty of peace through trust in the Aaronite priesthood, embodied in Simon.
  500. Find this resource:
  501. Stadelmann, H. Ben Sira als Schriftgelehrter: Eine Untersuchung zum Berufsbild des vor-makkabäischen Sōfēr unter Berücksichtigung seines Verhältnisses zu Priester-, Propheten- und Weisheitslehrertum. Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 6. Tübingen, West Germany: Mohr, 1980.
  502. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  503. Argues strongly that Ben Sira was a priest.
  504. Find this resource:
  505. Wright, Benjamin G., III. “‘Fear the Lord and Honor the Priest’: Ben Sira as Defender of the Jerusalem Priesthood.” In Praise Israel for Wisdom and Instruction: Essays on Ben Sira and Wisdom, the Letter of Aristeas and the Septuagint. By Benjamin G. Wright III, 97–126. Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism 131. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2008.
  506. DOI: 10.1163/ej.9789004169081.i-364.23Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  507. Wright makes the case that Ben Sira was a staunch defender of the Jerusalem priesthood and opposed authors of works like Aramaic Levi and Book of the Watchers and the Astronomical Book in 1 Enoch.
  508. Find this resource:
  509. Aramaic Levi
  510.  
  511. This enigmatic work, preserved in disparate forms ranging from copies (probably of multiple editions) in Aramaic in caves 1 and 4 at Qumran to a Medieval manuscript from the Cairo Geniza and to Greek material inserted in the Mt. Athos manuscript of the Testament of Levi, testifies to what was probably a 3rd-century BCE group’s dissident take on the contemporary temple priesthood (see Kugler 1996, Kugler 2008, and Greenfield, et al. 2004). For an unusual reading of the text that nonetheless connects it to the priesthood, see Drawnel 2004, as well as the announcement of new fragments of the work from the Cairo Geniza in Bohak 2011.
  512.  
  513. Bohak, Gideon. “A New Genizah Fragment of the Aramaic Levi Document.” Tarbiz 79 (2011): 373–385.
  514. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  515. The most recent entry into the history of research on this important text for understanding the wide range of Judean views on the priesthood from the 3rd century BCE onward.
  516. Find this resource:
  517. Drawnel, Henryk. An Aramaic Wisdom Text from Qumran: A New Interpretation of the Levi Document. Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism 86. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2004.
  518. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  519. A very detailed study of Aramaic Levi that argues for Babylonian wisdom tradition influences on the work.
  520. Find this resource:
  521. Greenfield, Jonas, Michael E. Stone, and Esther Eshel. The Aramaic Levi Document: Editions, Translation, Commentary. Studia in Veteris Testamenti Pseudepigrapha 19. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2004.
  522. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  523. A commentary on a composite form of Aramaic Levi.
  524. Find this resource:
  525. Kugler, Robert A. From Patriarch to Priest: The Levi-Priestly Tradition from Aramaic Levi to Testament of Levi. Early Judaism and Its Literature 9. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1996.
  526. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  527. Argues that Aramaic Levi represents pro-Levi dissidents from the reigning Aaronite priesthood in the 3rd century BCE, and that it is part of a distinguishable literary trajectory reaching back to Malachi and forward to Testament of Levi. Kugler renounces the latter hypothesis in Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs (Sheffield, UK: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001).
  528. Find this resource:
  529. Kugler, Robert A. “Whose Scripture? Whose Community? Reflections on the Dead Sea Scrolls Then and Now, by Way of Aramaic Levi.” Dead Sea Discoveries 15 (2008): 5–23.
  530. DOI: 10.1163/156851708X263116Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  531. Reflects Kugler’s most recent views on the relationship among the various manuscript traditions that preserve Aramaic Levi, namely that they cannot be related closely enough even to assemble from them a composite form of the “original” Aramaic Levi. They should be treated instead as independent recensions.
  532. Find this resource:
  533. Jubilees
  534.  
  535. Jubilees 30–32, in particular, relates to the priesthood, with its account of Levi’s elevation to the office (and other matters relating to Levi), a narrative with great resonance in Aramaic Levi and Testament of Levi. Endres 1987 and Kugel 2012 (commentary portion) provide convenient starting points for looking into this aspect of the history of the priesthood; for advanced studies see Kugel 1993 on the elevation of Levi to the priesthood in Jubilees; Kugel 2012, particularly the topical essays section for the author’s views on Levi and priesthood in Jubilees; and VanderKam 2002 for another scholar’s view of the material Kugel treats so thoroughly. For a more recent bibliography and an important departure from the usual views on the composition of Jubilees, see Segal 2007.
  536.  
  537. Endres, John C. Biblical Interpretation in the Book of Jubilees. Catholic Biblical Quarterly Monograph Series 18. Washington, DC: Catholic Biblical Association, 1987.
  538. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  539. A very solid starting point for tracking the ways in which Jubilees—and its treatment of Levi and priestly issues—develop from biblical traditions.
  540. Find this resource:
  541. Kugel, James L. “Levi’s Elevation to the Priesthood in Second Temple Writings.” Harvard Theological Review 86.1 (1993): 1–64.
  542. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  543. An important contribution to the literature not only on Jubilees, but also Aramaic Levi and Testament of Levi. Explored with Kugel’s characteristic focus on the development of exegetical traditions, especially from “hooks” in the biblical tradition.
  544. Find this resource:
  545. Kugel, James L. A Walk through Jubilees: Studies in the Book of Jubilees and the World of Its Creation. Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism 156. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2012.
  546. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  547. An important commentary on Jubilees, paired with the author’s further articles on special topics, including the passages relevant to priesthood and Levi.
  548. Find this resource:
  549. Segal, Michael. The Book of Jubilees: Rewritten Bible, Redaction, Ideology and Theology. Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism 117. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2007.
  550. DOI: 10.1163/ej.9789004150577.i-372Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  551. An important book on Jubilees that argues against it being the work of a single author, but rather of an editor who compiled sources and added his own legal and chronological framework—with obvious implications for how we read the material relating to the priesthood.
  552. Find this resource:
  553. VanderKam, James C. “Jubilees’ Exegetical Creation of Levi the Priest.” In From Revelation to Canon: Studies in the Hebrew Bible and Second Temple Literature. By James C. VanderKam, 545–562. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2002.
  554. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  555. An example of how the author of Jubilees created institutions, laws, etc., from exegetical developments on the Hebrew Bible base text.
  556. Find this resource:
  557. 1 Enoch
  558.  
  559. Key passages in this collection of five Enoch “booklets” relate closely to the priesthood in the later Second Temple period. See Nickelsburg 2001 for orientation to the books of Enoch as a whole, and for commentary on the specific passages, but check Himmelfarb 2007 first for a briefer survey and discussion of the relevant passages (1 Enoch 1–36; 85–90; 91–107).
  560.  
  561. Himmelfarb, Martha. “Temple and Priests in the Book of the Watchers, the Animal Apocalypse, and the Apocalypse of Weeks.” In The Early Enoch Literature. Edited by Gabriele Boccaccini and John J. Collins, 219–235. Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism 121. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2007.
  562. DOI: 10.1163/ej.9789004161542.i-368Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  563. A very reliable and up-to-date discussion of the attitude toward temple and priesthood (negative) in the named sections of 1 Enoch. Very useful also for the bibliography in the notes.
  564. Find this resource:
  565. Nickelsburg, George W. E. 1 Enoch 1: A Commentary on the Book of 1 Enoch Chapters 1–36, 81–108. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2001.
  566. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  567. The authoritative commentary on 1 Enoch 1–36 and relevant passages. See also Nickelsburg’s 1 Enoch 2 (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2011), covering chapters 37–82.
  568. Find this resource:
  569. Stuckenbruck, Loren. 1 Enoch 91–108. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2007.
  570. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  571. A recent commentary on a portion of 1 Enoch relevant to study of the priesthood.
  572. Find this resource:
  573. Dead Sea Scrolls
  574.  
  575. Priests and Levites are key figures in the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the claim of the community at Qumran to be the true Zadokites obviously further implicates appreciating the priests in grasping the significance of the scrolls and their community. Kugler 2000 provides a general overview of the topic that hews to consensus views (but see Kugler 1999 for an articulation of a minority view, and Fabry 2010 for a response to that view). VanderKam 2011 is an important update to the much-discussed question of specific priests named by title in the scrolls. Angel 2010 reflects the most recent perspective and offers a genuinely new, intriguing angle on the topic.
  576.  
  577. Angel, Joseph. Otherworldly and Eschatological Priesthood in the Dead Sea Scrolls. Studies on the Texts of the Desert of Judah 86. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2010.
  578. DOI: 10.1163/ej.9789004181458.i-382Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  579. A recent discussion of the topic that has the virtues of being somewhat of a departure from the past perspectives, and that provides a substantial bibliography on the topic.
  580. Find this resource:
  581. Fabry, Heinz-Josef. “Priests at Qumran: A Reassessment.” In The Dead Sea Scrolls: Texts and Context. Edited by Charlotte Hempel, 243–262. Studies on the Texts of the Desert of Judah 90. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2010.
  582. DOI: 10.1163/ej.9789004167841.i-552Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  583. A reassessment that largely contests Kugler 1999 (and misapprehends Kugler 2000, overlooking that it is an encyclopedia article). Particularly useful for the bibliography in the brief history of research at the beginning, and of interest for the new formulations it points toward.
  584. Find this resource:
  585. Kugler, Robert. “Priesthood at Qumran.” In The Dead Sea Scrolls after Fifty Years: A Comprehensive Assessment. Vol. 2. Edited by Peter W. Flint and James C. VanderKam, 93–116. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 1999.
  586. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  587. A review of the evidence that argues, albeit mildly, for the view that the priests of Qumran might have been largely literary constructs of what was mostly a lay movement.
  588. Find this resource:
  589. Kugler, Robert. “Priests.” In Encyclopedia of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Vol. 2. Edited by Lawrence Schiffman and James C. VanderKam, 688–693. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.
  590. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  591. An encyclopedia entry that reflects broad perspectives on the priesthood in scholarship. A reasonable place to go for general information and a representation of the broad consensus.
  592. Find this resource:
  593. VanderKam, James C. “The Wicked Priest Revisited.” In The “Other” in Second Temple Judaism: Essays in Honor of John J. Collins. Edited by Daniel C. Harlow, Karina Martin Hogan, Matthew Goff, and Joel S. Kaminsky, 350–367. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2011.
  594. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  595. A review of various views on the identity of the Wicked Priest in the Qumran texts, reaffirming the choice of the Hasmonean, Jonathan. Particularly useful for providing an up-to-date perspective on the question. Includes relevant bibliography.
  596. Find this resource:
  597. Josephus
  598.  
  599. Josephus is an important author to consider in assessing the history of the priesthood, both because his major works on the history of the Jews and the causes of the war between Rome and the Jews compelled him to address the topic time and again (see Feldman 2006, Glessmer 1994, and Mason 1988), and because he himself was somehow related to the priestly lineage or office (Bernat 2002). His account is also an important contribution to the history of the high priesthood (VanderKam 2002). Gussmann 2008 is the most comprehensive work on the topic and repays close attention.
  600.  
  601. Bernat, David. “Josephus’s Portrayal of Phinehas.” Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 13.2 (2002): 137–149.
  602. DOI: 10.1177/095182070201300202Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  603. Argues that Josephus’s portrait of Phinehas is indicative of his wider views on priesthood, among other things, and that it is a portrait conformed to his own self-understanding. Important for elucidating the close links between Josephus’s thought and priestly identity and practice.
  604. Find this resource:
  605. Feldman, Louis. “The Levites in Josephus.” Henoch 28.2 (2006): 91–102.
  606. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  607. A survey of Josephus’s treatment of references to Levites in his biblical sources that indicates his low regard for them relative to the altar priests, perhaps a function of his own status as a priest and his dissatisfaction with the permission granted to Levites to wear priestlike garments in the 60s CE.
  608. Find this resource:
  609. Glessmer, Uwe. “Leviten in spat-nachexilischer Zeit: Darstellungsinteressen in den Chronikbüchern und bei Josephus.” In Gottes Ehre erzählen: Festschrift für Hans Seidel zum 65, Geburtstag. Edited by M. Albani and T. Arndt, 127–151. Leipzig: Thomas Verlag, 1994.
  610. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  611. An important entry into the literature concerned to clarify the relationships between the portraits of Levites and priests in Chronicles and Josephus.
  612. Find this resource:
  613. Gussmann, Oliver. Das Priesterverständnis des Flavius Josephus. Texte und Studien zum antiken Judentum 124. Tübingen, Germany: Mohr Siebeck, 2008.
  614. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  615. An extensive and important study of Josephus on the priesthood. Includes an extensive bibliography.
  616. Find this resource:
  617. Mason, S. N. “Priesthood in Josephus and the ‘Pharisaic Revolution.’” Journal of Biblical Literature 107.4 (1988): 657–661.
  618. DOI: 10.2307/3267627Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  619. An abidingly important study from one of the world authorities on Josephus.
  620. Find this resource:
  621. VanderKam, James C. “Simon the Just: Simon I or Simon II?” In From Revelation to Canon: Studies in the Hebrew Bible and Second Temple Literature. By James C. VanderKam, 224–240. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2002.
  622. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  623. Argues that Josephus’s identification of Simon, the high priest, as Simon I, is correct, against the scholarly consensus that would revise Josephus to assign the role to Simon II.
  624. Find this resource:
  625. New Testament and Early Christianity
  626.  
  627. The theme of priesthood in the New Testament is most prominent in two places: (1) the textual portraits of Jesus, and (2) his own self-understanding, as discussed in Fletcher-Louis 2006 and Reinhartz 2008. The Epistle to the Hebrews is discussed in Attridge 1989, Mason 2008, and Schiffman 2009. For a general discussion, one that is a bit theological in its inclination, see Vanhoye 1986.
  628.  
  629. Attridge, Harold. The Epistle to the Hebrews: A Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews. Edited by Helmut Koester. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1989.
  630. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  631. Remains the authoritative commentary on Hebrews, and the starting point for any study of the work’s treatment of the priesthood.
  632. Find this resource:
  633. Fletcher-Louis, Crispin H. T. “Jesus as the High Priestly Messiah: Part 1.” Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus 4.2 (2006): 155–175.
  634. DOI: 10.1177/1476869006064873Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  635. A most recent attempt to address Jesus’ self-understanding in relationship to the priestly office, concluding that he viewed himself as the long awaited eschatological high priest. Part 2 in JSHJ 5.1 (2007): 57–79.
  636. Find this resource:
  637. Mason, Eric F. “You Are a Priest Forever”: Second Temple Jewish Messianism and the Priestly Christology of the Epistle to the Hebrews. Studies on the Texts of the Desert of Judah 74. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2008.
  638. DOI: 10.1163/ej.9789004149878.i-228Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  639. A judicious study of the presentation of Jesus as a high priest in Hebrews that also reaches back to the early Jewish evidence, including important Qumran traditions.
  640. Find this resource:
  641. Reinhartz, Adele. “Crucifying Caiaphas: Hellenism and the High Priesthood in Life of Jesus Narratives.” In Redefining First-Century Jewish and Christian Identities: Essays in Honor of Ed Parish Sanders. Edited by Fabian Udo, 227–244. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2008.
  642. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  643. A fascinating study of contemporary scholarship’s take on the role played by Caiaphas and the priesthood in Jesus’ crucifixion.
  644. Find this resource:
  645. Schiffman, Lawrence H. “Temple, Sacrifice and Priesthood in the Epistle to the Hebrews and the Dead Sea Scrolls.” In Echoes from the Caves: Qumran and the New Testament. Edited by F. García Martínez, 165–176. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2009.
  646. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  647. A comparison of the view of the priesthood, the temple, and sacrifice in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Hebrews that finds them to be diametrically opposed. Useful as a representative sample of a judicious approach to linking (or not) the Dead Sea Scrolls with the New Testament on topics related to the priesthood.
  648. Find this resource:
  649. Vanhoye, Albert. Old Testament Priests and the New Priest: According to the New Testament. Translated by J. Bernand Orchard. Petersham, MA: St. Bede’s, 1986.
  650. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  651. An attempt to classify in three modes the ways in which New Testament writings take up notions of priesthood in the Old Testament. A useful entrée to the topic.
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