As we saw in the story of Solomon's accession, there was a controversy over the priesthood- the priests who followed Adonijah instead of Solomon had hitched their wagon to the wrong mule and the high priesthood passed from Abiathar to Zadok. The high priesthood was thus linked with the kingship, the only stipulation for priesthood, of course, being that one be of the tribe of Levi through Aaron. When the first temple was destroyed, the Jews were carried captive to Babylon, and then 70 years later returned, and the importance of documented family lineage can be seen in Ezra 2:59-63 Ezra 2:59-63
And these were the ones who came up from Tel Melah, Tel Harsha, Cherub, Addan, and Immer; but they could not identify their father's house or their genealogy, whether they were of Israel: the sons of Delaiah, the sons of Tobiah, and the sons of Nekoda, six hundred and fifty-two; and of the sons of the priests: the sons of Habaiah, the sons of Koz , and the sons of Barzillai, who took a wife of the daughters of Barzillai the Gileadite, and was called by their name. These sought their listing among those who were registered by genealogy, but they were not found; therefore they were excluded from the priesthood as defiled. And the governor said to them that they should not eat of the most holy things till a priest could consult with the Urim and Thummim.
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This occurs following the 70 year exile in Babylon, which, while they were there, changed hands from the Babylonians to the Persians. The Israelites were now free to establish the priesthood and argue over lineage because they had the okay from the king of Persia whom God inspired to send them back. This is essentially where the Bible history has a major historical caesura which is not picked up again until the birth of Christ- known as the "intertestamental period" for obvious reasons. We still have some prophets for this grey area, but the inspiration to continue the history is gone. Presumably, and this is our conjecture, the Spirit of God left Israel to its own devices until near the end of the seventy weeks prophesied by Daniel. As Israel was about to give its last gasp, the Messiah came to inspire the Gentile world. But for the period in between the testaments, we must rely on the apocryphal writings of the books of Maccabees and historians like Josephus. After the Greeks under Alexander the Great had defeated and spoiled the Medo-Persian Empire which had defeated and spoiled the Babylonians which had taken Judah into captivity, Alexander died and his kingdom was divided among his generals, and Judas Maccabeus led the Jewish revolt that revitalized the nation. In the First Book of Maccabees, he appoints priests, but the nation must deal with all the various Hellenistic kings.
The high priesthood, according to the First Book of Maccabees I Maccabees 7:1-17
In the one hundred and fifty-first year (of the Greek kingdom) Demetrius the son of Seleucus (one of Alexander's generals who ruled Syria, from whence came Antiochus Epiphanes, who set up the first `abomination of desolation'), came out from Rome and went with a few men to a seaside town and became king there. And it happened when he sought to enter the royal city of his forefathers, that the troops seized Antiochus and Lysias, to bring them before him. When the matter was made known to him, he said, "Do not let me see their faces." So the soldiers killed them, and Demetrius took his seat upon his royal throne. And all the lawless and ungodly men of Israel came to him, and Alcimus who wished to be high priest was their leader. And they accused the people to the king, and said, "Judas and his brothers have destroyed all your Friends, and have scattered us out of our land. So now send a man in whom you have confidence, and let him go and see all the damage he has done to us and to the king's country, and let him punish them and all their helpers." And the king chose Bacchides, one of the king's Friends, who was governor of the country beyond the river, and was a great man in the kingdom, and faithful to the king. And he sent him and the ungodly Alcimus, and assured him of the high priesthood, and ordered him to take vengeance on the Israelites. And they set forth and came with a strong force to the land of Judah, and he sent messengers to Judas and his brothers, with a peaceful message, but in guile. But they paid no attention to their message, for they saw that they had come with a strong force. And a body of scribes gathered before Alcimus and Bacchides, to ask for justice. The foremost among the Israelites that asked for peace from them were the Hasideans, for they said, "A priest of the blood of Aaron has come with the forces, and he will not do us any wrong." And he talked peaceably with them, and made oath to them, saying, "We will not attempt to injure you or your friends." And they trusted him. And he arrested sixty of them and killed them in a single day, just as he said who wrote, "The flesh and blood of your saints they scattered around Jerusalem, and they had no one to bury them."
, is confirmed not by God but by the kings of the Seleucid Empire in Syria and the Ptolemaic Empire in Egypt which followed in the wake of the Alexandrian conquest. If we think about it, this should give us a good idea of why the Bible sort of stops here for a while. The important issue in the Bible is to whom authority is given. Give authority to an idol and you acquire the nature of the idol, because you'll do what you think the idol demands of you. Give authority to a king and you do what he demands, and if what he demands is what he thinks an idol demands of him, then the chain still leads from the idol to you.
I will attempt a brief overview of the history contained in this Book of Maccabees. Judas Maccabeus sends John the son of Hakkoz [note the name for later] and Jason the son of Eleazar to Rome, and Rome makes them an offer they can't refuse: If any nation declares war on Israel, Rome will fight with her, AND if any nation declares war on Rome, Israel must reciprocate, opening the door for Roman conscription when it becomes the Empire. Then Judas dies, and his brother Jonathan takes over as judge in Israel. Alexander Epiphanes, the son of Antiochus, takes over the throne of Ptolemais, and he and Demetrius, who had overthrown Antiochus, vie for the affections of Jonathan and the nation like suitors. Alexander sends Jonathan a purple robe and gold crown, and Demetrius eliminates his taxes and his authority over Jerusalem and declares that his territories in Samaria be subject to the high priest of Jerusalem. Jonathan sides with Alexander, and Alexander marries Cleopatra, thereby making a political alliance with her father Ptolemy in Egypt, and Alexander clothes Jonathan in purple as a Friend of the king and thereby lends his authority to Jonathan. Then Alexander is killed and Ptolemy dies, and Demetrius becomes king, and, significantly, chapter 11 verse 27 says, "He (Demetrius) confirmed him (Jonathan) in the high priesthood, and all the other honors he received before, and made him chief of his Best Friends." When Demetrius runs into trouble with Trypho, friend of the son of Alexander, he agrees to expel his garrison of the citadel from Jerusalem provided Jonathan sends him troops to help him out, and Jonathan dispatches 3000 men. But Demetrius is unfaithful despite the 3000 men killing 100,000 of his enemy, so his enemy Trypho confirms Jonathan in the high priesthood. Then Jonathan renews relations with the Romans and sends a letter recognizing the Spartans as kinsmen with Israel. Then Trypho has Jonathan killed because he wants to take over the diadem of Asia from Antiochus the son of Alexander for whom he had fought Demetrius, so Jonathan's and Judas' brother Simon assumes the high priesthood and makes an alliance with Demetrius against Trypho. Demetrius confirms Simon in the high priesthood, and "the Jews and their priests resolved that Simon should be their leader and high priest forever until a true prophet should appear (14:41)." Simon's son John takes over the high priesthood, and Simon's son-in-law kills him and John is the high priest.
This is the basic account of the high priesthood in the time between the two testaments- it's hardly an account of a recognition of the sovereignty of God, or of God's recognition of a high priest.
Eusebius, in his third century history of the church, is explicit in his opinion of the high priesthood in the time of Jesus.Eusebius
[From Williamson, G.A., tr. Eusebius, The History of the Church from Christ to Constantine, Augsburg Publishing House, Minneapolis, 1965:]
At this time Herod became the first foreigner to be king of the Jewish nation, fulfilling the words of Moses:
There shall not be wanting a ruler from Judah,
Nor a leader sprung from his loins,
Until he come for whom it is reserved.
Moses adds that he will be the expectation of the Gentiles. There could be no fulfillment of the prediction as long as they were free to live under rulers of their own race, beginning with Moses himself and continuing to Augustus's reign; in his time the first foreigner, Herod, was entrusted by the Romans with the government of the Jews. Josephus informs us that he was an Idumaean on his father's side and an Arab on his mother's; but according to Africanus - and he was no ordinary historian - the best authorities say that Antipater, Herod's father, was son of a certain Herod of Ascalon, one of the `temple-slaves' of Apollo. This Antipater was taken prisoner by Idumaean bandits when a small child, and remained in their hands because his father was too poor to put down his ransom. He was brought up in their ways and later befriended by Hyrcanus, the Jewish high priest. His son was the Herod of our Saviour's time.
When a man of such antecedents came to be king of the Jews, at the door already, in accordance with the prophecy, was the expectation of the Gentiles, for with him the succession from Moses of Jewish rulers and governors came to an end. Before their captivity and removal to Babylon they were ruled by kings, Saul and David being the first. Before the kings the government was in the hands of rulers known as judges, who came to the fore after Moses and his successor Joshua. After the return from Babylon they maintained continuously an aristocratic and oligarchic constitution, priests being in complete control. This lasted until Pompey, the Roman commander, arrived and besieged Jerusalem with the utmost vigour. He defiled the holy places, going right into the innermost sanctuary of the temple. The man who had continued the succession of his ancestors till that time and was both king and high priest, Aristobulus by name, he dispatched as a prisoner to Rome together with his children. To Hyrcanus, Aristobulus's brother, he transferred the high priesthood, and he made the whole Jewish nation from then on tributary to Rome. As soon as Hyrcanus, the last to whom fell the high-priestly succession, was taken prisoner by the Parthians, Herod, as I have said, was the first foreigner to be entrusted by the Roman senate and the Emperor Augustus with the Jewish nation. It was without question in his time that the advent of Christ occurred; and the expected salvation and calling of the Gentiles followed at once, in accordance with the prophecy.
As soon as the rulers and leaders from Judah - those of Jewish stock - came to an end, not surprisingly the high priesthood, which had passed in regular succession, generation by generation, was plunged into immediate confusion. For this, too, you have a reliable witness in Josephus, who informs us that when entrusted with the kingdom by the Romans Herod no longer appointed high priests of the ancient stock but assigned the office to nonentities, and that a policy similar to Herod's regarding the appointment of priests was adopted by his son Archelaus, and after him by the Romans, when they took over the government of Judaea. The same writer informs us that Herod actually locked up the sacred vestment of the high priest and kept it under his own seal, no longer permitting the high priests to have charge of it. His example was followed by his successor Archelaus, and after him by the Romans.
This continues until Herod, as Eusebius points out, is the first nonJew to rule the nation, appointed by the Romans.
So the nation that Jesus was born into was an unstable land with uninspired people who had been waiting for centuries for someone to come along and show that he was in charge, and of God. If you've read anything about the life and times of Christ you've no doubt come across the notion that the people were in a fever waiting for the Messiah, but the type of Messiah they expected was not Isaiah's Suffering Just One, the Messiah which Daniel and Isaiah state explicitly must die- they were, like the Judas portrayed by Harvey Keitel in The Last Temptation of Christ, waiting for a warrior-priest-king. So with all this in mind, perhaps it is understandable why Jesus is so hard on the men of the temple and so forgiving of ordinary sinners. Israel had lost her way. This is in no way an indication that "the Jews" are an evil people, but the Jewish leaders of the time were no better than the Godless Romans, and they should have known better. Being scribes and Pharisees their obligation to the nation was to recognize the "true prophet," but instead they were concerned with the best seats in the temple and to be called "rabbi" and the gold of the temple and all the things of which Jesus accused them.
With this understanding, we can turn to Professor P. Kyle McCarter, Jr., author of the chapter on the copper scroll in Understanding the Dead Sea Scrolls (op cit). In discussing the treasure of the scroll he links it to the temple treasury. "`In the cave that is next to the founta[in] belonging to the House of Hakkoz, dig six cubits. (There are) six bars of gold (p 238, quoting the scroll).'" Remember I asked you to note the reference to Hakkoz above. Professor McCarter makes the connection here:
It is interesting to find treasure hidden on the property of the House of Hakkoz (bet haqqos). Hakkoz was the name of a priestly family that traced its ancestry to the time of David (I Chronicles 24:10). The family was prominent at the time of the return of the Jews from exile in Babylon. Moreover, it remained important in the Hasmonean period: In 1 Maccabees 8:17, we are told that Judas Maccabeus appointed Eupolemus son of John son of Hakkoz (tou Akkos) ambassador to Rome.
The Hakkoz estate was in the Jordan Valley not far from Jericho. This is shown by the lists of peoples involved in the restoration of the walls and gates of Jerusalem under Nehemiah, where one contingent of the Hakkoz family (Nehemiah 3:4) works near the men of Jericho (Nehemiah 3:2) and immediately alongside the family of Hassenaah, whose estate was located a few miles north of Jericho, and the other contingent of the Hakkoz family (Nehemiah 3:21) works alongside "the men of the Kikkar," that is, "the men of the district of the Jordan (kikkar hayyarden)," the southern part of the Jordan Valley (Nehemiah 3:22). So the Hakkoz estate was located in the center of the region where most of the Copper Scroll hiding places are located.
Ezra 2:59-63 and Nehemiah 7:61-65 show that the members of the House of Hakkoz were unable to substantiate their genealogy after their return from exile, so that they were disqualified from priestly duties. We should expect that under such circumstances they would have been assigned some other task that supported the Temple operations but did not require the highest degree of genealogical purity. In Nehemiah 3:4 we learn that the leader of the family at the time of Nehemiah's reconstruction of the walls of Jerusalem was "Meremoth son of Uriah son of Hakkoz," and in Ezra 8:33 we are told that the Temple treasure, when it was brought back from Babylon, was entrusted to "the priest Meremoth son of Uriah." In short, the Hakkoz family were the treasurers of the Temple!
Keep in mind, please, that Professor McCarter believes the treasure in the copper scroll to be that of the second temple, not the first. He has, however, here found a link between the books of Ezra and Nehemiah and the copper scroll. That passage to which Professor McCarter alludes, I Chronicles 24:10, states that Hakkoz was of the house of Aaron and to him the seventh lot fell for order to the priesthood (there being 24 priestly orders, determining the time of year that they were to send family members to minister in the temple). Now, it is just a matter of how far back we wish to go. Professor McCarter goes back to the time of the restoration, but, since we are dealing with the family of Hakkoz, we can go back to Hakkoz himself if we wish, who lived in the time of David, BEFORE THE FIRST TEMPLE. Therefore, it is a matter of fitting the facts to the hypothesis that we differ in here. We prefer to go back a little further than Professor McCarter, to the time of Jeremiah, and if our hypothesis is correct, we can do it with the same reasoning as Professor McCarter uses.