How All Kohanim Became Sons of Aaron

I wish to thank the editors of this website for their extremely helpful suggestions and contributions to this piece.

The term kohen, Hebrew for “priest,” is also used about a person who is clearly not of the Aaronide lineage. Examples are Melchizedek, king of Salem (Gen 14:18), Egyptian priests (Gen 41:45, 47:22), Midianite priests (Exod 2:16), and even Israel as a whole (Exod 19:6).

Even after the destruction of the Second Temple, priesthood remained a pivotal concept in Jewish thought. The Mishnah (redacted ca. 220 C.E.) places priestly ritual and authority front and center in its legal and philosophical discourses, and non-rabbinic Jews of the same era maintained a place of honor for individuals claiming priestly descent. See Matthew Grey, “Jewish Priests and the Social History of Post-70 Palestine” (PhD diss., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2011).

David Carr notes that the formation of the Hebrew Scriptures are characterized by features that show their evolving function within a powerful priestly/ritual context: Carr, The Formation of the Hebrew Bible: A New Reconstruction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 198–201, 214, 217.

The biblical text as we have it seems to be combining at least two origin stories in Exodus, the story of YHWH saving the Israelites from Egyptian bondage, and the story of YHWH finding Israel in the wilderness. See discussion in David Frankel, “Exodus: Not the Only Tradition about Israel’s Past,” TheTorah.com (2015). It seems likely that Aaron was not originally part of both.

I have discussed this issue in greater detail in the first chapter of my monograph The Levites and the Boundaries of Israelite Identity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017).

Even without using the term, various texts describe heads of families, elder siblings, village elders, warlords, local “holy men” and shamanic figures, prophets, and even Israelite kings engaging in ritual activity that could loosely qualify as “priestly.” On Shamanism in early Israelite religion, see Robert D. Miller, “Shamanism in Early Israel,” Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes 101 (2011): 309–42.

See Merlin D. Rehm, “Levites and Priests,” Anchor Bible Dictionary 4:297–310. Editor’s note: For the “rediscovery” of this idea by a Chareidi yeshiva scholar, see the pseudonymous piece, A. Avreich, “The Kohanim the Levi’im,” TheTorah.com (2013).

This fits with the image of Moses and Aaron as a unit (1 Sam 12:8, Ps 77:21, 105:26, 106:16), the joint leaders of the exodus, both sent by God. Micah 6:4 references them as a unit of three leaders, including Miriam. The Pentateuch shares this image, though it describes a clear hierarchy, with Moses at the pinnacle.

See my discussion of Mushite priests in Mark Leuchter, “Who Were the Levites?,” TheTorah.com (2017).

Editor’s note: For one possible reconstruction, connecting this passage with another account of Levitical rebellion, namely the Korah story in Numbers, see Ely Levine, “The Historical Circumstances that Inspired the Korah Narrative,” TheTorah.com (2015).

The verse here reads “Ahimelech son of Abiathar” though from other passages it appears this is backwards and it is Abiathar son of Ahimelech. This Ahimelech is described as a scion of the priests of Nob, the only survivor of the massacre perpetrated by King Saul:

^{שמואל א כב:כ} וַיִּמָּלֵט בֵּן אֶחָד לַאֲחִימֶלֶךְ בֶּן אֲחִטוּב וּשְׁמוֹ אֶבְיָתָר וַיִּבְרַח אַחֲרֵי דָוִד.

^{1 Sam 22:20} But one son of Ahimelech son of Ahitub escaped—his name was Abiathar—and he fled to David.

Abiathar brings with him the ephod, a cultic divination item, which David makes use of a number of times (1 Sam 23:6–12, 1 Sam 30:7–8).

For an overview and critique of this view, see Saul M. Olyan, “Zadok’s Origins and the Tribal Politics of David,” Journal of Biblical Literature 101 (1982): 177–179.

Olyan, “Zadok’s Origins,” 185–190. The Chronicler’s genealogical information may not reflect historically accurate events or relations, but it presupposes certain surviving traditions from earlier eras that his audience would have found acceptable or familiar

Notably, 1 Chr 5:40 gives him a different son, Jehozadak, and makes no mention of Ezra.

Joseph P. Blenkinsopp, Ezra-Nehemiah, Old Testament Library (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1988), 136. Some scholars date Ezra to Artaxerxes II (404–358 B.C.E.), which would only make the historicity of this claim stronger. For an overview of Persian History, and where biblical texts and Jewish history fit into this context, see Zev Farber, “The 220-Year History of the Achaemenid Persian Empire,” TheTorah.com (2017).

If he did not, it is difficult to imagine that a Second Temple period priestly writer (who most likely stands behind these verses) would assign such heritage to him in so detailed a manner, stylized or not.

Joachim Schaper, Priester und Leviten im achämenidischen Juda, Forschungen zum Alten Testament (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2000), 163–164; Gabriele Boccaccini, Roots of Rabbinic Judaism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), 63–68.

While my own preference is to see the Zadokites as an Aaronide clan already in David’s day, it remains possible that the Zadokite adoption of Aaron as a patron saint took place among Zadok’s heirs well after his lifetime, as the Judahite monarchy developed its infrastructure in the generations following David and Solomon. However, for reasons that will have to wait for another piece, this must have taken place before the second half of the 8^th century B.C.E.

Yigal Levin, “Who was the Chronicler’s Audience? A Hint from his Genealogies,” Journal of Biblical Literature 122 (2003) 230-234. The classic study on the sociological and political fluidity of genealogies is that of Robert R. Wilson, Genealogy and History in the Biblical World (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977).

Editor’s note: See discussion in, Zev Farber, “Moses’ Father-in-Law: Midianite or Kenite?,” TheTorah.com (2015).

Such adjustments are especially common with priest-saint groups, i.e., clans or families that function as ritual specialists with numinous, heavenly power. Jeremy M. Hutton, “The Levitical Diaspora (I): A Sociological Comparison with Morocco’s Ahansal,” in Exploring the Longue Durée, ed. J. David Schloen (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2009), 227–228.

Editor’s note: See discussion in Isaac Sassoon, “Moses, Aaron, and Miriam: Were They Siblings?,” TheTorah.com (2015).

This also happens on the level of textual production, as some texts (representing the interests of some communities of writers) assume features of earlier traditions. A tale or legend about Person A could take on the features of earlier lore regarding Person B, presenting those features as having always been part of the lore of Person A. The most obvious example of this is the development of the David and Goliath story in 1 Samuel 17 from a relatively obscure anecdote about how Elazar ben Yaari killed Goliath the Gittite (2 Sam 21:19). For more on this example, see Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman, David and Solomon (New York: Free Press, 2006), 57, 195–196. For another example of this process involving the patriarch Jacob, see Zev Farber, “Jerubaal, Jacob and the Battle for Shechem: A Tradition History,” Journal of Hebrew Scriptures 13 (2013): Article 12.

In this piece, I am only discussing how the Aaronide family came to dominate other priestly families. A discussion of the origins of the Aaronides and their founding father require a separate treatment.

This is evident in textual sources either from or reflecting on the events of ca. 522–515 B.C.E. See Hag 1:1; Zech 3:8; 4:6-10; Ezra 2:2; Neh 7:7.