The Reinstated Priests - Quick Facts
Once the Maccabean leader John Horkinus reinstates the priests, they make last-minute changes to the canon
Their stories are about minimizing damage from populist editing
When: around 110 BCE
Where: Jerusalem
Greatest Works: Moses murders thousands of Hebrews, Shemaya prevents civil war
Traits: bitter, subtle, precise
Scholarly Name: Unidentified
Who were the Reinstated Priests?
After a 30-year-long civil war that turned into a revolutionary war of independence, the Maccabees were finally able to officially topple the establishment priests (kohanim) in 140 BCE. They then replaced them with a new group of clerics, the Levites. The new Maccabean-led Hebrew state reversed almost every rule and law the priests had established in the preceding centuries, and parts of the new regime even persecuted the topmost priests, many of whom were slaughtered, in self-exile or hiding in caves.
At that time, the Hebrew Bible was massively edited to break its connection to the priests (kohanim) and relegate and even disenfranchise them when possible.
But around 140 BCE, the Maccabean leader John Horkinus decided to break his alliance with the populist political Hebrew factions, and reinstate the deposed priests (kohanim) in the Jerusalem temple. Once they returned to power, they made several additions to the Hebrew Bible, subtly making their enemies look bad. Wherever their enemies added to the Hebrew Bible a story that made them look good, the reinstated priests added something to show people that the populists were violent and prone to civil begin civil wars.
Listen everywhere!
