EBook For The Making of the Tabernacle and the Construction of Priestly Hegemony 1st Edition By Prof Nathan MacDonald

EBook For The Making of the Tabernacle and the Construction of Priestly Hegemony 1st Edition By Prof Nathan MacDonald

How did the high priests of Jerusalem go from being religious helpers in the sixth century BCE to becoming powerful political leaders by the third or second century BCE? The Making of the Tabernacle and the Construction of Priestly Hegemony looks at how the priesthood gained power by studying important religious texts, like the descriptions of the tabernacle and the instructions for the ordination ritual found in the Bible’s Exodus and Leviticus. Even though many modern readers find these texts boring or repetitive, they were very important to early readers, as shown by the fact that they survive in four different versions.

By studying how these texts were written and changed over time, we can understand how they influenced the way people saw the power of the priests during the Persian and early Hellenistic periods. The priesthood’s role in society was more complex than people have thought, with different groups like artisans, community leaders, Levites, and women all playing a part in shaping society. The ritual for becoming a priest also changed during the Persian period, with different versions of it appearing as the high priests’ roles and relationships with other groups were worked out.