M. Grossman

Abstract: "Priesthood as Authority: Interpretive Competition in First-Century Judaism and Christianity"

Maxine L. Grossman

Priestly status was an important source of religious or communal authority for first-century Judaism and Christianity, but it was also a contested and multivalent one. Communities with competing interests in the Hebrew scriptures--and with an interest in underlining their own claims with respect to those texts and their history--made use of the diverse images of the Israelite priesthood to confirm those claims. A reading of images of priesthood in the Dead Sea Scrolls and several New Testament texts provides insight into first-century Jewish and Christian understandings of authority and history.

Images of priests and priesthood might take any of several forms in these texts. Practical descriptions of priests as ritual experts and participants in society are common in the literature. So are descriptions of priests as community leaders or as "characters" in narrative accounts. Historical or traditional descriptions of the priesthood might include references to the priesthood of Levi, Aaron, and Zadok, as well as descriptions of the patriarchs in priestly roles. And idealized or metaphorical priesthoods, such as the presentation of Jesus as a High Priest after the order of Melchizedek, also have significant rhetorical power.

An analysis of competing claims to Israelite priesthood does not reveal a simple binary between metaphorical (Christian) readings and historical (Jewish) ones. In fact, both the scrolls and the New Testament contain appeals to priestly authority that work on a number of levels at once. Close readings of five passages (Acts 6:7-8:1, Acts 19:11-20, Hebrews 7, CD 3.18-4.11, and CD 6.11-14) focus on the theme of transitions in, and transformations of, priestly power in the texts. Together, these readings suggest that descriptions of priesthood and references to priests serve as a significant means of making claims to authority, identity, and authenticity in the texts of first-century Judaism and Christianity.

(c) 2001
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