Prophetic oracles in the books of Isaiah and Ezekiel evidence tensions about the Jerusalem temple and its priesthood in Persian Yehud. MacDonald's Priestly Rule challenges the scholarly consensus about how these texts relate to each other. He demonstrates how important written prophetic oracles were in the early Jewish community and disputes the dominance of a Zadokite priestly family in the Second Temple period.

Nathan MacDonald , University of Cambridge and St John's College, Cambridge, United Kingdom.

Whilst prophetic oracles in late prophetic books evidence tensions about the Jerusalem temple and its priesthood, MacDonald demonstrates that the relationships between prophetic oracles have been incorrectly appraised. Employing an interpretative method attentive to issues of redaction and inner-biblical interpretation, MacDonald show that Ezekiel 44 is a polemical response to Isaiah 56, and not the reverse as is typically assumed. This has significant consequences for the dating of Ezekiel 44 and for its relationship to other biblical texts, especially Pentateuchal texts from Leviticus and Numbers. Since Ezekiel 44 has been a crucial chapter in understanding the historical development of the priesthood, MacDonald's arguments affect our understanding of the origins of the distinction between Levites and priests, and the claims that a Zadokite priestly sept dominated the Second Temple hierarchy.

Auteur

Nathan MacDonald, University of Cambridge and St John's College, Cambridge, United Kingdom.