Era 6 · The First Kings1 Chronicles
Investigation: Priestly Courses, Singers and Their Afterlife
From 1 Chronicles 24 to Luke 1 and synagogue inscriptions
Then and Later
The priestly courses, then and later
- Chronicles24 courses by lot Attributed to David.
- 2nd–1st c. BCQumran Mishmarot Calendars tracking which course served each week.
- 1st c. ADZechariah "Of the course of Abia."
- 1st c. ADJosephus Says the courses continued in his day (Life 2; Antiquities 7.365–366).
- 3rd–7th c. ADInscriptions Caesarea, Kissufim, Yemen: lists of the courses and their Galilean towns.
- Byzantine periodPiyyutim Liturgical poems recall the courses and their towns.
The Caesarea fragments (found in 1962 and later) list courses with their places of residence in Galilee, such as "the seventeenth course, Hezir, Mamliah," and "the eighteenth, Happizzez, Nazareth." They are about a thousand years after David and show how a priestly memory survived the temple's destruction.
What the evidence shows
- Late antique inscriptions list the 24 priestly courses.Source: G. A. Rendsburg, Sacred Space in Judaism after the Temple (priestly-course inscriptions) ↗
- The Caesarea inscription names Nazareth as a course's town.
Continue the journey
Journey of a Passage1 Chronicles 24:7–18: The courses of the priests, in stoneThe order of the twenty-four priestly courses is stable in the witnesses.More from this lesson
Why this matters to the rest of Scripture
- Zechariah.