Jonathan Maccabeus Becomes High Priest (152 BC)

The event

Judas Maccabeus died in battle against Seleucid forces in 160 BC, and leadership of the revolt passed to his brother Jonathan, who spent the following years skillfully exploiting instability within the Seleucid royal house to win ever-greater concessions for Judea.

In 152 BC, one rival claimant to the Seleucid throne, eager for Jonathan's support, appointed him high priest of Israel — the first Hasmonean, and the first man in Jewish memory to hold that office outside the traditional line descended from Aaron through Zadok, Solomon's priest (1 Kings 2:35).

However politically shrewd, the appointment left a lasting wound. Many devout Jews regarded a non-Zadokite high priest as illegitimate regardless of Jonathan's real zeal for the law, and many scholars connect this very controversy to the Essene community's withdrawal to Qumran, whose scrolls bitterly denounce a "Wicked Priest" often identified with Jonathan or his brother Simon. It is a sobering reminder that even leaders genuinely raised up by God to accomplish real deliverance, as the Maccabees plainly were, can make compromises whose consequences ripple for generations.

Jonathan was murdered through Seleucid treachery in 143 BC, and leadership fell to the last surviving brother, Simon, who would soon achieve full political independence for Judea.

Dating

Jonathan's appointment as high priest in 152 BC and his death in 143 BC are both dated from the detailed narrative of 1 Maccabees, cross-checked against Seleucid regnal records. The identification of Qumran's 'Wicked Priest' with Jonathan or Simon is a widely held scholarly view, not a certainty, since the Dead Sea Scrolls never name him explicitly.

Scripture references

• 1 Kings 2:35

Other witnesses

• 1 Maccabees 9:23-31
• 1 Maccabees 10:15-21
• 1 Maccabees 12:39-53