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ALICE HUNT, Missing Priests: The Zadokites in Tradition and History (Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies 452; London/New York: Clark, 2006). Pp. xiv + 218. $120.
The paucity of direct mention of the "descendants of Zadok" (the Zadokite priestly line) in the biblical texts is striking. It leads Alice Hunt to iconoclastic conclusions in this exhaustive study. She shows that if one eschews all extrapolation and inference for fear of perpetuating biased assumptions, one finds little more about the Zadokites in the biblical record than a few memories of Zadok himself.
There is no reason to believe that Zadokites presided at the temple in the monarchic period, H. argues, nor any warrants to think that they (re)gained control in the postexilic era. The commonplace notion of Zadokite preeminence at the time of Haggai, Zechariah, and Third Isaiah is unfounded, and no scriptural passage ever identifies Ezra or any other major priest of subsequent decades as a Zadokite. The Zadokites do not even appear in extrabiblical writers such as Josephus. Some Dead Sea Scrolls mention the group, but the Qumran covenanters never regarded themselves as a Zadokite community.
Who, then, were the Zadokites? According to H., they appear on the scene very late...