Johanan (), son of Joiada, was the fifth High Priest of the

Temple in Jerusalem The Temple in Jerusalem, or alternatively the Holy Temple (; , ), refers to the two religious structures that served as the central places of worship for Israelites and Jews on the modern-day Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem. Accord ...

after it was rebuilt after the end of the

Babylonian captivity The Babylonian captivity or Babylonian exile was the period in Jewish history during which a large number of Judeans from the ancient Kingdom of Judah were forcibly relocated to Babylonia by the Neo-Babylonian Empire. The deportations occurred ...

. His reign is estimated to have been from c. 410–371 BCE; he was succeeded by his son Jaddua. The

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
. '' Yehud Medinata Yehud Medinata, also called Yehud Medinta ( ) or simply Yehud, was an autonomous province of the Achaemenid Empire. Located in Judea, the territory was distinctly Jews, Jewish, with the High Priest of Israel emerging as a central religious and ...

in the

Achaemenid Empire The Achaemenid Empire or Achaemenian Empire, also known as the Persian Empire or First Persian Empire (; , , ), was an Iranian peoples, Iranian empire founded by Cyrus the Great of the Achaemenid dynasty in 550 BC. Based in modern-day Iran, i ...

during the reigns of emperors

Darius II Darius II ( ; ), also known by his given name Ochus ( ), was King of Kings of the Achaemenid Empire from 423 BC to 405 or 404 BC. Following the death of Artaxerxes I, in 424 BC or 423 BC, there was a struggle for power between his sons. The vic ...

(423–405 or 404 BCE) and his son

Artaxerxes II Arses (; 445 – 359/8 BC), known by his regnal name Artaxerxes II ( ; ), was King of Kings of the Achaemenid Empire from 405/4 BC to 358 BC. He was the son and successor of Darius II () and his mother was Parysatis. Soon after his accession, Ar ...

(404–358 BCE).

Murder in the Temple

Josephus Flavius Josephus (; , ; ), born Yosef ben Mattityahu (), was a Roman–Jewish historian and military leader. Best known for writing '' The Jewish War'', he was born in Jerusalem—then part of the Roman province of Judea—to a father of pr ...

records that Johanan's brother Joshua was promised the high priesthood by Bagoas, general of Artaxerxes. Joshua got into a quarrel with Johanan in the

temple A temple (from the Latin ) is a place of worship, a building used for spiritual rituals and activities such as prayer and sacrifice. By convention, the specially built places of worship of some religions are commonly called "temples" in Engli ...

, and Johanan killed him. Bagoas knew that Johanan had slain Joshua in the temple, saying to him, "Have you had the impudence to perpetrate

murder Murder is the unlawful killing of another human without justification (jurisprudence), justification or valid excuse (legal), excuse committed with the necessary Intention (criminal law), intention as defined by the law in a specific jurisd ...

in the temple."''Antiquities'' xi. 7.1, Josephus
/ref> Bagoas was forbidden to enter the temple, but he entered anyway saying "Am not I purer than he that was slain in the temple?" Bagoas had not seen such a savage crime and responded by commanding the Persians to punish the Jews for seven years. His son Jaddua eventually took over the position when Johanan died, as briefly mentioned by Josephus and is mentioned in the book of Nehemiah 12:22.

Archaeology

Letter from Elephantine papyri

Among the

Elephantine papyri and ostraca The Elephantine Papyri and Ostraca consist of thousands of documents from the Egyptian border fortresses of Elephantine and Aswan, which yielded hundreds of Papyrus, papyri and ostracon, ostraca in hieratic and Demotic (Egyptian), demotic Egyptia ...

, a collection of 5th century BCE manuscripts from the Jewish community at

Elephantine Elephantine ( ; ; ; ''Elephantíne''; , ) is an island on the Nile, forming part of the city of Aswan in Upper Egypt. The archaeological site, archaeological digs on the island became a World Heritage Site in 1979, along with other examples of ...

Achaemenid Egypt The history of Persian Egypt refers to the two periods when ancient Egypt was controlled by the Achaemenid Empire: * Twenty-seventh Dynasty of Egypt (525–404 BC), established by the first Achaemenid conquest of Egypt. * Thirty-first Dynasty ...

, a letter was found in which Johanan is mentioned. The letter is dated "the 20th of Marcheshvan, year 17 of king Darius", which corresponds to 407 BCE.Pritchard, James B. ed., ''Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament, Princeton University Press, third edition with supplement 1969'', p. 492 It is addressed to Bagoas, governor of Yehuda Medinata, and is a request for the rebuilding of the temple to

Yahweh Yahweh was an Ancient Semitic religion, ancient Semitic deity of Weather god, weather and List of war deities, war in the History of the ancient Levant, ancient Levant, the national god of the kingdoms of Kingdom of Judah, Judah and Kingdom ...

at Elephantine; Egyptians had destroyed the previous one. "We have also sent a letter before now, when this evil was done to us, to our lord and to the high priest Johanan and his colleagues, the priests in Jerusalem and to Ostanes, the brother of Anani and the nobles of the Jews, Never a letter have they sent to us." It has been suggested that the Anani that is referred to here might be the same as in 1 Chronicles 3:24.

Yohanan coin

On a silver coin from the late Achaemenid Empire, Dan Barag and other scholars have identified the Hebrew phrase ("''Yoḥānān the priest''").Betlyon, John Wilson,
The Provincial Government of Persian Period Judea and the Yehud Coins
''Journal of Biblical Literature'' Vol. 105, No. 4 (Dec., 1986), pp. 639–642 This coin is a part of the

Yehud coinage The Yehud coinage is a series of small silver coins bearing the Aramaic language, Aramaic inscription ''Yehud''. They derive their name from the inscription YHD (𐤉𐤄𐤃), "Yehud", the Aramaic name of the Achaemenid Empire, Achaemenid Persi ...

. Because it is generally dated between 350 BCE and

Alexander the Great Alexander III of Macedon (; 20/21 July 356 BC – 10/11 June 323 BC), most commonly known as Alexander the Great, was a king of the Ancient Greece, ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia (ancient kingdom), Macedon. He succeeded his father Philip ...

's conquest of Persia around 333 BCE,Fried, Lisbeth S.,
A silver coin of Yohanan Hakkôhen
', Transeuphratène 26 (2003) pp. 67, 85 the coin is usually attributed to a second high priest called Johanan, who is not mentioned in the Bible. Thus, the coin seems to lend support to the hypothesis by

Frank Moore Cross Frank Moore Cross Jr. (July 13, 1921 – October 16, 2012) was the Hancock Professor of Hebrew and Other Oriental Languages at Harvard University, notable for his work in the interpretation of the Dead Sea Scrolls, his 1973 '' magnum opus'' ''Ca ...

from 1975 that there were two subsequent father/son pairs of high priests called Johanan and Jaddua, the latter pair of which was accidentally omitted from the biblical text because of

haplography Haplography (from Greek: haplo- 'single' + -graphy 'writing'), also known as lipography (from Greek: lip- from leipein 'to leave/to omit' + -graphy 'writing'), is a scribal error, scribal or typographical error where a letter or group of letters th ...

. However, Lisbeth Fried has challenged this late dating of the coin and has suggested a date between 378 and 368 BCE. She believes that the coin refers to the same individual as the one mentioned in Josephus and Nehemiah, and that it is unnecessary to propose a second Johanan. According to the research published in 2023, the Johanan coin (Yehud coin Type 25) belongs to the "Series with facing head/owl" Types 24 to 28 (YHD-24 to YHD-28). Thus, this coin comes in the middle of the coinage belonging to the Macedonian period.

Name

There is dispute over his actual name. Neh 12:11 lists him as Jonathan, while 12:22 mentions Joiada's successor as Johanan. Josephus also lists him as Johanan (John). According to the Anchor Bible Dictionary there is also a dispute regarding the genealogy of Johanan. Neh 12:10–11 lists Johanan as the grandson of Eliashib while Neh 12:23 identifies him as the son of Eliashib. "Although it is possible that Heb ''ben'' is to be translated as 'grandson' in Neh 12:23; cf. NEB, JB)" There is yet to be extrabiblical proof that a man named Jonathan ever served as high priest. This has led many to believe that the biblical text has a copy mistake.''From Joshua To Caiaphas: High Priests after the Exile'' 54–63, James Vander Kam

Patrilineal Ancestry

References

{{High Priests of Judaism 5th-century BCE high priests of Israel 4th-century BCE high priests of Israel Year of death unknown Year of birth unknown