Johanan (

Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

''Yôḥānān''), son of

Joiada Joiada ( ''Yōyāḏā‘'', "Yah knows") is a name found from the form "Jehoiada" in the Hebrew Bible and used alternately in English versions. Joiada is the fourth High Priest of Israel after the Babylonian captivity and his name is only found ...

, was the fifth high priest after the rebuilding of the

temple in Jerusalem The Temple in Jerusalem, or alternatively the Holy Temple (; , ), refers to the two now-destroyed 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 Jeru ...

by the Jews who had returned from the Babylonian captivity. His reign is estimated to have been from c. 410–371 BCE; he was succeeded by his son Jaddua. The Bible gives no details about his life. Johanan lived during the reigns of king Darius II of

Persia Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

(423 BC – 405 or 404 BC) and his son

Artaxerxes II Arses ( grc-gre, Ἄρσης; 445 – 359/8 BC), known by his regnal name Artaxerxes II ( peo, 𐎠𐎼𐎫𐎧𐏁𐏂 ; grc-gre, Ἀρταξέρξης), was King of Kings of the Achaemenid Empire from 405/4 BC to 358 BC. He was the son and suc ...

(404 BC – 358 BC), whose Achaemenid Empire included Judah as a province.

Murder in the Temple

Flavius Josephus Flavius Josephus (; grc-gre, Ἰώσηπος, ; 37 – 100) was a first-century Romano-Jewish historian and military leader, best known for '' The Jewish War'', who was born in Jerusalem—then part of Roman Judea—to a father of priestly ...

records that Johanan's brother Jesus was promised the high priesthood by

Bagoas Bagoas (Old Iranian: ''Bagāvahyā'', grc, Βαγώας ''Bagōas''; died 336 BCE) was a prominent Persian official who served as the vizier ( Chief Minister) of the Achaemenid Empire until his death. Biography Bagoas was a eunuch who later b ...

, general of Artaxerxes. Jesus got in a quarrel with Johanan in the

temple A temple (from the Latin ) is a building reserved for spiritual rituals and activities such as prayer and sacrifice. Religions which erect temples include Christianity (whose temples are typically called churches), Hinduism (whose temples ...

and Johanan killed him. Bagoas knew that Johanan had slain Jesus in the temple saying to him "Have you had the impudence to perpetrate murder 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, but was not accepted in the book of chronicles according to Nehemiah 12:23.

Archaeology

Letter from Elephantine papyri

Among the

Elephantine papyri The Elephantine Papyri and Ostraca consist of thousands of documents from the Egyptian border fortresses of Elephantine and Aswan, which yielded hundreds of papyri and ostraca in hieratic and demotic Egyptian, Aramaic, Koine Greek, Latin and Co ...

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

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Medit ...

, a letter was found in which Johanan is mentioned. The letter is dated "''the 20th of Marshewan, 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, the governor of Judah, and is a request for the rebuilding of a Jewish temple at Elephantine, which was destroyed by Egyptian pagans. The letter includes the following passage:

"(...) 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

Persian period Yehud, also known as Yehud Medinata or Yehud Medinta (), was an administrative province of the Achaemenid Persian Empire in the region of Judea that functioned as a self-governing region under its local Jewish population. The province was a part ...

, Dan Barag and other scholars have identified the Hebrew phrase ("''Yoḥanan 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 Because it is generally dated between 350 BCE and

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

's conquest of Persia, around 333 BCE,Fried, Lisbeth S.,
A silver coin of Yohanan Hakkôhen
', Transeuphratène 26 (2003) pp. 67, 85
pdf
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. (1921–2012) was the Hancock Professor of Hebrew and Other Oriental Languages Emeritus at Harvard University, notable for his work in the interpretation of the Dead Sea Scrolls, his 1973 ''magnum opus'' ''Canaanite Myth and ...

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, is a scribal or typographical error where a letter or group of letters that should be written twice is written once. It is not to be confused with haplology, w ...

. 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.

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