Talk:Kohen

Way too much detail. Way too little modern scholarship. I will get to it when I get back. As for the title, why not something in English--priest or Jewish priesthood come to mind. Danny

Absolutely! This data dump from the 1906 Jewish Encyclopaedia is a mere beginning. I already have trimmed out about 25% of the original text, as well as many of the detailed references that would be useless to the average Wikipedia reader. But much (much!) more work needs to be done. The article, as it stands, is only the framework for the much better article that will evolve over the next few weeks here. RK

I have made more changes and addition. I have added a proposed new structure for the entry. Any comments or suggestions? I have also added some material in these sections, and have tried to convey the Orthodox, Conservative and Reform points of view. The original material is still below, which can be used as the source for new writing, but we shoudl try to rely on more modern writing and scholarship. RK 09:57 Aug 18, 2002 (PDT)

I'm not sure I agree with the last edit. The topic is about priests and Ezra, apparently, was giving a bit on the history of the legend. Whether it's 'conflicting' would seem very much a matter of which synagogue you attend, doesn't it? --dgd

Actually, no. The point wasn't that the legends conflict, though they do. The problem was the presentation of legend as historical fact, which it is not. With the very existence of certain biblical figures questioned by most scholars (and this includes figures such as Abraham, Melchizedek, Jacob, and Esau, all mentioned here as historical personages), the presentation of external mythologies as fact is certainly neither a historically sound nor an NPOV position. Besides, even internally within the relevant religious literature, these positions can be challenged. Essentially, what it amounted to was a particular fundamentalist interpretation of texts, and not even a very sound one at that. Danny

Even for somebody who is not prepared to accept the Torah as divine, the historical accuracy of the Torah has not been seriously questioned. Any questions about its accuracy are pure conjecture. Therefore treating the Torah as an accurate account of the past is perfectly legitimate. In addition, I have very little knowledge of biblical criticism and do not consider it my responsibility to have that knowledge. If you wish to question the accuracy of the Torah it is your responsibility to come up with some basis.

insertion here/ Danny beat me to the edit...

How much historical fact can you have with a religion that has 'always' been in contention with itself and the world around it? How many legends are there? How many different conflicting stories? At what point do the traditions/legends/mythology harmonize? I ask this because, though I'm not a biblical scholar, I can appreciate the value of reading different translations (read: interpretaions) of the same text. Or set up a Kohen: Priest Legend One/ Kohen: Priest Legend Two eventually the legends will run out and then you'll be able to work on the 'globals' that you can agree upon. --dgd

Do you state that as fact? Please tell me you are kidding. It has been questioned, challenged, disproven. The Bible is not a historical document. Period. Treating the Bible as an accurate account of the past is in no way legitimate. It is not a question of criticism. It is a question of history and archeology. Where would you like me to begin? On the other hand, if you want to assert that a 2,500 year old religious text is historically accurate, it seems to me that the burden of proof lies with you. Danny

Begin wherever you like and back it up with proofs that I can check for myself. I can only tell you what I was taught, and I was taught to assume that the Torah is literally true unless I know differently, and even then to not be so sure. You obviously come from a very different background. EW

Danny, I have to agree with Ezra here. Just who are you and what are your qualifications here? While it is a fact that the Bible has been "questioned" and "challenged", it has never, NEVER been disproven. On the contrary, both archeology and an examination of contemporary, non-Jewish, texts (ie: Egyptian, Sumerian, Greek and Roman histories, etc.) have verified the existence of the places and people mentioned as well as confirmed many of the actions ascribed to them. Most of the historical information in the Bible is accepted by an overwhelming majority of scholars in all fields as being reliably accurate. Period.

If you have knowledge of any instance where the history portayed in the Bible has been authoritatively disproven as you say, please list it here, in specific detail, with proofs, and refrain from making such ridiculously broad and obviously uninformed statements. William

P.S. I cannot refute that there are some Jews who consider that Jesus was pious because, then you will tell me that you do. I only know that the primary source for somebody who might be Jesus is a story that was censored out of the Talmud that talks about Rabbi Yehoshua ben Perachya pushed away his student who some say was Jesus with both hands when he should have pushed him away with only one hand. That does not sound to me like a pious person.

Danny: I have replaced the page as it was before. Feel free to mark up what I have put there with your point of view.

---

Ezra, you are starting by making an assumption about what I believe then tearing it down. You'd be better off investing your energies elsewhere, because your assumption is incorrect. I never use the word pious to describe anyone. Furthermore, it is not my job here to teach you ancient Near Eastern history, Semitic languages, and whatnot. You might want to look at some basic books on the subject of who wrote the Bible. Also, aggadata is just that: aggadata. It should not be taken for history. Finally, you have no idea about my background, so please cut the yeshivishe speculation to a minimum. In the meanwhile, I will be wary of any assertions you make based on some uniformed literalist reading of the Bible, Talmud, etc. Danny

Children of kohen and convert

"Any children born of the union are legitimate." (Referring to a union of a Kohen with a female convert)

If by "legitimate" you mean "Kohen," the article should say so. I think the child is legitimate in the sense that he is not mamzer, but he still is not a legitimate Kohen. To be sure, I need to consult my Orthodox Rabbi. - Nahum 02:05 28 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Cohen as surname

A question I feel that this article should answer:

Is a person with the last name of "Cohen" (or a variant I've encountered like "Kohen" or "Coen") necessarily one of the Kohenim? If not, how did this title lose some of its meaning to allow this measure of looseness? -- llywrch 00:52, 18 Mar 2004 (UTC)

By no means does the Cohen name correllate fully with Cohen-ship. For example, if a Cohen marries out his son is a non-Cohen non-Jew, while his last name is Cohen. Moreover, if this Cohen now converts to Judaism, he will be a non-Cohen Cohen, i.e. he will receive none of the Cohen privileges (such as getting called up first for the Torah reading) but he will be called Cohen! There are many more examples, accounting for the many people called Cohen who are not. On the other hand, many Cohanim have adopted different names (Cowan comes to mind), especially after moving countries. Jfdwolff 20:48, 18 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Whatever Danny's beliefs about the Bible and "modern scholarship", I would recommend him to take a less contrarian look at the historicity of the Bible. Some books of it may seem more historical than others. Specifically, the books of Ezra and Nehemia are as historical as you can get for any book. They are essentially personal autobiographies of the people in question, detailing the things that they have done during the time of the rebuilding of the Second Temple. Mind you, that Temple really was rebuilt, and really under those same Persian rulers mentioned in the Bible. No matter how militantly opposed you may be to the Christian or Jewish faith, ignoring historical evidence that happens to be in the Bible offhand is too POV. Btw, our best sources on let's say, history of Israel after seventh century and the Assyrian invasions also come directly from the Bible and are accepted by majority of scholars. In fact, what you read in the history textbook about it is just rephrased First and Second Kings and Isaiah/Jeremiah with a modicum of modern archeological research which is as usual far inferior in the quality of info yielded to the actual contemporary written sources, which just happen to have been canonized by the Jews. And I would bet that if Ezra, let's say, were not part of the canon, being just a historical writing like that of Thucydides, you would not have been nearly as critical of it. So keep an open mind, do some Bible research, and stop making too sweeping statements. Peace. Watcher 12:41, 28 May 2004 (UTC)

About the details part. I faintly recall that "Wikipedia is not paper". The more details we will incorporate, the easier it will be to do research on the topic, whether on the topic of modern scholarship or on the topic of Jewish law. So why such reluctance to incorporate such details? It is always possible to put them into additional articles linked from the page. The same, of course, is true for the modern scholarship also. Watcher 12:44, 28 May 2004 (UTC)

Does anyone know if Kasdan/Kasdin/Kasden derives its origins from the same kaf-shin-daled-nun acronym that gives us Kagedan?

Sacerdoti

Sacerdoti, from Sacerdos, is a native Latin word and has nothing to do with Kohen. 71.116.217.242 19:53, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Check my work for factual accuracy

I just merged two mutually redundant subsections into "Post-Temple Theology and Practice", but since I am not a Judaic theologian the result needs checking for currency and factual accuracy. I did try to keep the basic information the same and only alter the literary presentation, but I can't be certain of the result. DocWatson42 04:58, 17 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Did a fairly major reworking of the the formatting, though not of the content in the (sub)sections. Hopefully this is more in line with the Manual of Style.  :-/ DocWatson42 05:20, 17 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Move of the 1906 material

I have moved the material from the 1906 Jewish encyclopedia to Kohen/1906, where it can be consulted for incorporation. The main article looked messy, prohibitive to edit, and perhaps this makes it better. Of course the 1906 material needs to be merged (for example, the Kohen Gadol, High Priest, is not covered now), and other research needs to be done. There are some factual mistakes (Terumah rarely given to Kohanim nowadays due to uncertainty of their status) and some repitition (Melchizedek is mentioned twice). I've done some further copyedit, but this article still needs a fair bit of attention before it approaches being truly encyclopedic... JFW | T@lk 14:32, 18 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Kohen Gadol article

I think we should put all the high priest stuff in a separate article, called Kohen Gadol (capitalize because it's a title of a job). We could place a redirect at High Priest, but let's use the Hebrew term to be consistant with this article and becuase the Jews don't like the non Jewish names. HereToHelp 22:49, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Nah, we just need to improve this article. It contains a lot of old speculative material from 1906. JFW | T@lk 04:14, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

Hands

The picture of the hands appears wrong - the thumb should be out (not touching the index finger). It's possible the hands pictured are in the corect position and the angle is simply not condusive to showing this fact, but either way I feel that a new picture is probably in order.

Yes, the photo of the hands is wrong. The thumbs should be outstretched and touching to form three spaces to symolize the hebrew letter shin. --Marty Goldberg 22:55, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

The hands are wrong but should not be touching in any case. --Shuki 14:00, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Now that I really look at it, this is really all wrong. It's as if the photgrapher held his palms face up with arms crossed to try to get the same effect, but unfortunately, doesn't come close. Another picture should be found, not the previous grey version either.

--Shuki 22:52, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

Spelling: Kohen or Cohen

Why is the primary spelling Kohen? --Shuki 14:01, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

In general you will find that when referring to the last name then Cohen will be used but when referring to the status then Kohen is used. This article is about the status not the last name. --PinchasC | £€åV€ m€ å m€§§åg€ 15:44, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Ditto. Tomer^talk 21:39, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Agree. JFW | T@lk 03:22, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Yep. -- Olve 03:38, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

I think it should be changed to Cohen, because the Hebrew spelling of Cohen, both the status and the name, starts with the letter Kaf (כ), which is equivalent to C in English, and not with the letter Qoph (ק), which is equivalent to K in English.

Just my 2 cents.

Intro

Sorry, the new intro just does not seem 'clean'. The rest of the article itself has still yet to be cleaned up, adding this part does not contribute to that effort. I don't want to nitpick on each word of the intro, it should be entirely be written. --Shuki 22:44, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, I jumped the gun. I am in the process of rewriting the whole article, which looks like a tremendous research effort. I'll revert back to the original version until I input all my changes. Yoninah 12:31, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

I suggest letting it out little by little.--Shuki 12:45, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Rewrite

I just did a total reorganization and partial rewrite on the material to make it more informative and accessible. You will see a number of blanks that need to be filled in by those in-the-know (or by me, when I can complete the research). Don't worry—I didn't dump all that Biblical/historical stuff, but will put it into a new article called Kohen Gadol, which lends itself much better to all the detail about the inauguration ceremony, priestly garments, history of the office through the Destruction of the Second Temple, and critical scholarship. Yoninah 00:10, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks to DRosenbach for filling in the blanks and adding good detail. I don't understand, however, why you un-capitalized "Kohen" and "Levi," as they are capitalized in other Wikipedia articles and do refer to a specific status within Judaism. I also don't understand why you incorporated the Vulcan salute into an explanation of how the Kohen holds his hands. This detail is already listed under the "Trivia" subhead at the bottom. Explaining the Priestly Blessing by referring to a modern TV show seems too folksy, if not blasphemous, to me. Yoninah 13:51, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Kohens and rabbis

Are Kohens permitted to be rabbis? If so, do they tend to become rabbis more or less often than other Jews? --04:16, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

Kohanim (plural of kohen) are permitted to become rabbis. I have never seen a study of whether they become rabbis at a disproportionate rate to any other segment of the Jewish population, but from personal experience I would doubt it. --Bachrach44 06:02, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

I have been doing some research about kohanim and am in touch with the head of an international kohanim organization in America and Israel. According to him, the proportion of kohanim among Jewish leaders (i.e. rabbis, lay leaders, etc.) is actually quite high. He explains that the class of kohanim were originally the teachers and rabbis of Klal Yisrael, and have continued to use their natural talents throughout the generations. Yoninah 11:54, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

If a fellow applying for a pulpit position is a Kohen, however, he must inform the congregation of this fact before they hire him, because he won't be able to perform funereals! (Other than those of his immediate relatives.) So those congregations with a Kohen rabbi have to have an assistant rabbi or leyperson or someone else officiate at funereals -- not a huge deal, but something that does need to be addressed.

Possible typo in Hosea reference

At the end of the first paragraph under Synagogue aliyah, the quotation is attributed to Hosea 14:3. Using the King James version of the free Bible software from BibleOcean.com, the quote appears to be from Hosea 14:2 instead of 14:3. Is there some other version of Hosea with different numbering of verses?

It's definitely 14:3. See [1] --Shirahadasha 17:34, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Aaronites merge discussion

My understanding is there is a Biblical criticism theory that there were two groups of priests in a political/religious conflict, followers of Moses at Shiloah and Aaron at Jerusalem, and they each wrote different parts of the Torah. Only in such a context would there be any difference. --Shirahadasha 21:27, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

• Support merger. Mathmo ^Talk 07:59, 4 January 2007 (UTC) (perhaps when and if the other article because larger it could be separate)
• Support merge. Let's absorb it into the article and then talk about Aaronic and Mosaic priests within the Kohen article.Valley2city 22:49, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
• Merge or delete/redirect Aaronites article. No point having Aaronites as a separate article, particularly given the article's content. Imagine a Wikipedia article titled Jesusites containing nothong but a few cryptic references to a small ancient sect. The present Aaronites article creates a similar impression of obscurantism about what's actually an important subject both in the Bible and in present-day traditional Judaism. I'd simply delete given the current content; the article seems to have chosen the least relevant and informative Biblical quotes from virtually any point of view. --Shirahadasha 00:42, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Additional disqualifications

Arent Kohanim(plural Kohen) who are born to a woman who is a divorcee, or a harlot, considered "Chalal" and therefore not qualified for service? As well, a Kohen who is a child of an illict union, is a Mamzer, and not fit for service( not sure if he is not even a Cohen) Also, a Cohen who marries someone he is not allowed to (i.e. a divorcee) isnt he not allowed to serve in the Temple? I didnt edit this in myself because I dont have the best skills at prose, and I have no citations. As well, being new to wikipedia, I want to learn the rules before I edit articles.

There are a couple of distinctions here. A child of a marriage forbidden to a Kohen is not a mamzer, and out-of-wedlock birth doesn't affect Kohen status. Also, if a Kohen has a child from a suitable partner (whether after or concurrently with a forbidden one), children from the suitable relationship are considered full-fledged Kohanim. However, children from the illicit one remain Challel, and they and their descendents aren't full-fledged Kohanim forever. If he ends the not-suitable-for-a-Kohen relationship, he regains Kohen priveleges. My understanding is that, while in theory the label "Chalal Kohen" could apply to male descendents for all time, in practice the label doesn't actually stick. Children or grandchildren pretty quickly call themselves and become regarded as Levites, which is de facto what they are, and it's a much more dignified label/ The "Chalal" label doesn't follow them for very long. But there may be communities in which this isn't so. --Shirahadasha 21:54, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

sorry, i didnt read the article properly. it does include what i said, but since it was under the topic "ritual defilement" i didnt process it properly. however, now my question is: is that the proper place to talk about who is and who is not a Kohen? shouldnt it have more than a passing mention?

Perhaps it deserves more content. As an FYI, the Haredi organization www.cohen-levi.org has a list of restrictions that includes a stricture not mentioned in the article, a Cohen cannot marry a women who has been held hostage, which it describes as a rabbinic rather than a biblical prohibition. See [2] Also, it says that the children of a Chalal Kohen "are no longer regarded as Kohenim", suggesting that the practice of simply being regarded as a Levi may have firmer grounding. --Shirahadasha 02:36, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

yes, the hostage is considered "illegal" for the Kohen, but since this is based on the assumption that she has been raped (or rather the strong possibility), it should not be listed seperately, but rather as a part of the zonah requirment. I think this is only if she was held captive by non-jews. Also, saying that a "Chalal Kohen is no longer a Kohen" only implies that he is therefore a "levi" if you assume that a "normal" Kohen is both a Levi and a Kohen. This is certainly not a simply assumption. either way, i remember a rashi saying that a Chalal is considered a "yisrael" although, since I dont remember where the fact that I "claim" to remember doesnt have much credence, now does it?

Lineage of priests in the Torah

Calling MalchiTzedek a "Kohen" as well as refering to what Easu sold to Jacob as the priesthood we are refering to in this article, contradicts the earlier statement in the intro that a Kohen is a descendant of Aaron. Either we should qualify that *now* and *within the context of Judaism* a Kohen is only defined as such, but that before that line started they were as well, Or we should consider saying that MalchiTzedek was not a Kohen, rather merely a priest. What I mean is that we should say that the term Kohen as used in this article is talking about not the Hebrew word for priest, rather the Jewish caste of priests. I dont know if this would require another article, but since (logically) it would, the first option would be a better one. If anyone has a different suggestion, thats a different story, but nonetheless as the article stands there is a contradiction in it. As well, if we are going to include MalchiTzedek, should we not include Yisro who was "Kohen Midyan" or a *Kohen* of Midian?

Y-chromosome haplogroup of a cohen?

To which haplogroup do cohenim belong that "confirms" a shared common ancestry among cohenim? This should be in the article. 67.5.156.53 03:41, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

bible verse

The reference to Numbers 31:11-12 says absolutely Nothing about Phineas! Why is it in here? Perhaps that's something derived from somewhere other than the Torah?—Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.227.97.101 (talk)

thank you for pointed that out, I have correct it. Jon513 10:36, 25 February 2007 (UTC)