Statement

In the Second Temple period the priesthood was at its height: until the Herodians rose, the high priest was in practice Judea's ruler, and even afterward the upper priestly ranks stayed at the top of the elite, wealthy and influential. The Temple's destruction removed its main reason for being, offering sacrifices and guarding the sanctuary's holiness. Even so, priests neither vanished nor lost their prestige, and in late antique Palestine they may have regained some weight as a cultural elite.

References

1. p. 135

   supports · boxed feature · ch. 5

   Efron, Lehmann and Weitzman. The Jews: A History. 3rd edition. New York and Abingdon: Routledge, 2019.

   Section: What Became of the Priests After the Temple's Destruction?

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