After reading Richard Friedman’s Who Wrote the Bible and doing an internet search I found the article linked below.
I have a questions about the religious leadership of ancient Israel and Judah.
After King Solomon expelled Abiathar from the Jeruslaem priests, were all the priests that were left Aaronid? Or wre other Levites still priests?
What exactly is a Mushite priest? Friedman on page 155, says that they traced their ancestry to Moses. Is that right? I would assume that Mushite would trace their ancestry to Mushi (descendant of Jacob and son of Merari and brother of Machli. Exodus 6:19), but I don’t really see how he directly relates to Moses and if he did how that relation would be direct from Aaron.
What exactly was the position of the Shiloh priests during the writing of D1? Did they hold any power in the Temple? In calling for centralization, were they already a part of the Temple power structure under Aaronid priests? On page 129, Friedman says the Shiloh priests had returned to positions of power under Josiah, but what were these positions? I would assume they in the Temple because they had access to the Ark, but did they hold in power in the hierarchy of the Temple?
How did the D text become trusted? It was completed during the exile, but once back the Aaronid priests had total control. Why would they allow D to become considered a real part of the Torah?
Why didn’t R do more to explicitly express the importance of the Aaronid priests? Why not add more to D?
Besides Musites and Aaronids, what other types of Levites are there?
Further question, how could the Shiloh priests have access to the Ark? I thought only the high priest could enter the Holy of the Holies and only once a year. Does this mean that under Josiah the high priest was Shiloh Mushite?
I don’t see why Friedman is saying Mushites trace thier ancestry to Moses. It seems like Moses is a Korahite not a Mushite.
Numbers 26:58-59
58These are the clans of Levi: the clan of the Libnites, the clan of the Hebronites, the clan of the Mahlites, the clan of the Mushites, the clan of the Korahites. And Kohath was the father of Amram. 59The name of Amram’s wife was Jochebed the daughter of Levi, who was born to Levi in Egypt. And she bore to Amram Aaron and Moses and Miriam their sister.
You are not getting much traction here and it seems that this should have a factual answer that would not need to be debated.
Despite the religious theme of the thread, there is no sense of witnessing, so I am going to move it to General Questions where some of the Teeming Millions who avoid GD might be able to help you.