Rope on the high priest's ankle? (off topic)

Jim West jwest at Highland.Net
Mon Aug 23 17:22:03 EDT 1999


At 05:07 PM 8/23/99 -0400, you wrote:
>This is not a NT or even Greek question, so please send any responses to me
>off list. My only justification for the post is that I suspect someone here
>can offer an answer! It has often been said that a tradition had developed
>in OT times (?) that a rope was always tied to the ankle of the high priest
>when he entered the Holy of Holies on the Day of Atonement so that they
>might pull him out if he were struck dead.

See Roland DeVaux's magisterial "Ancient Israel: Its Life and Institutions",
or Johannes Pedersen's book of nearly the same name.  I suspect the place to
start would be to look under the segments dealing with the priesthood.

> One of my OT colleagues got
>curious about that statement and has been trying to track down the origin
>of either the story or the event. At this point we suspect that it is a
>modern apocryphal story with no basis in fact.

No- it is a fact. (at least so far as we can believe the sources).

> It is an interesting
>account, so we wouldn't mind being proved wrong in our hunch, but we'd be
>interested in any suggestions or information that anyone on the list might
>offer us. (We've hunted through Josephus and Philo, some Mishnaic
>materials, Ency. Judaica, ISBE, etc.)

Best,

Jim

+++++++++++++++++++++++++
Jim West, ThD
email- jwest at highland.net
web page-  http://web.infoave.net/~jwest




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