Near to the ancient ruins of the royal residence of the Pharaoh Shoshenq I, the first ruler of the 22^nd dynasty in 952 BCE, a temple to the God of Israel was built. This Pharaoh Shoshenq I many archeologists believe was the biblical Pharaoh Shishak that invaded Jerusalem and looted the Temple of Solomon of many of his splendid furnishings after the death of King Solomon.

Now eight hundred years later, the great, great, great grandfather of the High Priest Yeshua III, moved his entire family to Egypt for he and his family had been denied the hereditarial divinely appointed right of assuming the position of the high priest of Israel. Onias III, the great grandson of Simon I the Just (Tzaddik), was the last legitimate non-Hellenist high priest, that was the documented descendant of the High Priest of the Israelites, Aaron, through the lineage of Zadok.

Red Granite Block of Osorkon I Offering from the Temple of Bastet at Bubastis – Third Intermediate Period, Dynasty 22, Reign of Osorkon I, 929-889 BCE - Musée du Louvre

It was the year 164 BCE and Onias V (not Menelaus as Onias IV) became the first high priest that was denied the office of the high priest by an outside imperial ruler. It was Lysias, the Imperial Vice-Regent for the Syrian king, Antiochus V Eupator (164-162 BCE) that deprived Onias V this esteemed post. He gave the role of the high priest to Alcimus (163-159 BCE), a descendant of Eniachim, the brother of Jozadak, the exiled priest in Babylon and father of Yehoshua II, (Jesus II), the first high priest of the Temple of Zerubabbel. We ask, what was the problem? Eniachim was the brother to Jozadak the high priest and therefore he was not the oldest son and legitimate heir to the throne of the high priest. The high priest designate, Onias V, escaped from Jerusalem and took his family to Egypt. For the first time in Hebrew history, a foreign ruler had intervened in the hereditarial succession of the high priest of Israel, and denied the accession of the Onias V, to rule in his father, Onias III’s place.

There upon an island in the marshy Delta of the Nile River, the high priest designate, Onias V placed the mark where the Temple of the Lord would be built that would rival the temple in Jerusalem. It was here where the Nile River meets the Egyptian Delta and spreads like a mighty fan northward before entering the Mediterranean Sea, Onias V settled his family in the Nome or District of Heliopolis. Nearby were the ruins of the ancient Egyptian Temple of Bubastis where they began to build their temple.

The ancient Egyptian Temple of Bubastis was a sacred and ancient temple even in the days of 163 BCE. It was dedicated to the 2000 year old cult of the feline goddess, Bastet, called the “Lady of the East” It was Herodotus who wrote:

The Egyptian goddess, Bast in her half human, half feline form

Herodotus – “Other temples are greater and more costly, but none more pleasing to the eye then this.” (Herodotus, Histories Book II, Chapter 137)

The famous temple of Bubastis dedicated to the cat goddess, Bast, rose like a tower in the midst of an island that was separate from the rest of the surrounding landscape by canals that flowed to it from the greater Nile River. Rather than being a hidden temple, the Temple of Babastis was recessed so that the nearby city could look down upon the temple and watch the sacred rituals that were being performed inside.

The Coffin for the Mummy of a Cat depicting a incarnation of Bast,

the lion-headed deity behind the Cat.

Build in the shape of a square, the red granite walls are still seen today in their ruined state. Within was a sacred grove that was the only grove of tall trees that has been found within an Egyptian temple. There, the shrine of Bastet was held surrounded by the most amazing thing, a temple full of cats. There the cats were carried around in sacred baskets and fed in a ritualistic manner. The Spring festival in April or May of the cat goddess Bast was one of the most famous in Egypt. Let us read how Herodotus describes this sacred festival to the cat goddess of Egypt.

The University of Bologna and the use of 3D Computerized Tomography (CT) digital radiographs of a Cat-Shaped Coffin with its cat mummy inside

Herodotus – "When the people are on their way to Bubastis, they go by river, a great number in every boat, men and women together. Some of the women make a noise with rattles, others play flutes all the way, while the rest of the women, and the men, sing and clap their hands.

As they travel by river to Bubastis, whenever they come near any other town they bring their boat near the bank; then some of the women do as I have said, while some shout mockery of the women of the town; others dance, and others stand up and lift their skirts. They do this whenever they come alongside any riverside town. But when they have reached Bubastis, they make a festival with great sacrifices, and more wine is drunk at this feast than in the whole year besides. It is customary for men and women (but not children) to assemble there to the number of seven hundred thousand, as the people of the place say."

It would be our supposition that the Temple of Bubastis was an ancient temple in the days of 163 BCE, but that may be true. Did the Jewish priests know exactly where the origins of this temple began for the height of the Bubastite period was the 22^nd dynasty of Egypt. We have noted that the dynasty Egyptologists have designated this period as the dynasty of Pharaoh Shoshenq I, of the 22^nd Dynasty of Egypt, the era of the biblical Shishak who invaded and conquered Jerusalem after the death of King Solomon and looted the Temple of Solomon of its treasures. Was this where the wealth of Solomon’s Temple was used in the building of the Temple of Bubastite after the year of 952 BCE?

Cat Mummies in Honor of Bastet on display at the British Museum.

An Egyptian Cat Mummy dedicated to the goddess of the home, Bastet.

During the Bubastite period, the popular religious ritual was the mummification of cats. Surrounding the entire region were vast cat cemeteries and the popular cat amulet was very prevalent in this era. According to the histories, the evidence of domesticated cats in Egypt has been discovered to be as old as 4000 years ago. Then in the ancient burial chambers, Egyptologist Alain Pierre Zivie discovered a network of tombs that contained rows and stacks of cat mummies. According also to Egyptologists, the Bubastis the temple ritual of worshipping the cat goddess was alive well as late as 640 CE.

There on the island, in the beautiful island-delta region of Egypt, a high tower rose like a temple with the same dimensions but smaller and less ornate than the Temple in Jerusalem. Many writers have written how it was different in style to the Temple of Zerubabbel in Jerusalem. Yet, it was the archeologist, Ernest Martin, who also argued that the Temple of Herod was also built like a tower.

It was here, where the High Priest Onias V and his entourage of priests performed the ritual sacrificial services according to the laws of Torah. The kohens or Levitical priests would be presided over by the authorized family of high priests from the House of Zadok, the high priest of King David. This region of Egypt came to be known as the Land of Onias, in Greek, Egyptian, Jewish and Roman sources.

The Temple of Bubastis in the Delta region of Leontopolis, Egypt.

It was Onias III who wrote a letter, whether real or spurious, seeking royal permission to build a temple, from the Egyptian brother and sister, king-queen, Ptolemy VI Philometor and Cleopatra II.

Ptolemy V Epiphanes (204-180 BCE)

Married, Cleopatra I, daughter of the Seleucid king, Antiochus III, three children;

1. Ptolemy VI Philometor;

2. Ptolemy VIII, and;

3. Cleopatra II, a daughter who was in royal marriages with her two brothers.

There was a reason for this action of Onias V, the son of the High Priest, Onias III, for in the aftermath of the attempted ransacking the treasury of the Jewish temple by Heliodorus, representing the Syrian Emperor Seleucus IV Pilopator, and the later “abomination of desolation” by Syrian ruler, Antiochus IV Epiphanes, Antiochus later invaded into Egypt. In that military battle Antiochus IV lost to the Egyptian rulers, who were part Grecian, the brother and sister king-queen, Ptolemy VI Philometor and Cleopatra II.

Onias V knew that Ptolemy VI Philometor and Cleopatra II were not friends of the Syrian king, Antiochus IV Epiphanes, who had desecrated the Temple of Zerubabbel. They no doubt looked more favorably upon the Jewish people.

The Temple of Bubastis, dedicated to the Egyptian feline goddess of Bastet

Flavius Josephus – “When Onias saw that Judea was oppressed by the Macedonians (Antiochus Epiphanes IV) and their kings out of a desire to purchase to himself a memorial and eternal fame, he resolved to send to king Ptolemy and queen Cleopatra, to ask leave of them that he might build a temple in Egypt like that at Jerusalem, and might ordain Levites and priests out of their own stock. The chief reason why he was desirous so to do, was, that he relied upon the prophet Isaiah, who lived above six hundred years before, and foretold that there certainly was to be a temple built to the Almighty God in Egypt by a man that was as Jew.” (Flavius Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, XIII, iii, 1)

Josephus was emphatic that it was the prophecy of Isaiah that inspired Onias V, and that Onias V was person to fulfill this oracle of the Lord.

Isaiah 19:19-20 – “In that day there will be an altar to the Lord in the midst of the land of Egypt, and a pillar to the Lord at its border. And it will be for a sign and for a witness to the Lord of hosts in the land of Egypt: for they will cry to the Lord because of the oppressors, and He will send them a Savior and a Mighty One, and He will be known to Egypt, and the Egyptian will know the Lord in that day.

For the next three generations, the descendants of Onias V, the high priest at the Jewish Temple at Leontopolis presided over the temple services. There in the tower-like temple that was built to imitate the temple in Jerusalem, the large population of Jews in Alexandria, Egypt went to worship. This Jewish temple did not have a menorah (candelabrum), but instead a large hanging lamp). It had a courtyard that was surrounded by a fortress like brick wall with stone gates. There this family of priests of the House of Zadok would dwell, until they were recalled back to Jerusalem.

The Lineage of High Priests in Exile at Leontopolis Egypt

Simon “the Just”, the High Priest ⁶⁵ (39^th High Priest) ben Onias I à

Onias II, the High Priest ⁶⁵ (42^th High Priest) ben Simon the Just à

Simon II ⁶⁶ (43^th High Priest) ben Onias II à

Onias III ⁶⁷(44^th High Priest) ben Simon II, the last Zadokian high priest to serve in the Temple of Zerubabbel just prior to the “Abomination of Desolation”, until the era of King Herod the Great à

Onias V ⁶⁸ben Onias III was deprived by Lysias of the office of the High Priest. He went to Leontopolis, Egypt and built a rival Jewish Temple in 159 BCE à

Ananias ⁶⁹ben Onias V à

Hananeel “the Egyptian” ⁷⁰ben Ananias, who in tradition was one of the high priests who sacrificed the “Red Heifer” for the “Ashes of the Red Heifer” to purify the Temple à

Boethus ⁷¹(56^th High Priest) was recalled back to Jerusalem in 37 BCE to restore the office of the Zadokian High Priest to the Temple of Herod in Jerusalem.

This was not the first Jewish temple in Egypt. What is strange, the identity of one may also give clues to the identity of its older predecessor, the first Jewish Egyptian temple in Egypt. Both were built to resemble the Temple of Solomon. The first came in the days of King Manasseh, and the second came in the days of Judas Maccabee, when Judea was controlled by the Hasmonean rulers.

The Temple of Leontopolis was located to the north on the eastern Delta at the modern site of Tell-el-Yahudya, a few miles north of Heliopolis. Here in the region later called the “Land of Onias”, a large group of priests followed their Zadokian descendant high priest who were exiled by the Maccabees and the Syrians, whom they felt unpurified the Temple in Jerusalem.

To the south, upon an island in the midst of the Nile River, the Isle of Elephantine, near the first cataract of the Nile, the earlier Temple of Elephantine whose leaders were exiled during the era of the pagan worship of King Manasseh, the father of King Josiah.

The Elephantine Colony of Jews in Egypt in the Days of Prince Anani

During the reign of King Manesseh (2 Kings 21:1; 2 Chronicles 33:1), the fifty five years between 697-642 CE, it is believed that a Jewish colony was set up at the first cataract of the Nile River in southern Egypt, after thousands of Jews fled the Kingdom of Judah during the great persecution against the Yahweh worshippers of the Jews.

During these years, King Manesseh had instituted a secular state of Israel. He abrogated the theocratic monarchy, allowing the pagan rituals of every heathen ethnic group living in the land of Israel. The temple festivals and rituals were not only abandoned, but forbidden upon the pain of death. On the hill-tops, the altars of the old Canaanite Baal worship were reestablished along with their altars and idol deities in multiple areas of the kingdom. The Ark of the Covenant was removed. There in the Holy of Holiest was erected a pagan deity.

The Ruins at Elephantine Island built in the era of the Persian empire in the 5^th century BCE.

2 Chronicles 33:7 – “He even set a carved image, the idol which he had made, in the house of God of which God had said to David and to Solomon his son, ‘In this house and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, I will put My name forever…So Manasseh seduced Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to do more evil than the nations whom the Lord had destroyed before the children of Israel.”

The Prophets came out strongly against the idolatry of the king and he in turn the targeted them for execution. According to the Legends of the Jews, the famed Prophet Isaiah, the court prophet of his father, King Hezekiah, was executed by placing the prophet inside a hollowed-out tree trunk. King Manasseh then commanded his executioners to saw the tree trunk with Hezekiah’s body in two. The nations around Judah rebelled, including the Moabites and Ammonites in modern day Jordan, the Edomites in Saudi Arabia, plus the Philistines, who were earlier subjected to his father, King Hezekiah, revolted and regained their independence.

Egyptian Hieroglyphics engraved on the Water Worn Rocks on the Island of Elephantine

Then came the Assyrians in an invasion that captured Jerusalem, and took King Manasseh prisoner. The Assyrian rulers were incensed with the corruption of the Jewish king and in the supreme act to humiliate him, King Manesseh was led to Assyria naked with a ring through his nose to stand in audience before Esarhaddon, the Assyrian king and to account for his corruption and rebellion.

2 Chronicles 33:11 – “Therefore the Lord brought upon them the captains of the army of the king of Assyria, who took Manasseh with hooks, bound him with bronze fetters, and carried him off to Babylon. (a copyist’s error of calling Damascus, Babylon).

These facts are known from the clay tablets in the Assyrian royal archives. King Manasseh’s name appears first on the two Assyrian lists of client kings and one where he is part of a group appearing before their overlord, the Assyrian ruler, Esarhaddon, who was giving to them his demands and the story of his captivity recorded in the royal archives. It took the pagan ruler of Damascus to set the stage for the rehabilitation of the Jewish ruler.

Elephantine Temple constructed on the Model of the Ancient Tabernacle – Reconstruction by Stephen Rosenberg with Bar-Illan University

There in the isolation chambers of that dark dungeon, King Manasseh repented to his God, the God of Israel. He was soon restored to rule as a vassal of Assyria. He immediately destroyed all the high alters and idols, cleansed the temple and restored the “Ark” back into his sacred inner house called the “holiest”. For the last part of his reign, King Manasseh was a model ruler. Peace and prosperity returned to the land of Israel.

In the meantime, the Jewish garrisoned colony living on the Island of Elephantine, called in ancient times, Yeb, near the Aswan region in Southern Egypt, was ruled by a side-shoot of the Davidian descendants from relatives in descent from an uncle of King Manasseh. When the Persian invaded Egypt in 525 BCE, the Jewish colony was thriving. There they had built their own temple. Even though this appears to be in violation of the Mosaic commands that there would be only one place of divine worship, it appeared to have the affirmation of the Prophet Isaiah.

The Island of Elephantine

Deuteronomy 12:10 – “When you cross over the Jordan and dwell in the land which the Lord your God is giving you to inherit, and He gives you rest from all your enemies round about ,so that you dwell in safety, then there will be the place where the Lord your God chooses to make His name abide.”

Isaiah 19:19 – “In that day, there will be an altar to the Lord in the midst of the land of Egypt, and a pillar to the Lord at its border. And it will be for a sign and for a witness to the Lord of hosts in the land of Egypt.”

Archeologists have proven that this fortress community was Jewish by the identification of their dress, lifestyle, and the religious traditions that they left in record. It was there that they worshipped on the Shabbat, the Seventh-day Sabbath commanded by the Lord of hosts written upon the 4^th Commandment of the Decalogue on the Mount called Sinai. They also celebrated at least the Passover and probably the rest of the Jewish holidays.

We know this fact by the “Passover Letter” that has been dated to 419 BCE from the Patriarch of Jerusalem Hananiah to Jedenaiah in Elephantine with the instructions to “keep the Festival of Unleavened Bread” and to “be pure and take heed.” Scholars suggest that this Hananiah was Hennaniah, the brother of the Persian governor, Nehemiah, who was sent to build the walls around Jerusalem.

In the year 411 BCE, the Egyptian rulers destroyed the Jewish temple that functioned near to the Egyptian Temple of Khnub. They were angry because the Jews were using rams in their sacrificial offerings. This was offensive to the Egyptian priests of the temple of Khnub for the Egyptian temple of Khnub was dedicated to the Egyptian ram faced god, Khnub that was sacred to the Egyptians in Elephantine.

As translated from the archeological documents found at Elephantine, according to one letter, the Egyptian priests at the Temple of Khnub allied themselves with a Vidranga, who in turn sent his son, Nefayan, a commander of an Egyptian army and ordered “the temple of the God Yahweh in the Fortress of Elephantine to be destroyed”. The Jews in turn appealed to their Persian overlords in 407 BCE seeking permission to rebuilt.

In one manuscript, “The Petition to Bagoas” that is in the Sayce-Cowley Collection, that was written to Bagoas, the Persian governor in Judea, the Jewish citizens in Elephantine appealed for financial assistance to rebuild the damaged temple. Appealing to the antiquity of this Jewish temple, they wrote:

408 BCE. Yedoniah's copy of his letter to Bagoas, Governor of Samaria & Judah, requesting the order to be given to rebuild the Temple of Yahweh in Elephantine.

The Petition of Bagoas – “Now our forefathers built this temple in the fortress of Elephantine back in the days of the kingdom of Egypt, and when Cambyses came to Egypt he found it built. They (Cambyses’ military troops) knocked down all the temples of the gods of Egypt, but no one did any damage to this temple.”

During this same era, a papyrus letter was sent from the Jerusalem Patriarchate Nasi Anani, the Davidian Prince of Israel in Jerusalem with certain requests. Within time, they migrated to Ethiopia and became the Jewish Ethiopian tribe called today the “Falasha Jews”.

The Elephantine Papyri is the collective name commonly given to several archives of documents belonging to members of a Jewish garrison community which inhabited the island of Elephantine (ancient Yeb), near Aswan in Egypt, between 495 and 399 BCE. Written in Aramaic, the official language of the 5^th to 4^th century Achaemenid Empire that included Judea and Egypt, these assorted manuscripts and texts include those acquired by Greville Chester (1870s), Charles Edwin Wilbour, W. Spiegelberg, A.H. Sayce, Lady William Cecil and Robert Mond in the 1890s and 1900.

The Island of Elephantine

In a very defective papyrus strip, called “The Passover Papyrus” that was written on both sides, there was an interesting text discovered, dating to the year 419 BCE, confirming archeologically the existence of the Prince of Israel as the Nasi of the Patriarchate in Jerusalem. His name was Hananiah (Anani), the son of Hashubah, the 5^th Exilarch of Babylon, for it was written from Governor Hananiah to a Jedenaiah in the Jewish garrison town of Elephantine, who some scholars suspect was the brother to the Persian governor, Nehemiah.

The Elephantine Passover Papyrus – “[To] my [brethren Yedo]niah and his colleagues the [J]ewish gar[rison], your brother Hanan[iah]. The welfare of my brothers may God [seek at all times]. Now, this year, the fifth year of King Darius, word was sent from the king to Arsa[mes saying, "Authorise a festival of unleavened bread for the Jew]ish [garrison]". So do you count fou[rteen days of the month of Nisan and] obs[erve the passover], and from the 15th to the 21st day of [Nisan observe the festival of unleavened bread]. Be (ritually) clean and take heed. [Do n]o work [on the 15th or the 21st day, no]r drink [beer, nor eat] anything [in] which the[re is] leaven [from the 14th at] sundown until the 21st of Nis[an. For seven days it shall not be seen among you. Do not br]ing it into your dwellings but seal (it) up between these date[s. By order of King Darius. To] my brethren Yedoniah and the Jewish garrison, your brother Hanani[ah].

Here we now have the history of two Jewish communities, the 1^st at Elephantine, and the 2^nd at Leontopolis in Egypt. The Elephantine Temple was regarded as holy and with the presiding of the High Priest of Zadok at Leontopolis, it was no doubt regarded also as no less holier than Jerusalem. There was noted one paragraph that gave this sentiment in specifics; “Yahweh the God who dwells in the fortress of Elephantine.” (K 12.2) for there in the temple the same sacrifices were offered; for the Jewish Temple at Elephantine that was destroyed in the 4^th century served a memory that the God of Israel had within His Almighty hands the purpose to preserve Egypt and also Assyria (Syria) at the end of the ages, for a special role.

Isaiah 19:23-25 – “In that day there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria, and the Assyrian will come into Egypt, and the Egyptian into Assyria, and the Egyptian will serve with the Assyrians. In that day, Israel will be one of three with Egypt and Assyria – a blessing in the midst of the land, whom the Lord of hosts shall bless, saying, “Blessed is Egypt My people, and Assyria the work of my hands, and Israel, My inheritance.”

The Excavations for the Temple of the Lord at the Island of Elephantine - BiblePlaces

Lest we forget, Damascus, was called one of God’s Zions and that the oracles of the Lord to the Prophet Zechariah were prophesied to show how the Sovereignty of the Lord will rearrange the nations that surround Israel. Damascus will be called God’s own, Tyre and Sidon, today the nest bed of Hezbollah in Lebanon will go up in flames, Gaza with writhe in terror, the “king” of Gaza will disappear, and the “blood oaths” in the mouths of the Philistines (Palestinians) will cease to exist.

As the fate of Israel moves from the Hezbollah rain of missiles terror (Summer 2006), through the Rome Peace Accord (September 2006) where NATO’s peace keepers were imbedded in the land of Lebanon at the Northern Gates of Israel (Winter 2006), through the Annapolis Peace Conference (November 26, 2007), the outcome will someday arrive. The God of Israel will soon have control of Lebanon, Gaza, Syria, the Golan, and Jordan.

According to the Genealogies of David Hughes, the ancestors of Yahshua HaNotzri (Jesus the Nazarene), the great grandson of the Jewish High Priest Yahshua (Jesus) III were the exiled descendants of Onias III, who tried to protect the treasuries in the temple of Jerusalem from Heliodorus who came to clean out the temple treasuries for the Syrian king, from of Egypt

The Lineage of the House of Boethus to Yehoshua (Jesus)

Boethus ⁷¹(56^th High Priest) à

Phabet (Fabi)⁷²à

Jesus III, the High Priest ⁷³ (59^th High Priest) also known as Yeshua III, Yahshua III, or Yehoshua III à who had Three Daughters:

Anne or (H)annah ⁷⁴who married Heli, the Davidic prince, also as Alexander III Helios, the Hasmonean prince, had a daughter,

Miriam ⁷⁵, who became the Mother of

Yehoshua HaNotzri ⁷⁶ (Jesus the Nazarene)

Elizabeth ⁷⁴àmarried Zacharias the Levite priest, and had a son,

Yohannes ⁷⁵ (John) the Baptiser

Jane or (Jo)Anna ⁷⁴ (confused in some literature with Joanna) à married Joachim, the Nasi and Davidic prince, and had three daughters;

Escha ⁷⁵who married (?) Ptolas à

Salome ⁷⁵who married Zebedee à

James and John, the Apostles

Mary ⁷⁵who married Clopas à

Simeon ben Clopas, the second Nasi or President of the Jewish Nazarene Ecclesia

It was in the year of 37 BCE, that Herod the Great sent a courier to Alexandria, Egypt to request that a noted priest by the name of Boethus return to the land of Israel to assume the office of the high priest. Surprise as it may seem, near to Alexandria, Egypt at the Nome of Heliopolis was the second Jewish temple that had been erected within years after the Abomination of Desolations at Jerusalem in the year of 167 BCE.

The Feluccas on the Nile River off Elephantine Island

According to Flavius Josephus, we learn of this august citizen of Alexandria.

Flavius Josephus – “There was one Simon, a citizen of Jerusalem, the son of one Boethus, a citizen of Alexandria, and a priest of great note there.” (Flavius Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, XV,ix,3)

With the arrival of Boethus to the city of Jerusalem, a new era intrigue came to this international city. The family of high priests of the House of Zadok had returned to be restored as the official family of high priests in the Temple of the Lord.

Flavius Josephus – “When, therefore, his (Herod the Great’s) affairs were thus improved, and were again in a flourishing condition, he built himself a palace in the upper city, raising the rooms to a very great height, and adorning them with the most costly furniture of gold, and marble seats, and beds; and these were so large that they could contain very many companies of men. These apartments were also of distinct magnitudes, and had particular names given them; for one apartment was called Caesar’s, another Agrippa’s.

He also fell in love again, and married another wife, not suffering his reason to hinder him from living as he pleased. The occasion of this his marriage was as follows: - There was one Simon, a citizen of Jerusalem, the son of one Boethus, a citizen of Alexandria, and a priest of great note there: this man had a daughter ,who was esteemed the most beautiful woman of that time; and when the people of Jerusalem began to speak much in her commendation, it happened that Herod was much affected with what was said of her: and when he saw the damsel, he was smitten with her beauty, yet did he entirely rejected the thoughts of using his authority to abuse her; as believing, what was the truth, that by so doing he should be stigmatized for violence and tyranny: so he thought it best to take the damsel to wife.

And while Simon was of a dignity too inferior to be allied to him, but still too considerable to be despised, he governed his inclinations after the most prudent manner, by augmenting the dignity of the family, and making them more honourable; so he immediately deprived Jesus the son of Phabet of the high priesthood, and conferred that dignity on Simon, and so joined an affinity with him (by marrying his daughter.) (Flavius Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, XV,ix,3)

The Religious and Political World of the Ancestors of Mary

The ancestral family of Jesus was surrounded with controversy, heresy, contaminated foreign bloodlines, cursed royal lineages, a mother who was orphaned, who was accused as a tainted woman that produced a bastard child to a royal Davidian who could do nothing more honorable than be a carpenter.

The Island of Elephantine on the Nile River

Then there was the mysterious rich man of Jerusalem, who gave Jesus (Yehoshua), who died as a “cursed man” by hanging on a tree, a royal family tomb so that He could be buried in it. Yet, this rich metal merchant is now recognized as Jesus’ uncle, his mother’s father’s brother. Were not both brothers once recognized as collaborators with the wicked Edomites, by obtaining the contract to supply strategic metals that were shipped for the Roman military from Ireland and Wales through France to the rest of the Roman Empire?

If that were not suspicious enough, the grandmother of Yehoshua’s paternal (foster) lineage may possibly be recognized to be an Egyptian princess, a posthumous daughter of the first Caesar of Rome with the last Egyptian Pharaonic Queen? But not only Yehoshua’s father, but also the twins that were his brothers, were secreted away into hiding in a fortified village of Galilee. Was not Jesus’ (Yehoshua’s) great uncle killed by Herod the Great for “being a robber?”

Was not also, Jesus’ (Yehoshua’s) grandfather killed by the order of Herod the Great “for sedition”. Was not also Jesus’ maternal grandfather of Jesus the high priest of Israel, who was involved in “sedition” and his three daughters also secreted away into hiding? Would it not be even more strange that another grandfather of Jesus (Yehoshua) appointed to be the “Prince of Israel” and the “Patriarch of Jerusalem” and collaborated with King Herod with the orders and blessings sent to Egypt with 3000 Jewish troops to assist the future “Caesar Augustus” (Gaius Julius Octavius) in the war of conquest against Mark Anthony and Queen Cleopatra in 30 CE?

Between the rise of the Second Temple of Zerubabbel in 510 BCE and the death of Herod the Great in 4 BCE, we find the following priestly lineage starting with the high priest, who amazingly was called Jesus, or Joshua, Yeshua, Yahshua, or Yehoshua. Yeshua I the high priest was not the first high priest by this same name. The first high priest with the name of Jesus was Yeshua I, the grandson of the 1^st High Priest of the Temple of Solomon, Azariah I. Yeshua I was also the great-great grandson of the famed Zadok I, the high priest of King David, whose dynastic lineage was the approved high priestly lineage since the days of King Solomon.

During the days of the High Priest Eli (7^th High Priest), the Prophet Samuel, as a young child, came to live in the Sanctuary complex with this aging high priest. Eli was a Levite, but he was not a descendant of the senior high priest lineage of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the High Priest. Eli was a descendant of the 1^st High Priest, Aaron’s, son, Ithamar, the brother to Eleazar, and took over the sacred duties of the high priest when Uzzi, the 6^th High Priest (2 Chronicles 6:3-5) died and left only a young son to inherit the sacred priestly office in the Mishkhan or the Holy Tabernacle.

For six generations, the descendants of the House of Eli presided over the duties of the high priest through the reigns of Kings Saul and later King David. Though Phinehas (Phinas) the son of Eli assisted his father in his old age with the high priestly duties, before the death of Eli, during the battle when the Ark of the Covenant was captured by the Philistines, Phinehas had resigned the duties to his father and therefore has not been accounted as a high priest of Israel.

The Priestly Lineage from Eli to Zadok the High Priest

Eli (7^th High Priest), descendant from Ithamar ben Aaron à

Ahitub ben Phinehas (8^th High Priest, was the grandson of Eli à

Ahijah ben Ahitub (9^th High Priest), presided as the high priest when the Tabernacle was erected at Shiloh (1 Samuel 14:3) à

Ahimelech ben Ahitub (10^th High Priest) the brother of Ahijah, was slain by King Saul with 85 other priests (1 Samuel 22:11-18)à

Abiathar ben Ahimelech (11^th High Priest), the last of the House of Eli, brought the Ephod and the regalia of the High Priest to King David, and co-reigned with the High Priest Zadok during the reign of King David. à

Zadok ben Ahitub ben Amariah (12^th High Priest, 6^th in descent from Uzzi) became the High Priest of Israel when Abiathar supported Prince Adonijah over Prince Solomon and was deposed by King Solomon à

The House of Zadok became the Approved Lineage of High Priests

after the Days of King Solomon.

Yet, it would be this priestly family, the House of Eli that would transfer the High Priest authority from the House of Eli to the House of Zadok, the high priest of King David.

Lineage from Aaron through the High Priest Simon the Just to Jesus the Messiah

Then we find an unusual and most fascinating lineage of Yehoshua HaMaschiach (Jesus the Messiah) to the Levitical genealogy from the son of Jacob, Levi through Aaron, the first high priest of Israel. This lineage came through Simon the Just, whose unnamed daughter married Joseph, the son of Mattathias, the sixth great grandfather of Jesus the Nazarene (Yahshua HaNotzri).

Levi²⁷ ben Yacov, whose children were Jocheved and Kohath) à

Kohath²⁸ ben Levi à

Amram²⁹ ben Kohath (married his aunt Jocheved and had three children; Moses, Miriam and Aaron) à

Aaron³⁰ ha-Levi à

Eleazar³¹ ben Aaron à

Phineas³² ben Eleazar à

Abishuah (Abishua)³³ ben Phinehas à

Bukki³⁴ ben Abishua à

Uzzi³⁵ ben Bukki (6^th High Priest) à

Zerahiah³⁶ ben Uzzi à

Meraioth³⁷ ben Aerahiah à

Azariah ben Meraioth à

Amariah³⁸ ben Azariah à

Ahitub³⁹ ben Amariah à

Zadok⁴⁰ ben Ahitub (12^th High Priest and Priest of King David) à

Ahimaaz ⁴¹ (Achimas) ben Zadok I (13^th High Priest) à

Azariah ⁴² ben Ahimaaz I (14^th High Priest and the 1^st High Priest in the First Temple of Solomon) à

Joram ⁴³ ben Azariah (15^th High Priest) à

Yeshua I ⁴⁴ (Yehoshua) I ben Joram (16^th High Priest) à

Axiomar (Axioramus) ⁴⁵ ben Yeshua I (Yehoshua) (17^th High Priest) à

Phideas (Pedaiah) ⁴⁶ ben Axiomar (Axioramus) (19^th High Priest) à

Sudeas ⁴⁷ ben Phideas (Pedaiah) (20^th High Priest) à

Juelus ⁴⁸ ben Sudeas (21^st High Priest) à

Jotham ⁴⁹ ben Juelus (23^rd High Priest) à

Neriah (Nerias) ⁵⁰ ben Jotham (26^th High Priest) à

Odesa (Hoshaiah) ⁵¹ ben Neriah (27^th High Priest) à

Shallum II (Sallumus)⁵² ben Odesa (28^th High Priest) à

Hilkiah (Helcias) ⁵³ ben Shallum II (Sallumus) (29^th High Priest) à

Azariah V (Azarias) ⁵⁴ ben Kilkiah (Helcias) (30^th High Priest) à

Seraiah ⁵⁶ben Azariah V (31^th High Priest) the last High Priest in the 1^st Temple of Solomon, who was executed 587 BCE à

Three Sons of High Priest Seraiah were deported to Babylon; à

Jehozadak or Josedech ⁵⁷ (1Chronicles 6:15) plus his brothers, Jachin, and Eniachim à

Jesus II (Yehoshua) 58, the first high priest of the new Temple of Zerubabbel) ben Jehozadak à

Joachim ⁵⁹ (Joiakim) ben Joshua à

Eliashib (Eolinshib)⁶⁰ ben Joiakim à

Joiadah (Joiada)⁶¹ ben Eliashib à

Johanan (Johanna)⁶² ben Joiada à

Juddual (Jaddua)⁶³ ben Johanan à

Onias I ⁶⁴ ben Jaddua à

High Priest Simon ‘the Just’ ⁶⁵ ben Onias

Daughter ⁶⁶ of Simon ‘the Just’ ben Onias of the House of Aaron married Joseph ben Mattathias ⁶⁹ (House of David) à

Janna (Janne Jannai) ⁶⁴ben Joseph à

Melchi (Melki)⁶⁷ ben Janna à

Levi ⁶⁸ ben Melchi (Panther of Arimathea) à

Matthat (Mathat)⁶⁹ (also Barpanther) ben Levi of Arimathea à Two Sons:

Heli ⁷⁰ ben Matthat à

Miriam (mother of Jesus) bat Heli ⁷¹ à

Yahshua ben Miriam ben Yosef ⁷² (Jesus daughter of Mary, son of Joseph) of both the Houses of King David and Zadok the high priest)

Joseph of Arimathea ⁷⁰ ben Matthat à

Anna (Hanna)⁷¹ bat Joseph of Arimathea à

British royal genealogies

Lineage of the High Priests of Zadok, from Simon the Just to Jesus III

Simon “the Just”, the High Priest ⁶⁵ (39^th High Priest) ben Onias I à

Onias II, the High Priest ⁶⁵ (42^th High Priest) ben Simon the Just à

Simon II ⁶⁶ (43^th High Priest) ben Onias II à

Onias III ⁶⁷(44^th High Priest) ben Simon II à

Onias V ⁶⁸ben Onias III, who was deprived by Lysias of the High Priest and went to Egypt in 159 BCE à

Ananias ⁶⁹ben Onias IV à 2^nd High Priest in Leontopolis Egypt

Hananeel “the Egyptian” ⁷⁰ben Ananias, who sacrificed one of the nine red heifers for the “Ashes of the Red Heifer” à

Boethus ⁷¹(56^th High Priest) was the noted Alexandrian priest, who returned at the invitation of King Herod to become the High Priest of Israel in 37 BCEà

Ananelus ⁷²(57^th High Priest) à

We have a one year interruption of the high priest order in the year of 36 BCE, when at the insistence of the Queen Mother, Alexandra II, King Herod appointed her son, Aristobulus III (58^th High Priest) to be the high priest at the age of seventeen. When the Jewish pilgrims became so excited by the youthful and handsome young Hashmonean high priest, the jealousy of King Herod and his distain for the Hasmoneans rose so much that he plotted this young man’s soon demise; drowning in the swimming pool at his mother’s Jericho estate.

Yeshua III (Jesus III) ben Phabit ben Boethus was appointed to the office of the high priest in Aristobulus’ place.

Jesus III, the High Priest ⁷³ (59^th High Priest) also known as Yeshua III, Yahshua III, or Yehoshua III (36-23 BCE) was the father of three daughters and no son. à

Three Daughters:

Anne or (H)annah ⁷⁴who married the Biblical Heli, the Davidic prince, known by his Greek royal name as the Hasmonean Prince Alexander III Helios. He had a daughter by his wife, Hannah;

Miriam ⁷⁵, who became the mother of

Yehoshua HaNotzri ⁷⁶ (Jesus the Nazarene)

Elizabeth ⁷⁴àmarried Zacharias the Levite priest, and had a son,

Yohannes ⁷⁵ (John) the Baptiser

Jane ⁷⁴ (confused in some literature with Joanna) à married Joachim, the Nasi and Davidic prince, and they had three daughters;

Escha ⁷⁵married possibly Ptolas, the twin, who was the half brother of Joseph, the father of Jesus. à

Salome ⁷⁵married Zebedee, and they became the parents of the Apostles;

James the Greater and his brother,

John the Beloved, who were the chief disciples (talmidim) of Yahshua HaNotzri (Jesus the Nazarene à

Mary ⁷⁵married Clopas the half brother of Joseph, the father of Jesus. Other traditions suggest that this “Mary” was “Mary the mother of Jesus” who in the levirate Jewish marriage after the death of Joseph, was re-married by his younger “twin” brother, Cleopas. They became the parents of; à

Simeon ben Clopas, who may have been the brother of Jesus, was also known as Jesus’ cousin, who was nominated to be the 2^nd Nasi of Prince of Israel for the Hebrew Nazarene Ecclesia.

The Finger of the Almighty One of Israel

The Tower of David The Skyline of the Temple Mount at Night

Some may be threatened that the great-grandmother of Jesus the Messiah (Yehoshua HaMaschiach) was the last Pharaoh of Egypt, Cleopatra VII, but we have to consider that the great grandmother of King David, Ruth, was of the cursed lineage of the Moabites by the incestuous relationship between Lot, the nephew of Abraham, yet Ruth’s life became one of the revered stories in the bible of love, faith, and devotion. Was not the great-great grandmother of King David a Canaanite prostitute from Jericho, Rahab, yet she became one of the revered women to be honored as the ancestress grandmother of the messiah?

Later, we will analyze the illegitimate or “bastard” lineages of the ancestors of Jesus, at least as determined by the Jewish clerics with Ezra the Scribe to the Jewish people returning to the land of Israel. These were days of crisis. Times were very hard and there was no guarantee that a viable Jewish culture could once again be planted on the mountains surrounding Jerusalem. The people that did return had to be fully attached to the “Land” with a passion that this time they would obey the commandments of the Torah, as given to them by God to Moses from the mount called Sinai. Any dilution of the obedience to the Torah, from wives and family that may be still devoted to the gods of their forefathers in Babylon and Persia could have a disastrous affect upon this fledgling society.

The new governor from Persia, the third Jewish Exilarch (Ruler in exile), Zerubabbel, was also caught up in this dilemma. He had brought with him his two wives, the first was the Babylonian princess, Amytis, the daughter of the King of Babylon, Evil-Merodach, and the second was the sister of the Persian Shah. Both of them were sent back to the land of their forefathers and Zerubabbel married a Jewish Davidian princess. It was from this lineage that became the elite or senior Davidian lineage accepted by the leading rabbanim.

The Russian Orthodox Christian Church of St. Mary Magdalene in traditional Muscovite Style –

Photo by Robert Mock

Yet we have to ask, if the messiah was to be a Universal Messiah for all people, maybe the God of Israel had a bigger picture, for He was not the God of the Jews, but the Creator God of all mankind. It would be through the loins of Jewish bloodlines that the messiah would be sent to this planet earth so that all people will be saved.

But today, a majority of the Jewish people accepts that divine intervention by heavenly emissaries is possible but that a “divine messiah”, as an emissary of the Divine One cannot be more that a pure human being.

Yet, that reality is changing. Coming from reliable sources in Jerusalem, it is reported that forty-eight percent of the rabbis in Israel believe in the first century Jesus as the Messiah, or the “Suffering Servant”, called the Maschiach ben Yosef (Messiah son of Joseph). Their belief is not in the “Christian Jesus” who we have documented was divorced entirely from His Jewishness. For almost eighteen hundred years, Christians have merciless blamed “the Jews” for killing Jesus, when the historical testimony has documented clearly that He was killed by the leading Jewish religious and political authorities in the land of Judea for they were no less corrupt than the leaders in Israel are today.

Yet, there are many instances in the biblical narrative that God’s human emissaries upon this earth had face to face communication with extra-dimensional emissaries. Is it possible that the Almighty, Unseen, and Unknowable God could have sent an emissary direct from the Throne of God? In this inter-dimensional battle over sin that reaches to the very throne of God, the first prophecy within the Torah was proclaimed that would involve the future inter-planetary struggle for the control of this planet between the “serpent” and the “messiah”.

Genesis 3:15 – “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel.”

The “woman” was “Israel” and the woman today is “Israel” also today. Within the messianic branch of Judaism called the Kabbalah, the Tiferet of the Sefirot of the World of the Divine is the dwelling place of the messiah. Here, within the heart of the Dwelling of the Divine was the vortex or funnel that all the creative energies that flowed from the throne of the Almighty One of Israel. If “The Messiah” were to come as a representative of the Eternal One, could it not be one of His’ missions to open the gates of Judaism so that all the seventy nations of the world could learn of the Creator God of the Universe? Would it not be a mission of the messiah to re-gather the “sparks” of the Divine that were scattered when sin entered this planet and destroyed that wonderful face to face communication between God and his created guardians for this planet?

The Dome on the Rock on the Temple Mount – Photo by Robert Mock

It does appear that the God of Israel did have another plan, for the future destiny of the Jews is to open up their religion and welcome the “Lost Tribes of the House of Israel” back into the fold. These “lost tribes” will be people like you and I, from every nation and continent upon this globe. They will look like, act like, and truly believe that they are gentiles but they are not. They are rather lost cousins of the Jewish people and will be united, because the Lord of hosts said that they would, back into one house, and one family of the House of Israel. As the world was destroyed by a flood that began only after all the animals came into the ark of Noah, so the final restoration of this planet will begin when the House of Israel is restored into the whole “Land of Israel”, from the great river to the shining sea.

If the God of Israel keeps within His divine powers the right to give kingship to whomever He chooses, than the same God of Israel can choose with His divine choice the very individuals that will be the progenitor ancestors of His chosen messiah. The same God of Israel could also send His only “begotten” Son to also be “The Messiah”. So, the God of Israel did have another plan, for from the loins of King David, all the elite senior lineages of Princes of David would become extinct. The Great Sanhedrin did have to reconsider the halakhic decision of Ezra the Scribe that refused to legitimize the other lineages from the descendants of King David. The David-Zerubabbel-Babylonian royal lineages and the David-Zerubabbel-Persian royal lineages were accepted plus two non-royal lineages from King David’s fifth wife and fourth son, Prince Adonijah, the lineage of Hillel the Great. There was a purpose for the edict by Ezra the Scribe. The Jewish people had to survive in a world who did not want them. They had to get strong, so that in their strength they could be a light to the world. Yet, that would be an era in the far future.

It was the year of 63 BCE and the “king of the Jews” was Hyrcanus, the 9^th in descent of that Jewish patriot who revived the state of Judea as its ruler in 167 BCE. He took the title as “ethnarch”, known as the “ruler of the people”. He also did the unthinkable and assumed the position of the “high priest” and proclaimed a new Commonwealth of Judea. For the first time in Jewish history, against the laws of Torah, one ruler had complete control of Jewish religious and civil authority.

Hyrcanus ancestral forefather, Judas Maccabeus or “The Hammer” was the Jewish freedom fighter who fought and defeated one Syrian army and another until all foreign rulers had been banished from the land of Israel in 165 BCE. With the restoration of the temple of Zerubabbel after its desecration with the “abomination of desolation” in the year of 167 BCE, by the Syrian king, Antiochus IV Epiphanes, this initiated the famous eight days called Chanukah. This was the day of miracles when one day of pure olive oil used in the re-lighting of the temple menorah lasted for eight days. A new festival of arose, and a celebration of restoration and redemption was born.

The Eight Lamped Chanukah Menorah celebrating the Feast of Lights

On the same day, in the year of 6 BCE, about 160 (40 x 4) years later, on the 25^th day of Kislev in the Jewish month equivalent to December, an epic moment of history occurred. On this day, the divine power of the Almighty One of Israel intersected the three dimensional world of man. Within the womb of an orphaned temple virgin in Jerusalem was conceived, the “only begotten” Son of the Almighty One of Israel. This babe, as a “prince of Israel” was “incarnated” from the World of the Divine. He came to dwell with the human race as the “messiah of the Jews” and the One represented as the “Light of the world”.

Within nine months gestation, on the 1^st day of Succot, 5 BCE, this “Baby Messiah” was born in a “Succot” during the Feast of Tabernacles, the very week of the year when the God of Israel was expected to come and dwell (tabernacle) with His own people. Eight days later on the celebration day of “Simchat Torah”, this young babe was recognized as being truly alive, for He had survived the first seven days neonatal life when many children die. There at His circumcision, the day He was given His name, Yehoshua, the Jewish people were celebrating that day when the Torah would be manifested in the flesh.

John 1:4 – “In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shone in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.”

It was at the Feast of Tabernacles, during the middle of His ministry, when Yehoshua (Jesus) made this proclamation;

John 8:12 – “I am the light of the world, He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.”

The Maccabeans were hugely popular with the Jewish people until power, greed, and authority separated them from the affections and affiliations of their Jewish subjects. The last straw came when in 129 BCE, the family of the descendants of the childless Judas Maccabee took the title as “king of Israel” a title reserved in Jewish religious history and law as only for descendants of the House of David. This provoked what became a simmering civil war. Yet the Maccabeans bolstered their claim to the throne by the fact that male-to-male descendants from the days of King David did exist, but the lineages of the Davidians had been “contaminated” with the blood of “pagan” wives.

Yet the Maccabees forgot that the ancestral lineage of King David from his forefathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were also “contaminated” with the blood of foreign (but not pagan) wives. Was not King David’s ancestry imbedded with two of the noble women in Jewish history, the harlot “Rahab” of Jericho, and “Ruth”, the 11^th generation descendant of the incestuous relationship between Abraham’s nephew Lot and his daughter as they were fleeing from the burning ashes of Sodom and Gomorrah.

The Jewish Cemetery and Kidron Valley –

Photo by Robert Mock

Though the Maccabean family came from priestly lineage, they were not descendants of the approved hereditarial lineage from the oldest son of the high priest, the House of Zadok, the high priest of King David. When the Sadducees allied themselves with the Maccabeans, they posed themselves as defenders of conservative Torah law interpreters. The conflicts with the messianic aspirations of the family of Jesus (Yehoshua) came in part that Jesus’ lineages were “tainted” with Babylonian, Assyrian, Persian, Greek, Egypt, and Roman bloodlines.

With modern orthodox Jews defending the “strict” Torah interpretations by Ezra the scribe of the law that stated to be of Jewish blood, your mother had to be Jewish, they in essence become defenders of the School of Shammai. Yet, Shammai’s Torah rulings were also voided after the destruction of Jerusalem, because the “voice of the Lord” proclaimed to the Great Sanhedrin that the official voice of the God of Israel would be given by descendants and disciples of the famed Jewish Nasi, or president of the Great Sanhedrin, Hillel the Great.

It was within the context of these great debates between the disciples of Hillel and the disciples of Shammai that Jesus (Yahshua) confronted so vigorously the disciples of Beit Shammai (School of Shammai). There during His ministry in Jerusalem, and on the hillsides overlooking the Sea of Galilee, Jesus stood as a solid rock in defense of the Torah teachings of the Great Hillel.

It is interesting by getting a glimpse through genealogies, that Prince Shammai was also a Davidian prince. Yet, his ancestral lineage was already doomed for extinction. Shammai’s grandfather, Yude III (Jude III) had three sons, Matthias (Mattai), Shamaiah, and Abtalyon (Prollion). Prince Jude III was the 49^th Patriarch of Israel and his three sons, Matthias, Shamaiah, and Abtalyon shared the responsibilities as the 50^th Patriarchs of Israel. They were destined to become the last remnant of the royal house of David that descended from strict all Jewish lineages.

The son of Jude III, Abtalyon (Ptollion) would become the last descendant of his generation for he died childless and his lineage became extinct. The grandson of Jude III, the son of Shemaiah, who was the noted Pharisee and Nasi of the Great Sanhedrin called Shammai the Great, would become the last descendant of his generation. He became the 57^th Governor or Patriarch of Jerusalem in the year of 32 CE, and apparently was ousted from his office and replaced with Jacob ben Mattat by King Herod in that same year. Prince Shammai died childless in 30 CE and his lineage became extinct.

The Dome of the Rock and the Temple Mount highlighting Eastern Jerusalem – Photo by Robert Mock

The great grandson of Jude III, the grandson of Matthias, the son of Jose III (Joseph III) called Simon V of Perea would become the last descendant of his generation for Simon V died childless and his lineage became extinct after his failed attempt to crown himself “King of the Jews” in the Palace of Herod the Great. He was killed in his uprising against the Herodians by General Gatus, the Herodian general of the now-deceased King Herod the Great in 4 BCE.

Was there a reason, why the Pharisee founder of Beit Shammai, and Nasi of the great Sanhedrin, Prince Shammai was so brooding, rigid, and sought to put barriers between Judaism and the gentile world? He watched his entire ancestral family lineage becoming extinct.

Then came the 37 BCE Convocation of the Great Sanhedrin that legitimized the “paganized lineages” of the Abiudite and Rhesaite lineages of Davidian princes. Not only was King Herod the sponsor of the Sanhedrin meeting, but afterwards Herod usurped the co-regency of his father and two uncles, Shemaiah with Matthias and Abtalyon (Ptollion) in the office of the Patriarchate of Jerusalem. Herod the Great, in their stead, placed his Idumean brother, Joseph IV in the office of the Jerusalem Patriarchate, as the Patriarch of Jerusalem. That sacred office had now become politicized with Grecian and Roman Hellenization.

When Joseph V, the nephew of King Herod died in 32 BCE, the power politics no doubt grew tense. With the ascendency of Prince Shammai becoming the new Patriarch of Jerusalem, it appeared that the royal House of David was back in control of the Patriarchate. Did the rulings of Patriarch Shammai offend the new Idumean King of the Jews? We do not know! Knowing the personality of Shammai, we can suspect so.

What is known, in less than a year, also in 32 BCE, King Herod appointed Jacob ben Mattat as the Governor of Judea and Patriarch of Jerusalem and apparently ousted Prince Shammai. Within a year (31 BCE), Patriarch Jacob was sent on a diplomatic mission to offer military assistance to the hated Roman imperial leader, Octavian. Jacob ben Mattat was now recognized as a collaborator with Rome (Edom).

A power battle appeared to be brewing between the last bastion of the Tobaidite all-Jewish Davidian rule and the new powerful family of Jesus that was rising in the future. The verbal halakhic battles on the Torah between Rabbi Jesus (Yehoshua) and the Pharisees disciples of Beit (School of) Shammai appear now to have roots; within the conflicts between Shammai and Hillel, the ousting of Menahem the Essene the Beis Av Din (Vice-President) of the Sanhedrin (30 to 10 BCE), the bloody feud between the disciples of Hillel, Menahem and Shammai, the escape to Damascus of eighty of the disciples of Hillel and eighty of the disciples of Menahem the Essene to Damascus and the rise of the Essene oppositional movement to the “corrupted Pharisees now in collaboration with the “corrupted Sadducees” who were “corrupted” Zadokian high priests, now have historical roots.

The Lineages of the Last Generations of all-Jewish Davidians

Jude III ^35C became a rival-Davidian claimant, who had three sons:

Matthias (Mattai) ^36Awho was the father of;

Jose III (Joseph III) ³⁷who was executed in 35 BCE, and was the father of;

Simon V of Perea ³⁸ was executed in 4 BCE by the general for the recently deceased Herod the Great, called General Gatus. He was the last Senior heir of the Tobaite all-Jewish Lineage. He died childless and the Tobaite Lineage, the last of the “All Jewish Lineage of Zerubabbel” became Extinct.

Princess Salome ³⁷, a daughter, who married Joseph IV/II, who was the brother of King Herod the Great. As a dynastic heiress, when she married a non-Jew, an Idumean, so her lineage became Extinct. She was the mother of:

Shemaiah (Shemaya) ^36B, who was a “Jew” but lost his inheritance as a Prince of David, became the father of

Shammai ³⁷ succeeded Menahem the Essene as the Beis AV Din (Vice-President) of the Great Sanhedrin in 20 BCE, succeeded Hillel the Great as the Nasi of the Great Sanhedrin in 10 CE. He was the Founder of the famous Torah Seminary called the Beit Shammai. He died in 30 CE, the year of Yehoshua’s execution, childless as this lineage became Extinct.

Abtalyon (Ptollion), ^36Chad no known heirs and this lineage Extinct.

Was not Boaz, the great grandfather of King David, married to Ruth the Moabite, from the cursed lineage of the incestual relationship between Lot and his daughter, after the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah? A Moabite was not allowed into the assembly of the Jewish people, but how did Ruth come to such an honored position of being the great grandmother of King David? By descending into licentiousness and carnality, Lot and his daughters were separated from the family and the covenantal promises to Abraham of his descendant’s messianic destiny. Yet, in the eyes of the Divine, curses do not last forever. The curse of Lot’s descendants was to last for ten generations. Ruth was the eleventh. With an act of kindness between Ruth and Boaz, the family of Lot was reunited back with the Jewish messianic destiny and the Moabite Ruth became the great grandmother of King David.

Was not Salmon, the great great grandfather of King David, married to a Canaanite prostitute, Rahab? Yet, in the eyes of the Divine, no matter what happens in our past, we can be redeemed if we are willing to “watch and be ready”. As Rahab “watched and was ready” to be redeemed, her faith gave her the courage to protect and to shield the two spies that were sent by Joshua son the Nun (Yeshua ben Nun) to learn how to destroy her city, the impregnable walled-city of Jericho. This heathen Baal worshipper was redeemed and by her faith and with Prince Salmon, her future husband, she became united with the Jewish messianic destiny. This Canaanite harlot called Rahab became the great great grandmother of King David.

Our exploration is only beginning. For while we learned that the Davidian lineages from the Babylonian, Persian, and Assyrian princess eventually became the Senior lineages, we also note, it was these same lineages that brought to the Jews their messiah, Yahshua HaMaschiach (Jesus the Messiah). We will soon discover that as the blood lineages of the Babylonian, Persian, and Assyrian lineages opened the door for the salvation of their people, we also will learn that the prophetic utterance, “Out of Egypt, I will bring my Son” may also open the doors of restoration for Egypt and Assyria, who were the oppressors of Israel.

*****

Note – The genealogies and historical overlays of the family of Jesus are a project of continuing research. For any researchers with additional historical insight and genealogical information are welcome to contact any of the following researchers.

David Hughes – RdavidH218@AOL.com – Davidian Genealogy

Robert Mock – robertmock@biblesearchers.com – Biblical History

Robert Killian - rkillian@libello.com – Biblical Chronology

Go to Book One –

Chapter Five

“‘Out of Egypt, I will Bring My Son’- The Mystery of Cleopatra of Rome”

Topics

Jacob ben Mattan, the Patriarch of Jerusalem and Cleopatra of Jerusalem

The House of Zadok Lineage

The Babylonian Ancestry of Patriarch Jacob and Governor Nehemiah

37 BCE - The Restoration of the non-Jewish Davidian Lineages and High Priests of Zadok

Prince Shammai, the “Eighteen Measures” and the Split of the Pharisees

32 BCE – The Patriarch of Jerusalem, Jacob ben Matthan

Wives of Prince Jacob (Ya’akov ben Matthan)

30 BCE - The Arrival of the Royal Princess of Egypt and Rome, Cleopatra of Jerusalem

Husbands of Princess Cleopatra VIII

The Mystery of Cleopatra of Jerusalem - Reputed Posthumous Daughter of Queen Cleopatra VII

Cleopatra VII – The Last Pharaoh of Egypt

Cleopatra’s Royal Visit to Rome

Battle of Actium - The Final War of the Roman Republic

The Fall of the Greek Ptolemaic Empire

The Consequences of Cleopatra’s Royal Visit to Rome

The Marriages and Children of Queen Cleopatra VII of Egypt

Lineages

The House of Zadok Lineage

Wives of Prince Jacob (Ya’akov ben Matthan)

Husbands of Princess Cleopatra VIII

The Descendants of Cleopatra VII of Egypt

The Marriages and Children of Queen Cleopatra VII of Egypt

Return to Beginning

Book One

The Ancestors of Jesus in First and Second Century Judea BCE

Go to Chapter One –

“The Royal Davidian, Maccabee, and Levitical Ancestors of Jesus (Yehoshua)”

Go to Chapter Two –

“The Political and Royal Heritage of Miriam, the Chosen Princess, as the Mother of the Jewish Messiah”

Go to Chapter Three –

“The Religious Heritage of Miriam, the Chosen Princess, as the Granddaughter of a High Priest”

Go to Chapter Four –

“The Jewish Temples in Egypt and the Zadokian High Priest Influence of the Ancestors of Jesus”

Go to Chapter Five –

“‘Out of Egypt, I will Bring My Son’ - The Family of Prince Joseph”

Go to Chapter Six –

“The Davidian Princes in the Days of Herod the Great”

Go to Chapter Seven –

“The Legacy of the Jewish Freedom Fighters in the Ancestors of Jesus”

Book Two

The History of the Jews surrounding the Princes of David

Go to Chapter One –

“The Maccabees and the Abomination of Desolation”

Go to Chapter Two –

“The Fulfillment of the Covenant of King David and Solomon by King Josiah and the Prophet Jeremiah”

Go to Chapter Three –

“Princess Tamar - the Dynastic Merging of the Lineages of Solomon and Nathan”

Book Three

“The Princes of David from Zerubabbel to the Messiah”

Go to Chapter One –

“A New Beginning – The Princes of Israel and Ezra the Scribe”

Go to Chapter Two –

“Zerubabbel, the Prince of Israel and the Patriarch of the Jews”

Go to Chapter Three –

“The Governors of Judea from the Persian to the Herodian Eras”

Go to Chapter Four –

“The Messiah, the son of David”

BIBLICAL CHRONOLOGY

for

Exegenesis Biblical Event Chronology

http://www.exegenesis.com/data_files/bible_event_chronicle.htm

by Robert Killian of Monaco

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bibliography for Davidic Dynasty

http://biblesearchers.com/yahshua/davidian/dynastybibliography.shtml

for

Israel's Davidic Dynasty

http://www.members.aol.com/rdavidh218/davidicdynasty.html

by David Hughes

The British Chronicles

Book

The British Chronicles

LIST OF ARTICLES
by David Hughes

This Page,

http://hometown.aol.com/rdavidh218/myhomepage/index.html,

Is updated whenever a New Article is Posted to the Net
----------------------------------------
Note: Some of the hyperlinks for some reason don't work, thus,

it may be necessary to copy & paste some of the web addresses
-----------------------------------------------

1. Five descent-lines from Roman Emperors to British Kings
http://www.members.aol.com/rdavidh218/empire2britain.html

or mirror site
http://www.angelfire.com/ego/et_deo/empire2britain.wps.htm

2. Ancestors & descendants of Britain's King Arthur, & the Anwyl Family
http://www.members.aol.com/rdavidh218/arthurian_genealogies.html

or mirror site
http://www.angelfire.com/ego/et_deo/arthurian_genealogies.wps.htm

3. Israel: From Moses, its first judge, to [H]Oshea, its last king
http://www.members.aol.com/rdavidh218/israel.html

or mirror site
http://www.angelfire.com/ego/et_deo/israel.wps.htm

4. Israel's Davidic Dynasty
http://www.members.aol.com/rdavidh218/davidicdynasty.html

or mirror site
http://www.angelfire.com/ego/et_deo/davidicdynasty.wps.htm

5. Descent from Christianity's Holy Family to Britain's Royal Family: the Jesus Dynasty
http://www.members.aol.com/rdavidh218/holyfamily2royalfamily.htmlor

mirror site
http://www.angelfire.com/ego/et_deo/holyfamily2royalfamily.wps.htm

6. The Grail-Kings
http://www.members.aol.com/rdavidh218/grail_kings.html

or mirror site
http://www.angelfire.com/ego/et_deo/grail_kings.wps.htm

7. Five Descent-Lines from Israeli Royalty to British Royalty
http://www.members.aol.com/rdavidh218/israel2britain.html

or mirror site
http://www.angelfire.com/ego/et_deo/israel2britain.wps.htm

8. Old British Royal House
http://www.members.aol.com/rdavidh218/oldbritishroyalhouse.html

or mirror site
http://www.angelfire.com/ego/et_deo/oldbritishroyalhouse.wps.htm

9. Genealogy of the Lougher Family: male-line descendants of Britain's Iron Age Kings
http://www.members.aol.com/rdavidh218/LougherPedigree.html

or mirror site
http://www.angelfire.com/ego/et_deo/LougherPedigree.wps.htm

10. The Jacobites: The Stuart King James II & His Heirs
http://www.members.aol.com/rdavidh218/jacobites.html

or mirror site
http://www.angelfire.com/ego/et_deo/jacobites.wps.htm

11. Kings & Princes of Wales
http://www.members.aol.com/rdavidh218/welshkings.html

or mirror site
http://www.angelfire.com/ego/et_deo/welshkings.wps.htm

12. Kings of Scotland
http://www.members.aol.com/rdavidh218/scottishkings.html

or mirror site
http://www.angelfire.com/ego/et_deo/scottishkings.wps.htm

13. Kings of Ulster: independent Irish kingdom
http://www.members.aol.com/rdavidh218/ulsterkings.html

or mirror site
http://www.angelfire.com/ego/et_deo/ulsterkings.wps.htm

14. Kings of Ireland
http://www.members.aol.com/rdavidh218/irishkings.html

or mirror site
http://www.angelfire.com/ego/et_deo/irishkings.wps.htm

15. The Picts
http://www.members.aol.com/rdavidh218/picts.html

16. Early Frankish kings & the Merovingians
http://www.members.aol.com/rdavidh218/earlyfrankishkings.html

or mirror site
http://www.angelfire.com/ego/et_deo/earlyfrankishkings.wps.htm

17. Some descent-lines from Africa to Europe
http://www.members.aol.com/rdavidh218/africa2europe.html

or mirror site
http://www.angelfire.com/ego/et_deo/africa2europe.wps.htm

18. Some descent-lines from Arabic Royalty to European Royalty
http://www.members.aol.com/rdavidh218/arabia2europe.html

or mirror site
http://www.angelfire.com/ego/et_deo/arabia2europe.wps.htm

19. Some descent-lines from Asia to Europe
http://www.members.aol.com/rdavidh218/asia2europe.html

or mirror site
http://www.angelfire.com/ego/et_deo/asia2europe.wps.htm

20. Ancestors & descendants of Central America's Aztec Emperors
http://www.members.aol.com/rdavidh218/azteckings.html

or mirror site
http://www.angelfire.com/ego/et_deo/azteckings.wps.htm

21. Ancestors & descendants of South America's Inca Emperors
http://www.members.aol.com/rdavidh218/incas.html

or mirror site
http://www.angelfire.com/ego/et_deo/incas.wps.htm

22. Egyptian Pharaohs
http://www.members.aol.com/rdavidh218/egyptianpharaohs.html

or mirror site
http://www.angelfire.com/ego/et_deo/egyptianpharaohs.wps.htm

23. Descent-line from Ancient Egypt to Modern Britain
http://www.members.aol.com/rdavidh218/egypt2britain.html

or mirror site
http://www.angelfire.com/ego/et_deo/egypt2britain.wps.htm

24. Descent-line from Ancient Greece to Modern Greece
http://www.members.aol.com/rdavidh218/ancient2moderngreece.html

or mirror site
http://www.angelfire.com/ego/et_deo/ancient2moderngreece.wps.htm

25. Ancient Sumeria
http://www.members.aol.com/rdavidh218/ancient_sumeria.html

or mirror site
http://www.angelfire.com/ego/et_deo/ancient_sumeria.wps.htm

26. The Babylonian Emperors
http://www.members.aol.com/rdavidh218/babylonianemperors.html

or mirror site
http://www.angelfire.com/ego/et_deo/babylonianemperors.wps.htm

27. The Assyrian Kings
http://www.members.aol.com/rdavidh218/assyriankings.html

or mirror site
http://www.angelfire.com/ego/et_deo/assyriankings.wps.htm

28. The Balthae Dynasty: Gothic Kings
http://www.members.aol.com/rdavidh218/balthae_dynasty.html

or mirror site
http://www.angelfire.com/ego/et_deo/balthae_dynasty.wps.htm

29. Lombard Kings
http://www.members.aol.com/rdavidh218/lombards.html

or mirror site
http://www.angelfire.com/ego/et_deo/lombards.wps.htm

30. Male-line ancestry of the Plantagenets of England & the Capetians of France
http://www.members.aol.com/rdavidh218/plantagenets.html

or mirror site
http://www.angelfire.com/ego/et_deo/plantagenets.wps.htm

31. Early Danish kings
http://www.members.aol.com/rdavidh218/earlydanishkings.html

or mirror site
http://www.angelfire.com/ego/et_deo/earlydanishkings.wps.htm

32. Cerdic of Wessex
http://www.members.aol.com/rdavidh218/cerdic_of_wessex.html

or mirror site
http://www.angelfire.com/ego/et_deo/cerdic_of_wessex.wps.htm

33. The "Beli Mawr Pedigree"
http://www.members.aol.com/rdavidh218/beli_mawr_pedigree.html

or mirror site
http://www.angelfire.com/ego/et_deo/beli_mawr_pedigree.wps.htm

34. The "Aedd Mawr Pedigree"
http://www.members.aol.com/rdavidh218/aedd_mawr_pedigree.html

or mirror site
http://www.angelfire.com/ego/et_deo/aedd_mawr_pedigree.wps.htm

35. The "Beli & Anne Pedigree"
http://www.members.aol.com/rdavidh218/beli_anne_pedigree.html

or mirror site
http://www.angelfire.com/ego/et_deo/beli_anne_pedigree.wps.htm

36. Heirs-Male of the Old British Royal House
http://www.members.aol.com/rdavidh218/caratacus_descent-lines.html

37. Story of the First Christmas
http://www.members.aol.com/rdavidh218/first_christmas.html

or mirror site
http://www.angelfire.com/ego/et_deo/first_christmas.wps.htm

38. Jesus & His Passion
http://www.members.aol.com/rdavidh218/JESUS.html
or mirror site
http://www.angelfire.com/ego/et_deo/JESUS.wps.htm

39. Christianity
http://www.members.aol.com/rdavidh218/christianity.html

or mirror site
http://www.angelfire.com/ego/et_deo/christianity.wps.htm

40. Atlantis: the "Lost Continent"
http://www.members.aol.com/rdavidh218/atlantis.html

or mirror site
http://www.angelfire.com/ego/et_deo/atlantis.wps.htm

41. Who was Geoffrey of Monmouth's Brutus?
http://www.members.aol.com/rdavidh218/brutus.html

or mirror site
http://www.angelfire.com/ego/et_deo/brutus.wps.htm

42. The Mamikonids [genealogy]
http://www.members.aol.com/rdavidh218/mamikonids.html

or mirror site
http://www.angelfire.com/ego/et_deo/mamikonids.wps.htm

43. Complete list of British Monarchs
http://www.members.aol.com/rdavidh218/british_monarchs.html

or mirror site
http://www.angelfire.com/ego/et_deo/british_monarchs.wps.htm

44. The Habsburg Dynasty's origin
http://www.members.aol.com/rdavidh218/hapsburgs.html

or mirror site
http://www.angelfire.com/ego/et_deo/hapsburgs.wps.htm

45. Carolingian Dynasty
http://www.members.aol.com/rdavidh218/carolingians.html

or mirror site
http://www.angelfire.com/ego/et_deo/carolingians.wps.htm

46. Early Kings & later Dukes of Brittany, now the French province of Bretagne
http://www.members.aol.com/rdavidh218/brittany.html

or mirror site
http://www.angelfire.com/ego/et_deo/brittany.wps.htm

47. Tamar-Tephi [&, a Jewish kingdom in Ancient Ireland]
http://www.members.aol.com/rdavidh218/Tamar-Tephi.html

or mirror site
http://www.angelfire.com/ego/et_deo/Tamar-Tephi.wps.htm

48. House of Dracula
http://www.members.aol.com/rdavidh218/dracula.html

or mirror site
http://www.angelfire.com/ego/et_deo/dracula.wps.htm

49. Various Royal Families which have Inherited England's throne
http://www.members.aol.com/rdavidh218/royal_houses.html

or mirror site
http://www.angelfire.com/ego/et_deo/royal_houses.wps.htm

50. Descent of Emperors of India to Kings of Britain
http://www.members.aol.com/rdavidh218/india2britain.html

or mirror site
http://www.angelfire.com/ego/et_deo/india2britain.wps.htm

51. Descent-line from Turkish Khans to British Kings
http://www.members.aol.com/rdavidh218/turkey2europe.html

or mirror site
http://www.angelfire.com/ego/et_deo/turkey2europe.wps.htm

52. Descent of Chinese Empress Wu to Queen Elizabeth II of Britain, etc
http://www.members.aol.com/rdavidh218/china2britain.html

or mirror site
http://www.angelfire.com/ego/et_deo/china2britain.wps.htm

53. Regnal-list & Genealogy of the Indo-Greek Kings of Bactria
http://www.members.aol.com/rdavidh218/bactria.html

or mirror site
http://www.angelfire.com/ego/et_deo/bactria.wps.htm

54. Descent from Russian Royalty to British Royalty
http://www.members.aol.com/rdavidh218/russia2britain.html

or mirror site
http://www.angelfire.com/ego/et_deo/russia2britain.wps.htm

55. The Maccabee Dynasty, House of Judas Maccabeus
http://www.members.aol.com/rdavidh218/maccabee.html

or mirror site
http://www.angelfire.com/ego/et_deo/maccabee.wps.htm

56. The Herodians, House of Herod The Great
http://www.members.aol.com/rdavidh218/herodians.html

or mirror site
http://www.angelfire.com/ego/et_deo/herodians.wps.htm

57. The Aaronic High-Priests of Israel & Judah/Judea
http://www.members.aol.com/rdavidh218/highpriests.html

or mirror site
http://www.angelfire.com/ego/et_deo/highpriests.wps.htm

58. Kings of Pontus, list & genealogy
http://www.members.aol.com/rdavidh218/pontus.html

or mirror site
http://www.angelfire.com/ego/et_deo/pontus.wps.htm

59. Kings of Thrace, genealogy
http://www.members.aol.com/rdavidh218/thrace.html

or mirror site
http://www.angelfire.com/ego/et_deo/thrace.wps.htm

60. Kings of Bosphore, now Ukraine
http://www.members.aol.com/rdavidh218/bosphore.html

or mirror site
http://www.angelfire.com/ego/et_deo/bosphore.wps.htm

61. Tamerlane & the Tartars
http://www.members.aol.com/rdavidh218/tamerlane.html

or mirror site
http://www.angelfire.com/ego/et_deo/tamerlane.wps.htm

David Hughes,

RdavidH218@AOL.com,

Genealogical charts available upon request; Comments Welcome
------------------------------------------------
note: FORTHCOMING BOOK!, "BRITISH CHRONICLES"
See Table of Contents at

http://www.members.aol.com/rdavidh218/britishroyalty.htm
or mirror site

http://www.angelfire.com/ego/et_deo/britishroyalty.wps.htm

------------------------------------------------

Message from BibleSearchers

BibleSearchers scans the world for information that has relevance on the time of the end. It is our prayer that this will allow the believers in the Almighty One of Israel to “watch and be ready”. Our readiness has nothing to do trying to halt the progression of evil on our planet earth. In our readiness, we seek to be prepared for the coming of the Messiah of Israel so that goodness and evil will be manifested in its fullest. Our preparation is a pathway of spiritual readiness for a world of peace. Our defender is the Lord of hosts. The time of the end suggests that the Eternal One of Israel’s intent is to close out this chapter of earth’s history so that the perpetrators of evil, those that seek power, greed and control, will be eliminated from this planet earth. The wars of the heavens are being played out on this planet earth and humans will live through it to testify of the might, power, justice and the love of the God of Israel. In a world of corruption and disinformation, we cannot always know what the historical truth is and who is promoting evil or mis-information. We cannot guarantee our sources but we will always seek to portray trends that can be validated in the Torah and the testimony of the prophets of the Old and the New Testament.

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