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39-468: Raham was a biblical character, mentioned in the genealogical lists of 1 Chronicles , in 1 Chronicles 2:44 . He was a descendant of Caleb and Hezron , a son of Shema, and the father of Jorkeam . [REDACTED]  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain :  Easton, Matthew George (1897). " Raham ". Easton's Bible Dictionary (New and revised ed.). T. Nelson and Sons. This Bible -related article

78-744: A Bat-Kohen , regardless of the child's father's tribe or the mother's marital status, retain the traditional exemption for their children from the requirement of being redeemed through the Pidyon HaBen . Conservative Judaism permits a Bat Levi to perform essentially all the rituals a male Levi would perform, including being called to the Torah for the Levite aliyah in those Conservative synagogues which have both retained traditional tribal roles and modified traditional gender roles. In Israel, Conservative/Masorti Judaism has not extended Torah honors either to

117-558: A "Middle Eastern origin of the Ashkenazi Levite lineage based on what was previously a relatively limited number of reported samples, can now be considered firmly validated", precising that a "rich variation of haplogroup R1a outside of Europe which is phylogenetically separate from the typically European R1a branches", referring to the R1a-Y2619 sub-clade. Having a last name of Levi or a related term does not necessarily mean

156-468: A bat Kohen or to a bat Levi. In 1938, with the outbreak of violence that would come to be known as Kristallnacht , American Orthodox rabbi Menachem HaKohen Risikoff wrote about the central role he saw for Priests and Levites in terms of Jewish and world responses, in worship, liturgy, and teshuva , repentance. In The Priests and the Levites (1940), he stressed that members of these groups exist in

195-533: A brief account of Saul in chapter 10, is concerned with the reign of David . The next long section concerns David's son Solomon , and the final part is concerned with the Kingdom of Judah , with occasional references to the northern Kingdom of Israel (2 Chronicles 10–36). The final chapter covers briefly the reigns of the last four kings, until Judah is destroyed and the people taken into exile in Babylon . In

234-417: A common ideology, the uniformity of legal, cultic and historical conceptions and specific style, all of which reflect one opus." One of the most striking, although inconclusive, features of Chronicles is that its closing sentence is repeated as the opening of Ezra–Nehemiah. In antiquity, such repeated verses, like the "catch-lines" used by modern printers, often appeared at the end of a scroll to facilitate

273-742: A distinctive founder event within R1a, the most prevalent Y-chromosome haplogroup in Eastern Europe. Here we report the analysis of 16 whole R1 sequences and show that a set of 19 unique nucleotide substitutions defines the Ashkenazi R1a lineage. While our survey of one of these, M582, in 2,834 R1a samples reveals its absence in 922 Eastern Europeans, we show it is present in all sampled R1a Ashkenazi Levites, as well as in 33.8% of other R1a Ashkenazi Jewish males and 5.9% of 303 R1a Near Eastern males, where it shows considerably higher diversity. Moreover,

312-682: A lesser though somewhat distinct status within Judaism , and are bound by additional restrictions according to Orthodox Judaism . During the Priestly Blessing , the Levites traditionally wash the hands of the Kohanim prior to the blessing of the House of Israel. ("A first-born son washes the Kohen's hands if there is no Levite". ) In Orthodox Judaism, children of a Bat Levi, like those of

351-405: A person is a Levite, and many well-known Levites do not have such last names. Levitical status is passed down in families from father to child born from a Jewish mother, as part of a family's genealogical tradition. Tribal status of Levite is determined by patrilineal descent , so a child whose biological father is a Levite (in cases of adoption or artificial insemination, status is determined by

390-481: A restoration of the Temple as a house of worship and in some special role for Levites, although not the ancient sacrificial system as previously practised—recognizes Levites as having special status. Not all Conservative congregations call Kohanim and Levites to the first and second reading of the Torah , and many no longer perform rituals such as the Priestly Blessing and Pidyon HaBen in which Kohanim and Levites have

429-514: A special role. Reconstructionist and Reform Judaism do not observe distinctions between Kohanim, Levites, and other Jews . The Kohanim are traditionally believed and halachically required to be of direct patrilineal descent from the biblical Aaron of the Tribe of Levi . The origins of the name/term "Levy" in Hebrew remain unclear. Some hypotheses link this name with the Hebrew root lwh ,

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468-724: A time close to the initial formation and settlement of the Ashkenazi community as a possible explanation. As Nebel, Behar and Goldstein speculate: although neither the NRY haplogroup composition of the majority of Ashkenazi Jews nor the microsatellite haplotype composition of the R1a1 haplogroup within Ashkenazi Levites is consistent with a major Khazar or other European origin, as has been speculated by some authors (Baron 1957; Dunlop 1967; Ben-Sasson 1976; Keys 1999), one cannot rule out

507-465: Is a midrash , or traditional Jewish commentary, on Genesis–Kings, but again this is not entirely accurate since the author or authors do not comment on the older books so much as use them to create a new work. Recent suggestions have been that it was intended as a clarification of the history in Genesis–Kings, or a replacement or alternative for it. Presbyterian theologian Paul K. Hooker argues that

546-626: Is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . 1 Chronicles The book was translated into Greek and divided into two books in the Septuagint in the mid-3rd century BC. In Christian contexts Chronicles is referred to in the plural as the Books of Chronicles , after the Latin name chronicon given to the text by Jerome , but is also referred to by its Greek name as the Books of Paralipomenon . In Christian Bibles , they usually follow

585-590: Is also likely that Chronicles preserved ancient heterodox traditions regarding Israel's history. The translators who created the Greek version of the Jewish Bible (the Septuagint ) called this book Paralipomenon , "Things Left Out", indicating that they thought of it as a supplement to another work, probably Genesis–Kings, but the idea seems inappropriate, since much of Genesis–Kings has been copied almost without change. Some modern scholars proposed that Chronicles

624-591: Is an eighth-generation descendant of King Jehoiachin according to the Masoretic Text . This has persuaded many supporters of the Septuagint's reading to place Anani's likely date of birth a century later than what had been largely accepted for two millennia. Much of the content of Chronicles is a repetition of material from other books of the Bible, from Genesis to Kings , and so the usual scholarly view

663-713: Is found at the highest levels among people of Eastern European descent, with 50 to 65% among Sorbs , Poles , Russians , and Ukrainians . In South Asia , R1a1a has often been observed with high frequency in a number of demographic groups, reaching over 70% in West Bengal Brahmins in India and among the Mohani people in Sindh , Pakistan. Behar's data suggested a founding event, involving an 'introgression' of anywhere from one to fifty non-Jewish European men, occurring at

702-406: Is that these books, or an early version of them, provided the author with the bulk of his material. It is, however, possible that the situation was rather more complex, and that books such as Genesis and Samuel should be regarded as contemporary with Chronicles, drawing on much of the same material, rather than a source for it. Despite much discussion of this issue, no agreement has been reached. It

741-682: The Kohanim recite the Priestly Blessing . Since Levites (and Kohanim) are traditionally pledged to Divine service, there is no Pidyon HaBen (redemption of the firstborn) ceremony for: Orthodox Judaism believes in the eventual rebuilding of a Temple in Jerusalem and a resumption of the Levitical role. A small number of schools, primarily in Israel , train priests and Levites in their respective roles. Conservative Judaism —which believes in

780-545: The landed tribes were expected to support the Levites with a tithe ( Numbers 18:21–25 ), particularly the tithe known as the First tithe , ma'aser rishon . The Kohanim , a subset of the Levites, were the priests, who performed the work of holiness in the Temple. The Levites, referring to those who were not Kohanim, were specifically assigned to: When Joshua led the Israelites into the land of Canaan ( Joshua 13:33 ),

819-625: The Aramaic root lwy , or the Arabic root lwy . The noun kohen is used in the Torah to refer to priests , both Israelite and non-Israelite, such as the Israelite nation as a whole, as well as the priests (Hebrew kohanim ) of Baal . During the existence of the Temple in Jerusalem , Kohanim performed the daily and holiday ( Yom Tov ) duties of sacrificial offerings . Today kohanim retain

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858-530: The M582 lineage also occurs at low frequencies in non-Ashkenazi Jewish populations. In contrast to the previously suggested Eastern European origin for Ashkenazi Levites, the current data are indicative of a geographic source of the Levite founder lineage in the Near East and its likely presence among pre-Diaspora Hebrews. In a later 2017 study Behar et al. revised their initially mitigated position, concluding that

897-672: The Sons of Levi were the only Israelite tribe that received cities but were not allowed to be landowners "because the Lord the God of Israel Himself is their inheritance" ( Deuteronomy 18:2 ). In modern times, Levites are integrated in Jewish communities, but keep a distinct status. There are estimated 300,000 Levites among Ashkenazi Jewish communities, and a similar number among Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews combined. The total percentage of Levites among

936-711: The Y-chromosome by Behar et al. pointed to multiple origins for Ashkenazi Levites, who comprise approximately 4% among the Ashkenazi Jews. It found that Haplogroup R1a1a (R-M17), uncommon in the Middle East or among Sephardic Jews , is present in over 50% of Ashkenazi Levites, while the rest of Ashkenazi Levites' paternal lineage is of certain Middle Eastern origin, including Y-chromosome haplogroups E3b, J2, F, R1b, K, I, Q, N and L. Haplogroup R1a1a

975-590: The author " the Chronicler ". However, many scholars maintain support for Ezra's authorship, not only based on centuries of work by Jewish historians, but also due to the consistency of language and speech patterns between Chronicles and Ezra–Nehemiah. Professor Emeritus Menahem Haran of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem explains, "the overall unity of the Chronistic Work is … demonstrated by

1014-502: The author has used various other devices to structure his work, notably through drawing parallels between David and Solomon (the first becomes king, establishes the worship of Israel's God in Jerusalem, and fights the wars that will enable the Temple to be built, then Solomon becomes king, builds and dedicates the Temple, and reaps the benefits of prosperity and peace). 1 Chronicles is divided into 29 chapters and 2 Chronicles into 36 chapters. Biblical commentator C. J. Ball suggests that

1053-538: The author of Chronicles was also the author of the narrative portions of Ezra–Nehemiah. These critics suggest that Chronicles was probably composed between 400 and 250 BC, with the period 350–300 BC the most likely. This timeframe is achieved by estimates made based on genealogies appearing in the Greek Septuagint . This theory bases its premise on the latest person mentioned in Chronicles, Anani. Anani

1092-511: The division into two books introduced by the translators of the Septuagint "occurs in the most suitable place", namely with the conclusion of David's reign as king and the initiation of Solomon's reign. The Talmud considered Chronicles one book. The last events recorded in Chronicles take place in the reign of Cyrus the Great , the Persian king who conquered Babylon in 539 BC; this sets

1131-496: The earliest possible date for this passage of the book. Chronicles appears to be largely the work of a single individual. The writer was probably male, probably a Levite (temple priest), and probably from Jerusalem. He was well-read, a skilled editor, and a sophisticated theologian. He aimed to use the narratives in the Torah and former prophets to convey religious messages to his peers, the literary and political elite of Jerusalem in

1170-443: The generally accepted message the author wished to give to his audience was a theological reflection, not a "history of Israel": Translations Introductions Audiobooks Levite Levites ( / ˈ l iː v aɪ t / LEE -vyte ; Hebrew : לְוִיִּם , romanized :  Lǝvīyyīm ) or Levi are Jewish males who claim patrilineal descent from the Tribe of Levi . The Tribe of Levi descended from Levi ,

1209-408: The genetic father), is also considered a Levite. Jewish status is determined by matrilineal descent, thus conferring levitical status onto children requires both biological parents to be Israelites and the biological father to be a Levite. Accordingly, there is currently no branch of Judaism that regards levitical status as conferrable by matrilineal descent. It is either conferrable patrilineally with

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1248-558: The important contribution of a single or a few founders among contemporary Ashkenazi Levites." A 2013 paper by Siiri Rootsi et al. confirmed a Near or Middle Eastern origin for all Ashkenazi Levites, including the R1a Y-chromosome carriers, and refuted the Khazar hypothesis of Ashkenazi ancestry : Previous Y-chromosome studies have demonstrated that Ashkenazi Levites, members of a paternally inherited Jewish Levite caste, display

1287-532: The reader's passing on to the correct second book-scroll after completing the first. This scribal device was employed in works that exceeded the scope of a single scroll and had to be continued on another scroll. The latter half of the 20th century, amid growing skepticism in academia regarding history in the Biblical tradition, saw a reappraisal of the authorship question. Though there is a general lack of corroborating evidence, many now regard it as improbable that

1326-434: The realm between history (below) and redemption (above), and must act in a unique way to help move others to prayer and action, and help bring an end to suffering. He wrote, "Today, we also are living through a time of flood, Not of water, but of a bright fire, which burns and turns Jewish life into ruin. We are now drowning in a flood of blood. ... Through the Kohanim and Levi'im help will come to all Israel." A 2003 study of

1365-569: The third son of Jacob and Leah . The surname Halevi , which consists of the Hebrew definite article " ה " Ha- ('the') plus Levi ('Levite'), is not conclusive regarding being a Levite; a titular use of HaLevi indicates being a Levite. The daughter of a Levite is a Bat Levi ( Bat being Hebrew for 'daughter'). The Tribe of Levi served particular religious duties for the Israelites and had political (administering cities of refuge) and educational responsibilities as well. In return,

1404-609: The time of the Achaemenid Empire . Jewish and Christian tradition identified this author as the 5th-century BC figure Ezra , who gives his name to the Book of Ezra ; Ezra is also believed by the Talmudic sages to have written both his own book (i. e., Ezra–Nehemiah ) and Chronicles up to his own time, the latter having been finished by Nehemiah . Later critics, skeptical of the long-maintained tradition, preferred to call

1443-564: The two Books of Kings and precede Ezra–Nehemiah , the last history-oriented book of the Protestant Old Testament. The Chronicles narrative begins with Adam, Seth and Enosh , and the story is then carried forward, almost entirely through genealogical lists , down to the founding of the United Kingdom of Israel in the "introductory chapters", 1 Chronicles 1–9. The bulk of the remainder of 1 Chronicles, after

1482-594: The two final verses, identical to the opening verses of the Book of Ezra , the Persian king Cyrus the Great conquers the Neo-Babylonian Empire , and authorises the restoration of the Temple in Jerusalem and the return of the exiles. Originally a single work, Chronicles was divided into two in the Septuagint , a Greek translation produced in the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC. It has three broad divisions: Within this broad structure there are signs that

1521-496: The wider Jewish population is about 4%. Today, Levites in Orthodox Judaism continue to have additional rights and obligations compared to lay people, although these responsibilities have diminished with the destruction of the Temple . For instance, Kohanim are eligible to be called to the Torah first, followed by the Levites. Levites also provide assistance to the Kohanim , particularly washing their hands, before

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