Jonathan (also called John) was a very wicked high priest. So evil was Jonathan that his wickedness was not so much as even heard of among the Gentiles! Notice Josephus' testimony: "...and when he [Joiada or Judas] was dead, his son John [Jonathan] took that dignity; on whose account it was also that Bagoses, the general of another of Artaxerxes' [Artaxerxes II Mnemon 404-358 B.C.) army, polluted the temple, and imposed tributes on the Jews, that out of the public stock, before they offered the daily sacrifices, they should pay for every lamb fifty shekels.

Now Jesus (not Christ) was the brother of John [Jonathan], and was a friend of Bagoses, who had promised to procure him the high priesthood. In confidence of whose support, Jesus quarrelled with John in the temple, and so provoked his brother [Jonathan], that in his anger his brother [Jonathan] slew him [Jesus]. Now it was a horrible thing for John [Jonathan], when he was high priest, to perpetrate so great a crime, and so much the more horrible, that there never was so cruel and impious a thing done, neither by the Greeks nor Barbarians" (Antiquities of the Jews, Book XI, Chapter VII, Paragraph 1).

The high priest, spiritual leader of all priests and Levites, whose duty it was to uphold the law of God, had committed murder in the temple of God! Under Jonathan's influence, the Levitical priesthood became more and more corrupt. By the late 400's B.C., the priesthood was so corrupt that God inspired Malachi to write, "A son honoureth his father, and a servant his master: if then I be a Father [Hebrew av, meaning lord, master, teacher, advisor, counsellor], where is Mine honour? and if I be a Master, where is My fear? saith the LORD [Hebrew Jehovah of hosts unto you, O priests, that despise My name. And ye say, 'Wherein have we despised Thy name?' Ye offer polluted bread upon Mine altar; and ye say, 'Wherein have we polluted Thee?' In that ye say, 'The table of the LORD [Hebrew Jehovah] is contemptible"'(Mal. 1:6-7).

The priests had such little regard for God's name that they "snivelled" at the importance of God's altar. "But ye have profaned it [Me], in that ye say, 'The table [altar] of the LORD [Hebrew Jehovah is polluted; and the fruit thereof, even His meat, is contemptible.' Ye said also, 'Behold, what a weariness is it!' and ye have snuffed [an archaism for sniffed or puffed, meaning to show disdain and scorn by snivelling or pooh-poohing] at it [God's altar], saith the LORD [Hebrew Jehovah of hosts..." (Mal. 1:12-13).

So perverse was the attitude of the Levitical priesthood at this time that God began to resist and fight against them. Their rebelliousness might be phrased in modern English as an attitude of, "God, what difference does it make how we worship You as long as we love You? If we observe Sunday, Christmas and Easter; and believe in the Trinity, we are only doing so to glorify Your name." God's response was not one of acceptance: "And now, 0 ye priests, this commandment is for you. If ye will not hear, and if ye will not lay it to heart, to give glory unto My name, saith the LORD [Hebrew Jehovah of hosts, I will even send a curse [Hebrew arar, to bind, to hem in with obstacles; to render powerless, to resist] upon you, and I will curse your blessings: yea, I have cursed them already, because ye do not lay It to heart. Behold, I will corrupt [Hebrew ghaar, scold, rebuke, reprove, threaten] your seed, and spread dung upon your faces, even the dung of your solemn feasts; and one shall take you away with it" (Mal. 2:1-3).

God was so angry at their insolence that He proclaimed, "The LORD [Hebrew Jehovah will cut off the man that doeth this, the master [the watchman that waketh] and the scholar [the watchman that answereth], out of the tabernacles of Jacob, and him that offereth an offering unto the LORD [Hebrew Jehovah of hosts" (Mal. 2:12). These temple watchmen were the very Levites placed in charge of protecting the temple and its contents, the most important part of which was the Word of God!

The guardians of the temple service, the guardians of the Word of God, so despised God's name and His Word that they robbed God of his temple tithe (Mal. 3:8). The result was that the wages of the hireling were being taxed, the widow and fatherless received no support, and needy stranger was being turned aside (Mal.3:5). As the history of period attests, the Levites were using the tithe to finance real estate deals, businesses, building projects and cultural events (Wacholder, Eupolemus A Study of Judaeo-Greek Literature, pp. 1-21). These Levites had made themselves ambassadors to the nations of the ancient world. As ambassadors, they were using the tithe to sponsor cultural events! They presided over one of the greatest "tithing and loan" scandals ever known. I am sure they justified this misuse of God's tithe as "doing the Lords work.

Their departure from the true worship of God did not stop here. The priests openly committed adultery and corrupted their seed by divorcing their wives and intermarrying with Ammonites, Moabites, Egyptian Edomites and Samaritans (Josephus was descended from one of the bastard lines). The priests also dabbled in sorcery (consorting with evil spirits and their perverse doctrines). They even began to create pseud scriptures, rewriting the Old Testament and falsely reconstructing the history of Israel.

The Levites, who were the appointed teachers of the Word of God, had forsaken the true teachings of God and were swearing to falsehoods as though they were God's truth. God warned them, "And I will come near to you to judgment; and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and against false swearers for "them that swear to a falsehood"], and against those that oppress the hireling in his wages [taxing a hireling's wages was forbidden by God's law], the widow, and the fatherless, and that turn aside the stranger from his right, and fear not Me, saith the LORD [Hebrew Jehovah of hosts" Mal. 3:5 .

Within a little more than one hundred years after the time of Ezra and Nehemiah, the Levitical priesthood was guilty of the grossest of spiritual offenses. It was at this time in history that Alexander the Great advanced with his army against the land of Palestine. Jaddua, son of the wicked Jonathan, was high priest when Alexander the Great conquered Palestine Here is Josephus' account of the meeting of this influential high priest with

Alexander: "Now when John [Jonathan] had departed this life, his son Jaddua succeeded in the high- priesthood" (Book XI Chapter VII Paragraph 2) ....

Now Alexander [the Great], when he had taken Gaza [332/331 B.C.], made haste to go up to Jerusalem; and Jaddua the high priest, when he heard that, was in agony, and under terror, as not knowing how he should meet the Macedonians, since the king was displeased at his foregoing disobedience .... And when he [Jaddua] understood that he [Alexander] was not far from the city, he [Jaddua] went out in procession, with the priests and the multitude of the citizens. The procession was venerable, and the manner of it different from that of other nations .... And when the Book of Daniel was showed him [Alexander], wherein Daniel declared that one of the Greeks should destroy the empire of the Persians, he [Alexander] supposed that himself was the person intended" (Antiquities of the Jews, Book XI, Chapter VIII, Paragraphs 4 and 5).

Alexander the Great was a young man of twenty-three years at this time. He had seen the high priest and his procession in a dream, and the high priest Jaddua had seen Alexander in a dream. When the two met for the first time, Alexander knelt before the high priest. Then Alexander and his army accompanied the high priest and his procession to the temple, where Alexander offered sacrifices to the God Who had foretold his conquests.

When Alexander captured the land of Palestine in 332/331 B.C., the people of Judah accepted the Greeks with open arms. The Jews were already well acquainted with Greek culture. Many Jews and Levites had for years been living in the cities of Greece. It was common practice for Levites and others of Judah to participate in the culture, commerce and literature of the world around. Judah was not a closed society, as is pictured by many scholars today.

About fifty years later, when Ptolemy of Egypt asked that the Hebrew Old Testament be translated into Greek, the Levites were able to complete the entire work in only seventy days. The Hebrew Old Testament was translated into the Greek Septuagint about 285-250 B.C.

Scholars are puzzled by the fact that the Hebrew Old Testament was so quickly translated into the Greek Septuagint. The translators certainly had to be fluent both in Hebrew and in the Greek of that age. What is even more puzzling is the fact that the Septuagint is written in the distinct dialect of Alexandrian Greek. But Alexandria was not founded until conquest of Alexander the Great in 332/331 B.C., and the Septuagint was translated by the Levites at Alexandria only fifty to eighty years later. How was this possible?

The answer lies in the fact that many Levites who had been living in Greece moved to Alexandria at or shortly after its founding in 332/331 B.C. These Levites, who were gifted in literature and language, could speak and write fluently in Greek long before Ptolemy every dreamed of translating the Hebrew Old Testament into the Greek language. They had lived in the Greek culture. They spoke the same dialect as those Greeks who moved to the new city of Alexandria! That is how they were able to translate the Septuagint in the dialect of the Alexandrian Greeks.

When Alexander conquered Palestine, the Hebrew Old Testament had not yet been translated into the Greek Septuagint. How then could Alexander have read the prophecy in the book of Daniel? It is doubtful that Alexander could read Hebrew. It is more likely that by 332/331 B.C. the Jerusalem Levites, the Massorites in charge of the Old Testament, had already translated all or parts of the book of Daniel into Greek. It is not difficult to understand how the Septuagint could be completed in only seventy days, if parts of the Old Testament had already been translated before the Septuagint was commissioned by Ptolemy.