the Week of Proper 26 / Ordinary 31
Click here to learn more!
Bible Encyclopedias
Jaddua
The 1901 Jewish Encyclopedia
or High priest at the time of the Second Temple. According to Nehemiah 12:11, his father's name was Jonathan, but according to verse 22 of the same chapter, it was Johanan. If both of these names are correct, and if Johanan was the son of Jonathan, or vice versa, Jaddua belonged to the sixth generation after Jeshua, the first high priest who returned from the Exile; but if "Jonathan" and "Johanan" refer to one person, then Jaddua was of the fifth generation. A certain Jaddus, son of Joannes, whose brother Manasseh married Sanballat's daughter, officiated at the time of Alexander the Great (Josephus, "Ant." 11:7, § 2); and between this date and the return from the Exile there are six, rather than five, generations. Indeed, even six seem to be too few. The hypothesis that Johanan and Jonathan were father and son is therefore the more probable, since the Jaddua mentioned by Nehemiah seems to be identical with the Jaddus mentioned by Josephus; but it must be noted that the Septuagint has once ÎÏδαΠand once ÎδοÏα, which do not correspond well with ÎαδδοῦÏ, found in Josephus. The high priest whom Alexander the Great greeted respectfully before the gates of Jerusalem was Jaddus, according to Josephus ("Ant." 11:8, § 4); while in Talmudic accounts the same story is told of Simon the Just. But as Jaddua's son was the same Onias ("Ant." 11:8, § 7) who was, according to another source (I Macc. 12:7,8,20), a contemporary of King Areus of Sparta (309-265 B.C.), and as the often-mentioned Simon the Just was Onias' son ("Ant." 12:2, § 5), there is an insolvable discrepancy between Josephus and the Talmud. Josephus must be given the preference here, as it is well known that the Talmud was inclined to group all the legends of that period around the person of Simon; and the act of Alexander the Great seems to be merely a legend.
The Christian chroniclers, as Eusebius, the "Chronicon Paschale," and Syncellus, of course follow Josephus; while the Jewish chroniclers of the Middle Ages tried to solve the difference in a naive way which excited the ridicule of Azariah dei Rossi ("Me'or 'Enayim," § 37). The Jewish sources write the name in the form 
or 
; e.g., Simon Duran in "Magen Abot," p. 4d (Leipsic, 1855). A more detailed account of the person of Jaddua would have to deal with the question how the lists of high priests in Nehemiah and in Josephus are to be interpreted.
- Herzfeld, Gesch. des Volkes Israel, 2:368;
- Grätz, Gesch. 2d ed., 2:221;
- Schürer, Gesch. 3d ed., 1:182;
- Skreinka, Beiträge zur Entwickelungsgesch. der Jüdischen Dogmen, pp. 140-153, Vienna, 1861;
- Krauss, in J. Q. R. 10:361.
These files are public domain.
Singer, Isidore, Ph.D, Projector and Managing Editor. Entry for 'Jaddua'. 1901 The Jewish Encyclopedia. https://www.studylight.org/encyclopedias/eng/tje/j/jaddua.html. 1901.
