In the course of time there were other families of Kohanim in Israel, but for centuries the only family who served in the Temple and of whose numbers only one in each generation served as Kohen Gadol, was a member of the family of Zadok, the priest appointed by King Solomon. One can assume that the descendants of Zadok were the Kohanim who controlled the High Priesthood and the Temple service from the days of King Solomon, in 950 until the Maccabean Rebellion, when Judah beca

To understand the basis of the conflict between the Tzedukkim and the Perushim, a conflict which is referred to in the Talmud and the writings of the Jewish historian Josephus, one must summarize the history of the priesthood of Israel from its beginnings to the rise of the Hasmonean Family to that position. According to the narratives and the laws of the Torah, Aaron, the brother of Moses was the first of the Kohanim. The Kohanim thereafter were to be the descendants of Aar