Mainstream biblical scholars of the current generation have generally accepted without question the old idea that, before the exile of Judah, priests were not anointed at their installation. According to Martin Noth, who last formulated the main outlines of this hypothesis, the frequent mention of this practice in the Priestly traditions of the Pentateuch reflects rather a postexilic development from a rite applied only to kings through the monarchies of Israel and Judah. (1) The process is derived through the separation of an intermediate stage in the evolution of this postmonarchic cultic system, the single "anointed priest," the high priest who would follow Aaron. (2) Noth's work is now several decades old, but his treatment of the anointing of priests has neither been advanced nor challenged directly during the interval. (3) This paper contends first of all that the ancient Near Eastern evidence does not sustain a late evolution from the preexilic anointing of kings to the postexilic use of the rite for priests. Such a development assumes an unlikely isolation of the practice in a single office. Furthermore, pentateuchal scholarship's preoccupation with the innovations of the exilic crisis has permitted the relative neglect of other explanations for the variety of religious practice recorded in the Priestly instruction commonly identified as P and H. (4) Exodus 29 and Leviticus 8 merge the customs for anointing the high priest and all the sons of Aaron in one narrative for their installation, and these texts preserve two very dissimilar rites. The high priest is anointed by pouring oil on the head, while the priest family as a whole is anointed by splashing oil and blood on men and garments together.
