Margaret Barker on the Priests at Leontopolis being called כמ͏ר but retaining certain priestly rights

  

The Leontopolis temple differed from the Jerusalem temple in another important though inexplicable respect. Instead of the seven-branched menorah, the temple had a single gold lamp suspended on a gold chain which shone with great brilliance, epiphainonta selas. This Greek expression implies a divine epiphany, but not, we suggest, of the LORD. It seems that the Leontopolis temple had a sun symbol. Further, the priests of this temple had the same status as those whom Josiah expelled from Jerusalem in 623 BCE, those called k^emārîm rather than kōh^anîm (2 Kgs 23.5, 9). They retained certain priestly rights even though they were barred from the temple after the purge that expelled the Great Lady. (Margaret Barker, The Great Lady: Restoring Her Story [Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2023], 164, emphasis in bold added)

 

Further Reading:

 

The Use of כמר KMR at Elephantine and the Etymology of "Cumorah"

 

J. Glen Taylor on כֹּמֶר KMR

 

Hans Walter Wolf on כמר KMR