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Description
Joshua, son of Jehozadak, and grandson of the last High Priest of Israel before the fall of Jerusalem to Babylon in 587 BCE, was the first to be given the title after the return of the Jews to their holy city in 539 BCE. According to scripture, the prophet Zechariah was beholden to a vision in which Joshua stood before God and the Satan. I emphasize the Satan because in these earliest works of Biblical literature, "Satan" was a title, not an individual as we may think of it today. He wasn't yet the Devil, moreso an angelic judge seated on God's counsel as a counterbalance. See my blurb on Samael for more on that development. In this context, the Satan was there to accuse Joshua of wrongdoing, which God immediately disputes (Satan's counterpoints always get the shaft in the end, it seems, wonder if that contributed to the daddy issues). Realizing he was beat, the Satan ordered the angels under his command to replace Joshua's filthy garments with the hottest new threads, and informed him of the responsibilities God expected of him as the new High Priest. It's all very symbolic and fairly obviously an attempt to legitimize the reign of Joshua and his lineage.

After receiving his new digs and presumably strutting around town like Bully Maguire, Joshua, together with the new Achaemenid satrap Zerubbabel, set out to construct a replacement for the Temple that had been destroyed by the Babylonians. Groundwork began in 537 BCE, but construction was delayed until 520 BCE because they refused the offers of help from the neighboring Tribes of Israel… for some reason. I honestly don't know. These outsiders weren't hostile in any way and indeed seemed pretty amicable in volunteering their services, pointing out that they all worshiped the same god. As far as I can tell, the best explanation is that Zerubbabel and Joshua interpreted the order from Cyrus the Great as meaning they had to build it themselves, but that seems pretty pedantic, my dudes. Evidently, the volunteers felt the same way, and the drama this caused wouldn't be resolved until the prophet Haggai came along and was like yo, can everyone quit bickering and just get the Temple done already? Like come on guys. Apparently this was enough of a kick in the pants for them, and with the sponsorship of Darius the Great, the Temple was finally underway. It is unclear if Joshua lived to see its completion, but either way he was eventually succeeded as High Priest by his son Joiakim, who would've taken over its oversight regardless.

Design notes, it seems the High Priest of Jerusalem actually had a fairly standard uniform they were expected to wear. On the one hand, this is pretty handy, but you all know I like to make my characters stand out a bit. I primarily just used the design from that same illustration by Jan Reckleben I referenced in the Zerubbabel blurb, and threw a sash over his shoulders just cause I liked how it looked and felt it fleshed out the composition a bit more. The folds of his tallit I mainly referenced from the illustration of him in the 1553 book… oh god… "Promptuarium Iconum Insigniorum" by Guillaume Rouillé. Not much else to say about this one, really. His design is simple but I like how it came out. He and Zerubbabel were minor characters in my D&D game set in 526 BCE. They recruited the party to route out the rats stirring up instability in a Jerusalem which was still struggling to get back on its feet, all the while the party came to realize that the leaders' own internal bickering was tearing everything apart just as much as the external problems. As belief directly affects the nature of the supernatural in the Drake Hero Universe, this squabbling had some drastic repercussions which turned into that area's boss fight, but I'll dive more into that in a later blurb.

Description
Joshua, son of Jehozadak, and grandson of the last High Priest of Israel before the fall of Jerusalem to Babylon in 587 BCE, was the first to be given the title after the return of the Jews to their holy city in 539 BCE. According to scripture, the prophet Zechariah was beholden to a vision in which Joshua stood before God and the Satan. I emphasize the Satan because in these earliest works of Biblical literature, "Satan" was a title, not an individual as we may think of it today. He wasn't yet the Devil, moreso an angelic judge seated on God's counsel as a counterbalance. See my blurb on Samael for more on that development. In this context, the Satan was there to accuse Joshua of wrongdoing, which God immediately disputes (Satan's counterpoints always get the shaft in the end, it seems, wonder if that contributed to the daddy issues). Realizing he was beat, the Satan ordered the angels under his command to replace Joshua's filthy garments with the hottest new threads, and informed him of the responsibilities God expected of him as the new High Priest. It's all very symbolic and fairly obviously an attempt to legitimize the reign of Joshua and his lineage.

After receiving his new digs and presumably strutting around town like Bully Maguire, Joshua, together with the new Achaemenid satrap Zerubbabel, set out to construct a replacement for the Temple that had been destroyed by the Babylonians. Groundwork began in 537 BCE, but construction was delayed until 520 BCE because they refused the offers of help from the neighboring Tribes of Israel… for some reason. I honestly don't know. These outsiders weren't hostile in any way and indeed seemed pretty amicable in volunteering their services, pointing out that they all worshiped the same god. As far as I can tell, the best explanation is that Zerubbabel and Joshua interpreted the order from Cyrus the Great as meaning they had to build it themselves, but that seems pretty pedantic, my dudes. Evidently, the volunteers felt the same way, and the drama this caused wouldn't be resolved until the prophet Haggai came along and was like yo, can everyone quit bickering and just get the Temple done already? Like come on guys. Apparently this was enough of a kick in the pants for them, and with the sponsorship of Darius the Great, the Temple was finally underway. It is unclear if Joshua lived to see its completion, but either way he was eventually succeeded as High Priest by his son Joiakim, who would've taken over its oversight regardless.

Design notes, it seems the High Priest of Jerusalem actually had a fairly standard uniform they were expected to wear. On the one hand, this is pretty handy, but you all know I like to make my characters stand out a bit. I primarily just used the design from that same illustration by Jan Reckleben I referenced in the Zerubbabel blurb, and threw a sash over his shoulders just cause I liked how it looked and felt it fleshed out the composition a bit more. The folds of his tallit I mainly referenced from the illustration of him in the 1553 book… oh god… "Promptuarium Iconum Insigniorum" by Guillaume Rouillé. Not much else to say about this one, really. His design is simple but I like how it came out. He and Zerubbabel were minor characters in my D&D game set in 526 BCE. They recruited the party to route out the rats stirring up instability in a Jerusalem which was still struggling to get back on its feet, all the while the party came to realize that the leaders' own internal bickering was tearing everything apart just as much as the external problems. As belief directly affects the nature of the supernatural in the Drake Hero Universe, this squabbling had some drastic repercussions which turned into that area's boss fight, but I'll dive more into that in a later blurb.