Understanding the Nature and Functions of Igbe Priesthood in the Light of Old Testament Priesthood

Abstract

Igbe religion is one of the variants of African traditional religion that have widespread expression in Urhoboland. It is native to the people of Urhobo the same way Judaism is native to the Jews. One common characteristic of both Igbe religion and Judaism is that both are monotheistic in nature; hence the priests are the officiants chosen by the Most High God (Oghene, Yahweh) to act as intermediaries between him and the people, particularly adherents. However, Igbe religion is often derogatorily criticised as fetish and heathenish by majority of people, particularly Christians who brand Igbe priests as witches and wizards. The objective of this paper is to present an expository discourse on Igbe priesthood to show its relationship with Old Testament priesthood. The essence is to phenomenologically show that the Igbe priest is not necessarily or inherently a witch or wizard, but rather s/he is an officiant divinely chosen or consecrated for service in the temple of God (Oghene). To achieve this objective, this paper adopted historical, descriptive and comparative approaches. More so, the phenomenological method was employed to investigate the nature and functions of priesthood in Igbe religion. The finding of the paper is that Igbe priests are officiants of the Supreme Being (Oghene) just like the priest of Yahweh in the Old Testament and their role is to connect the people to God (Oghene, Yahweh) and perform the roles of sacrificing, cleansing, healing and revelation of divine will. The recommendation of the paper is that Igbe religion should be closely studied to understand its foundations, nature and operations to avoid baseless criticisms, derogatory assertions and false conclusions.

Keywords: Igbe, Old Testament, priesthood, nature, functions.