text: Priesthood existed in different forms well before Jesus's time.  Jesus gave us the perfect example of what God had in mind.
  
  The reason that God chose Israel to begin the eventual Christianization of the whole world was because they were 'handy' in a theological sense...they were monotheistic, they had a sense of God as father (vs. God as an amorphous, undifferentiated "one"), and they had a priesthood, which Jesus perfected as perfect priest/perfect victim...He became the offering offered!