Who were those Herodians? Sprinkled throughout the Gospels, usually linked to the Pharisees and Scribes as adversaries of Jesus, they clearly were considered “bad guys.” Although Rome directly ruled Judaea in the time of Jesus, the family of Herod the Great was still rich and powerful. Herod himself, who died at the time of Jesus’s birth, was a larger-than-life character whose specter haunted the world of the Gospels. He was Rome’s richest and most powerful client king; his influence and patronage reached across the Mediterranean world. He rebuilt the Second Temple on a grandiose and magnificent scale, making it the prime tourist attraction of the ancient world. Conversely, Herod displayed qualities that would make even the characters of Game of Thrones blush. Intrigue and homicide were his forte. He murdered or executed two brothers-in-law and three sons, provoking the emperor Augustus to quip, “It’s better to be Herod’s pig than his son.” Although Herod put his chief wife Mariamne, a royal Hashmonean princess, on a pedestal, for all his intelligence, wealth and power, he was merely an Idumean, “half Jewish” upstart to her. As for Herod, narcissism, jealousy and paranoia knew no bounds. allowing his sister Salome to manipulate him, persuading her brother that Mariamne was planning to poison him. Infuriated, he executed the love of his life for treason, only to waken during the night for weeks thereafter, calling out Mariamne’s name, as if she were still alive.
Why is this relevant? Let’s turn to another story, one that features prominently in Mathew and Mark: the death of John the Baptist. It appears ludicrous and over the top to a modern reader. Herod Antipas, King Herod’s son and tetrarch of Galilee, arrests John, who chides him for marrying Herodias, the divorced wife of his half-brother. Antipas is livid but too afraid of the Baptist to order his execution. His wife has no such qualms. She persuades her daughter to dance for Antipas. Enthralled by the performance, he offers his stepdaughter anything she wishes, which turns out to be the head of John the Baptist on a tray. This sounds like a dark, operatic fairy tale, with sexual undertones no less, but when viewed within the context of the dynamics of Herod’s family, the story rings true as a highly plausible and vivid portrayal of a real historical event.