Publishers Weekly
07/19/2021
Chilton (Resurrection Logic), a professor of religion at Bard College, fails to make the most of rich subject matter in this disappointing history of the Herodian dynasty, which reigned in ancient Israel in the first centuries BCE and CE. Chilton begins with Antipater, an Idumean warrior and mercenary allied with the Maccabees, who had revolted against the Seleucids. Antipater fathered Herod the Great (best-known to most from the Gospel of Matthew), who became the patriarch to a line of rulers. Chilton covers the lives of Herod’s sons, grandson, and great-grandchildren, focusing on their struggles for power and featuring scenes of sex and violence that would be at home in Game of Thrones, as when Herod had his wife Mariamne strangled. Collectively, according to Chilton, the “Herodian dynasty rolled through the lands of territorial Israel like a series of breakers,” but by the second century BCE had disappeared into the Roman Empire. Chilton relies largely on first-century BCE Jewish historian Josephus, and though the reliability of Josephus’s scholarship has been questioned, Chilton never meaningfully qualifies Josephus’s reliablity as a source. Small errors, meanwhile, such as referring to the fruit used during the holiday of Sukkot as lemons, rather than citrons, are another negative. Chilton’s reach exceeds his grasp in this underwhelming account. (Aug.)
From the Publisher
"The Herodians are an irritation for a number of reasons, not least because their motives and theocratic rationales have to be read through another irritation—Josephus. What irritates scholars in the study of the Herods is the welter of opinions about each of the Herodians as well as the lengthy cast of characters outside that family that appear here and there on the stage and then, with lights on someone else, disappear without resolving our questions. Chilton's study adds to all these irritations and, in so doing, sorts through the literature and history and scholarship with scholarly acuity and the literary skills for which he is known. Throughout, Chilton has his eye for wisdom about governance the dangers of religiously based empire as he meanders through the twists and turns and tortures of these potentates. Don't be surprised if your politics, your theo-politics, are under review as this book unfolds." —Scot McKnight, Northern Seminary
"An exacting historian and consummate storyteller, Chilton exquisitely details the motivations, actions, and consequences of the Herodian policies and intrigue that shaped the worlds of early Judaism and Christianity. No dynasty is more historically significant or interesting than the Herodian, and no existing analysis of that dynasty is as complete and insightful as Chilton's." —Alan J. Avery-Peck, College of the Holy Cross
"This is a well-crafted study: the primary sources have been carefully considered, and scholarly literature perceptively engaged. But Chilton gives readers so much more. His renders an exciting and story of the Herodian dynasty, whose relevance for Jesus and the origins of the Christian Church can hardly be exaggerated. Those who think that history dull will instead be drawn deeply into Chilton's narrative—and will love it!" —Craig A. Evans, Houston Baptist University
