The Herods: Murder, Politics, and the Art of Succession

by Bruce Chilton

Overview

Until his death in 4 BCE, Herod the Great's monarchy included territories that once made up the kingdoms of Judah and Israel. Although he ruled over a rich, strategically crucial land, his royal title did not derive from heredity. His family came from the people of Idumea, ancient antagonists of the Israelites.

Yet Herod did not rule as an outsider, but from a family committed to Judaism going back to his grandfather and father. They had served the priestly dynasty of the Maccabees that had subjected Idumea to their rule, including the Maccabean version of what loyalty to the Torah required. Herod's father, Antipater, rose not only to manage affairs on behalf of his priestly masters, but to become a pivotal military leader. He inaugurated a new alignment of power: an alliance with Rome negotiated with Pompey and Julius Caesar. In the crucible of civil war among Romans as the Triumvirate broke up, and of war between Rome and Parthia, Antipater managed to leave his sons with the prospect of a dynasty.

Herod inherited the twin pillars of loyalty to Judaism and loyalty to Rome that became the basis of Herodian rule. He elevated Antipater's opportunism to a political art. During Herod's time, Roman power took its imperial form, and Octavian was responsible for making Herod king of Judea. As Octavian ruled, he took the title Augustus, in keeping with his devotion to his adoptive father's cult of "the divine Julius." Imperial power was a theocratic assertion as well as a dominant military, economic, and political force.

Herod framed a version of theocratic ambition all his own, deliberately crafting a dynastic claim grounded in Roman might and Israelite theocracy. That unlikely hybrid was the key to the Herodians' surprising longevity in power during the most chaotic century in the political history of Judaism.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781506474298
Publisher:	Augsburg Fortress, Publishers
Publication date:	08/03/2021
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	375
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Bruce D. Chilton is the Bernard Iddings Bell Professor of Religion at Bard College, where he has taught since 1987. In addition to his many celebrated publications on the texts, practices, and beliefs of ancient Judaism and Christianity, he is also the author of popular historical biographies of Jesus, Paul, Mary, and James.

Table of Contents

Preface vii

Introduction ix

1 Antipater 1

Setting 2

The Maccabees 5

The Essenes 12

Antipater in the Maccabean Hegemony 16

2 Herod's Debut 29

Caesar and Antipater in the Conquest of Egypt 30

Caesar's Man in Judea 32

Jerusalem, Religious Politics, and the Sanhedrin 35

Herod's Campaign in Galilee 43

Hybris 50

3 King Herod 57

Death, Revenge, and the Parthian Threat 58

Theoretical Monarch 69

King of the Jews 77

4 Mariamme 85

Marital and Priestly Strategies 86

Cleopatra 87

Octavian and the Imperial Transition 99

A Time to Build and a Time to Tear Down 103

5 Archelaus 117

Introduction 118

Archelaus's Play for Power 119

Imperial Intervention 131

The End of Archelaus and the Sadducees' Opportunity 140

6 Antipas, Herodias, and Philip 147

Salvaging the Dynasty: Antipas and Philip 148

Antipas's Tiberian Breakout 152

Executing John the Baptist 156

Pontius Pilate, Jesus, and Antipas's Ambitions 160

7 Agrippa I 175

Agrippa's Revenge 176

The Edict of Caligula 183

The Claudian Settlement and Agrippa's Glory 189

After Agrippa 200

8 Bereniké and Agrippa II 205

The Queen 206

The Neronian Opportunity, Confrontations in Jerusalem 210

Open War 219

Defeat and the Last Herodian Meteorite 230

Epilogue 235

Chronology 253

Dramatis personae 259

Notes 267

Bibliography of Sources 347

Index of Historical Figures 353

Index of Scholars 361

Editorial Reviews

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.)

Publishers Weekly

"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

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