When you read the New Testament, you regularly come across the name Herod. There were different rulers called Herod who formed a part of the background history of Jesus and the New Testament. This is the story …
King Herod the Great
The name Herod doesn’t consult with one king but to a family line of rulers installed and sustained by Rome. We first read the name Herod within the New Testament at the beginning of Matthew and Luke. Luke sets the birth of John the Baptist “throughout the time when Herod was king of Judea” (Luke 1:5), and Matthew tells us that “Jesus was born within the town of Bethlehem in Judea, throughout the time when Herod was king” (Matthew 2:1).
This Herod, later often known as Herod the Great, meets the visiting sensible men, or Magi, hears of a “king of the Jews”, and fears a possible rival. Disturbed by the prophecy of a Messiah, he orders the slaughter of all of the boys under two years old in and around Bethlehem (Matthew 2:16).
Herod died in Jericho around 4 BC (some argue for 1 BC) and was buried at Herodium, where a tomb widely identified as his was discovered in 2007. After his death, he became often known as Herod I or Herod the Great, to differentiate him from the opposite Herods who followed, but during his lifetime he was simply “King Herod”.
Division of the dominion
After Herod’s death, Caesar Augustus divided Herod’s kingdom between three of his sons. Archelaus became ethnarch over Judea, Samaria, and Idumea. Herod Antipas became tetrarch of Galilee and Perea within the north. Philip became tetrarch of the territories of Iturea and Trachonitis to the north and east of Galilee. Another son, sometimes called Herod II (or Herod Philip), lived in Rome as a non-public citizen along with his wife Herodias, who later appears within the Gospel story.
Herod Archelaus
After Herod the Great died, Joseph and Mary would naturally have hoped it was protected to go away Egypt and return home. Joseph, nonetheless, seems to have waited for news of the brand new ruler. Matthew explains that “when Joseph heard that Archelaus had succeeded his father Herod as king of Judea, he was afraid to go there” (Matthew 2:22).
Herod Archelaus was thought to be cruel, and plenty of thought him even crueller than his father, though his rule was limited to Judea and Samaria. Joseph subsequently took Mary and Jesus, and any children born in Egypt, and returned as an alternative to Galilee, back to Nazareth, where they’d lived before, under the less harsh rule of Herod Antipas.
Archelaus reigned until AD 6, when he was deposed by Rome. Some scholars think he could be the real-life ruler behind Jesus’ Parable of the Minas in Luke 19:11–27, with its story of a person who goes away to receive a kingdom and is hated by his subjects.
Herod Antipas
Herod Antipas, tetrarch of Galilee and Perea, dominates the Gospel period. Early in his reign, he married the daughter of King Aretas IV of Nabatea, whose territory bordered Perea and had its capital at Petra. But on a visit to Rome, staying along with his half-brother Herod Philip, Antipas fell in love with Philip’s wife, Herodias. Antipas and Herodias agreed to marry once he had divorced his Nabatean wife; Herodias herself divorced Philip, by whom she already had a daughter, as a way to marry Antipas. This scandalised Jewish society and caused diplomatic trouble with the Nabateans.
Herodias and John the Baptist
John the Baptist publicly denounced this arrangement, declaring that it broke the Jewish law that a person must not marry his brother’s wife (Leviticus 20:21). Herod Antipas didn’t appreciate the criticism and had John arrested and chained in prison (Matthew 14:3; Mark 6:17–29).
At Antipas’ birthday banquet, Herodias’s daughter danced for the guests and pleased Herod a lot that he rashly promised her anything she asked (Matthew 14:6–7). The girl, who’s unnamed within the Gospels but is named Salome by Josephus, asked, at her mother’s prompting, for the top of John the Baptist, and John was beheaded in prison (Matthew 14:10–11). Luke locates John’s ministry and execution “within the fifteenth yr of the reign of Emperor Tiberius … when Herod was tetrarch of Galilee” (Luke 3:1), which helps to this point the events to around AD 29.
Herod Antipas and Jesus
News of John’s execution reached Jesus and his disciples. Among Jesus’ followers was Joanna, the wife of Chuza, the steward of Herod’s household (Luke 8:3). She could have been the source of a few of the “inside story” of Herod Antipas and his court.
A couple of years later, on the time of the crucifixion, Luke tells us that Pilate, hearing that Jesus was a Galilean, sent him to Herod Antipas, who happened to be in Jerusalem (Luke 23:7–12). Antipas questioned Jesus, mocked him, and dressed him in a sublime robe but, finding him no real threat, sent him back to Pilate. Luke notes that on that day Herod and Pilate became friends (Luke 23:12).
Herod Antipas is mentioned in Matthew 14:1–6; Mark 6:14–22; 8:15; Luke 3:1, 3:19–20; 9:7–9; 13:32; 23:7–12, 15; and in Acts 4:27 and 13:1. He died in AD 39 and was succeeded in Judea by his cousin’s son, Herod Agrippa.
Herod Agrippa I
In Acts, we meet one other “King Herod” throughout the first wave of persecution against the church. Luke writes, “It was about this time that King Herod arrested some who belonged to the church, desiring to persecute them” (Acts 12:1).
This Herod is Herod Agrippa I, a grandson of Herod the Great. He was the son of King Herod’s son Aristobulus by Princess Mariamne of the Hasmonean royal family, so he combined Herodian and Hasmonean blood and was subsequently seen by many Jews as having more legitimacy than his grandfather.
Agrippa I ruled Judea from AD 37 to 44 and sought favour with Jewish leaders by attacking the Church. He had James the apostle, the son of Zebedee, executed (Acts 12:2), and imprisoned Peter, who was dramatically free of his chains and led out of prison by an angel (Acts 12:6–11). Agrippa’s children included a son, also called Herod Agrippa, and daughters Berenice and Drusilla. Luke also mentions Manaen, “who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch” (almost definitely Herod Antipas), serving among the many prophets and teachers in Antioch (Acts 13:1).
Herod Agrippa II and Drusilla
Later, in Acts 25–26, we meet “King Agrippa”, who listens to Paul’s defence in Caesarea. This is Herod Agrippa II, son of Herod Agrippa I and brother of Berenice and Drusilla. Agrippa II presides over Paul’s hearing before the apostle is shipped to Rome and famously responds, “In this short time do you think that you’ll make me a Christian?” (Acts 26:28). He is the last of the Herodian rulers to seem within the New Testament and the last of the road before Jerusalem’s destruction in AD 70.
Drusilla, Agrippa II’s sister, also appears in Acts. She had married Antonius Felix, the Roman procurator of Judea, who presided over one in every of Paul’s earlier hearings (Acts 24). Luke notes that Felix and Drusilla sent for Paul and listened to him discuss “faith in Christ Jesus” (Acts 24:24–25); she didn’t must attend, but seems to have been intrigued or genuinely interested. They had a son, Marcus Antonius Agrippa, who was later killed within the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79.
Summary
All the several Herods within the New Testament may be confusing, but their backstory sheds light on the world by which Jesus lived and from which the early Church emerged. Four generations of this dynasty appear within the New Testament, from Herod the Great on the birth of Jesus to Herod Agrippa II on the trials of St Paul. Among them are fierce opponents of the gospel, curious onlookers, and even people on the sting of religion. Fleshing out their backstory, which might have been known to most of the original readers, helps to construct the context for most of the events of the New Testament.
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