Glorifying the Present through the Past: Herod the Great and His Jewish Royal Predecessors (original) (raw)
Related papers
Herodian Judea: Games, Politics, Kingship in the first century BCE
This article will detail the kingship of Herod the Great in Judea and his enrollment of Greco-Roman architecture and culture during his reign in the first century BCE. Herod, it seems, made a deliberate break from his Jewish kingdom for the electrifying ways of the Greco-Roman world. Herodian Judea faced many changes over its history, but none more drastic in terms of architecture and culture than during his reign amidst the Roman domination in Judea, a period that begins with Pompey the Great in 63 BCE and ends with the Muslim invasion in the 650’s CE (Herod died in 4 BCE). Herod the Great is widely regarded as both a Roman sympathizer (OGIS 414) and a promoter of Greco-Roman. He is believed to have underwritten the construction of monumental buildings including harbors, temples, and arches as well as theaters and amphitheaters. These architectural endeavors, which bear strong Greco-Roman cultural significances, suggest Herod may have been influenced by Greek designs which were filtered through Roman culture.
Herodian Judea: Games, Politics, Kingship in the First-Centure Bce
2015
This article will detail the kingship of Herod the Great in Judea and his enrollment of Greco-Roman architecture and culture during his reign in the first century BCE. Herod, it seems, made a deliberate break from his Jewish kingdom for the electrifying ways of the Greco-Roman world. Herodian Judea faced many changes over its history, but none more drastic in terms of architecture and culture than during his reign amidst the Roman domination in Judea, a period that begins with Pompey the Great in 63 BCE and ends with the Muslim invasion in the 650's CE (Herod died in 4 BCE). Herod the Great is widely regarded as both a Roman sympathizer (OGIS 414) and a promoter of Greco-Roman. He is believed to have underwritten the construction of monumental buildings including harbors, temples, and arches as well as theaters and amphitheaters. These architectural endeavors, which bear strong Greco-Roman cultural significances, suggest Herod may have been influenced by Greek designs which were...
Images, 2013
This expansive exhibition at the Israel Museum and its catalogue invited viewers to immerse themselves within the Herodian era. The exhibition’s principal curators, Silvia Rozenberg and Dudi Mevorah, used all available resources, efforts, and technologies to reconstruct the world of Herod’s art and his kingdom.1 A spirit of reconstruction pervaded the exhibition space and the catalogue’s more scholarly treatment of Herodian art and architecture. This curatorial strategy was appropriate for the first exhibition of Herodian art in Israel and one of the largest exhibitions mounted by the Israel Museum to date. The resulting, striking spectacle allowed visitors to be engaged by the materials on display, and scholars to see the quality and range of material culture available to study—both within the context of Herodian Judea, and the larger cultural milieu of the Augustan Mediterranean.
Review, A. K. Marshak, 'The Many Faces of Herod the Great', 2015
Palestine Exploration Quarterly 150, 322-31, 2018
There are a number of key factors that account for the fascination for Herod the Great among scholars and the public at large. First, of course, there is his notoriety in Christian tradition for 'the Massacre of the Innocents' and pursuit of the infant Jesus, as described in Matthew 2. On the positive side is his remarkable success in crafting a kingdom that wielded considerable influence and prestige in the Roman Empire by deftly navigating the disparate power and interest groups affecting his realm, Roman, Hellenic and Jewish. Herod was also a prodigious builder: his splendid architectural monuments at Caesarea, Herodium, Masada, Jericho and elsewhere, even in their badly ruined state, still fill visitors with wonder. Our detailed knowledge of Herod is substantial, thanks to the copious historical information contained in the writings of the 1 st century CE historian, Josephus.
Story and History: The Kings of Israel and Judah in Context, 2019
www.mohrsiebeck.com is book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, in any form (beyond that permitted by copyright law) without the publisher's written permission. is applies particularly to reproductions, translations, and storage and processing in electronic systems. e book was typeset by Martin Fischer in Tübingen, printed by Laupp & Göbel in Gomaringen on non-aging paper and bound by Buchbinderei Nädele in Nehren.
Ancient Kings and Modern Rulers: Israel’s Monarchy and the Construction of Political Power
ETS, 2024
This paper examines some ways the Old Testament narrative accounts of Israel’s monarchy have, and might continue to, contribute to western political theology. Mostly, the narratives of Israel’s great kings have been used as exemplars of what righteous political rule should be like. There are plentiful examples. As we saw recently, English monarchs continue to be coronated in ceremonies that draw explicitly on Solomon’s anointing. They are anointed with oil and crowned as “defender of the faith” to Handel’s resounding anthem, Zadok the Priest. Josiah was a popular model amongst the magisterial reformers to show the way God’s appointed monarch should exercise authority over ecclesiastical matters. Edward VI was framed precisely as a new Josiah for this reason. But Josiah’s reforms were also appropriated by more radical branches of the reformation to justify the destruction of property and dethroning rulers, in order to establish a more pure form of Christendom. The pilgrim settlers in the Americas also looked to Josiah, both as a model of how righteous political society should function, and the manner in which heathens and apostates should be dealt with. The US ideal of the “city on the hill,” a common motif in political discourse since that time, originates from the idea that righteous civil society is a real possibility, modelled after the reforms of the righteous Israelite monarchs. The common thread across a wide variety of western cultures over a long historical period is a hermeneutic that appropriates Israel’s story as a model for Christian society, and the righteous Old Testament kings as a paradigm for Christian rule. But a more nuanced reading of both Kings and Chronicles, within a Biblical Theological framework, would question such appropriation. I explore some ways that the narratives of Kings and Chronicles frame the question of the Kingdom of God, as the kingdom promised to David, both in relation to internal political structures and external political threats. The concern of both books, in different ways, is twofold. First, they show that political power cannot establish a righteous kingdom, no matter how well intentioned. The narrative histories of Israel do not support most expressions of Christian nationalism. Second, they show it is feasible for the promised kingdom to be expressed within the realpolitik of this world in various modes, with or without political power. The powerless, underground Afghani churches are no less valid expressions of the kingdom promised to David, than the Zambian nation who are constitutionally Christian. Even though Israel’s histories expect the realisation of a Kingdom of God ruled by an anointed King, they allow in the meantime an expression of it administered by Babylon and Persia, a kingdom “not of this world.”
When Did Herod the Great Reign? (see comments under "more")
Novum Testamentum 51 (2009): 1–29
For about 100 years there has been a consensus among scholars that Herod the Great reigned from 37 to 4 BCE. However, there have been several challenges to this consensus over the past four decades, the most notable being the objection raised by W.E. Filmer. This paper argues that Herod most likely reigned from late 39 BCE to early 1 BCE, and that this reconstruction of his reign can account for all of the surviving historical references to the events of Herod's reign more logically than the current consensus can. Moreover, the reconstruction of Herod s reign proposed in this paper accounts for all of the datable evidence relating to Herod s reign, whereas the current consensus is unable to explain some of the evidence that it dismisses as ancient errors or that it simply ignores.