HEROD ANTIPAS

'Herod Antipas' (short for Antipatros) (20 BC - after 39 AD) was an ancient leader (tetrarch, meaning "ruler of a quarter") of Galilee and Perea.

Contents

Biography

Early life

Reign

Pseudepigraphical works concerning Antipas

Antipas in popular culture

Notes

References

External links

Biography

Early life

Antipas was a son of Herod the Great, who had become king of Judea, and Malthace, who was from Samaria.^[1] His date of birth is unknown but was before 20 BC.^[2] Antipas, his full brother Archelaus and his half-brother Philip were educated in Rome.^[3]
Antipas was not Herod's first choice of heir. That honor fell to Aristobulus and Alexander, Herod's sons by the Hasmonaean princess Mariamme. It was only after they were executed (''c.'' 7 BC), and Herod's oldest son Antipater was convicted of trying to poison his father (5 BC), that the now elderly Herod fell back on his youngest son Antipas, revising his will to make him heir.^[4] During his fatal illness in 4 BC, Herod had yet another change of heart about the succession. According to the final version of his will, Antipas' elder brother Archelaus was now to become king of Judea, Idumea and Samaria, while Antipas would rule Galilee and Perea with the lesser title of tetrarch. Philip was to receive Gaulanitis (the Golan Heights), Batanaea (southern Syria), Trachonitis and Auranitis (Hauran).^[5]
Because of Judea's status as a Roman client kingdom, Herod's plans for the succession had to be ratified by Augustus. The three heirs therefore travelled to Rome to make their claims, Antipas arguing he ought to inherit the whole kingdom and the others maintaining that Herod's final will ought to be honored. Despite qualified support for Antipas from Herodian family members in Rome, who favoured direct Roman rule of Judea but considered Antipas preferable to his brother, Augustus largely confirmed the division of territory set out by Herod in his final will. Archelaus had, however, to be content with the title of ethnarch rather than king.^[6]

Reign

While Archelaus was deemed incompetent by Augustus and replaced with a prefect in AD 6, Antipas would govern Galilee and Perea for forty-two years.^[7] Antipas' first task was to restore order caused by the rebellion of the Jewish Feast of Pentecost (''Shavuot'') in 4 BC, which was a reaction to Herod the Great's death.
Antipas followed in his father's footsteps as a builder. He rebuilt Sepphoris in Galilee and Livia in Perea, but his most noted accomplishment was the construction of Tiberias as his capital on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee in AD 17. The city was named to honor his patron, Emperor Tiberius. Originally, pious Jews refused to live in it because it was built atop a graveyard, but the city eventually became a great school and center of Jewish learning. The city gave its name to the sea.
He married Phasaelis, who was the daughter of Aretas IV Philopatris, king in Arabia Petrea Nabatea. He divorced her and married Herodias, the wife of his half-brother Herod Philip II (not to be confused with yet another brother, the tetrarch Herod Philip I) and daughter of his half-brother Aristobulus; for which he and Herodias were condemned by John the Baptist and blamed by Flavius Josephus (''Jewish Antiquities,'' XVIII, v). The union with Herodias brought him to ruin, for it involved him in war with his original father-in-law, in which he lost an army. Josephus moralizes the calamity in his ''Antiquities'': "as a punishment for what he did against John that was called the Baptist; for Herod slew him, who was a good man, and commanded the Jews to exercise virtue, both as to righteousness towards one another, and piety towards God, and so to come to baptism" (''Antiquities'', XVIII, v, 2). According to the New Testament Gospels, Herod was incited to behead John by Herodias his wife and her daughter, unnamed in the text but traditionally Salome.
Herod is best known for his role in the events surrounding the Passion of Jesus of Nazareth. The Gospel of Luke (Lk. 23:6-12) records that Herod was in Jerusalem at the time. Upon inquiring Jesus' citizenship, Pilate was told that Jesus was a Galilean, thus under Herod's jurisdiction, and so Pilate sent Jesus to Herod. Initially, Herod was pleased to see Jesus, asking to see him perform a miracle based on what he'd heard of him, but Jesus refused to do so and remained silent, even when questioned (cf. Isa. 53:7). After mocking and ridiculing Jesus, Herod sent him back to Pilate. This improved relations between Pilate and Herod, who had apparently been enemies previous to this occasion. Luke the Evangelist also records Jesus' trial before Herod, the only gospel to do so.
Herod Antipas was exiled by the Roman Emperor Gaius Caesar Caligula to Lugdunum (modern Lyon), in Gaul in AD 39 according to Josephus (''Antiquities Book 18, Chapter 7, item 2'') who says, however, in the ''Jewish Wars'' (II, ix, 6) "So Herod died in Spain whither his wife had followed him". The mention of "Spain" is probably a mistaken copying correction, due to the confusion of "Lyon" in modern France with "León" in modern Spain. It should be acknowledged, in this particular point of historical discussion, that Lugdunum and the adjacent town of Vienne (not to be confused with the present capital of Austria) had been places of intense colonization by the Romans from emperor Tiberius time in government onwards, and that Herod Archelaus had himself been previously exiled to Vienne by emperor Augustus, always according to Josephus ( Wars, Book 2, Chapter 7, item 3, confirmed in Antiquities, Book 17, Chapter 13, item 2).

Pseudepigraphical works concerning Antipas

The pseudepigraphical Gospel of Peter reports that Herod, rather than Pilate, ordered the crucifixion of Jesus. The anti-Semitic theme of the work pointedly remarks that Herod and "the Jews", unlike Pilate, refused to "wash his hands" of responsibility for the death (Gos. Peter 1).
A much later spurious "letter of Herod Antipas" is sometimes naively cited as being in "records of the Roman senate." The reference itself is equally spurious; there are no such records of the Roman Senate.

Antipas in popular culture

Herod's interrogation of Jesus is featured in the film of the musical Jesus Christ Superstar and the Mel Gibson movie The Passion of the Christ. Both interpretations portray Herod as a flamboyant homosexual despite that he was reputed to be a womanizer.

Notes

1. Josephus, ''Antiquities'' 17.20, ''War'' 1.562.
2. Milwitzky 638.
3. Josephus, ''Antiquities'' 17.20–21.
4. Bruce 6–7; Schürer 320–325.
5. Josephus, ''Antiquities'' 17.188–189, ''War'' 1.664.
6. Josephus, ''Antiquities'' 17.224–249, 299–323.
7. Bruce 8.

References

★ Herod Antipas, Tetrarch of Galilee and Peraea, , F. F., Bruce, Annual of Leeds University Oriental Society, 1963/1965

★ Antipas (Herod Antipas) Jewish Encyclopedia

★ The History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ: Volume I, , Emil, Schürer, T&T Clark, 1973,

External links

★ Galilee under Antipas and Antipas entries in historical sourcebook by Mahlon H. Smith