Herod the king in the Gospel of Mark

[spin]

While the texts aren't written in English, I also don't see the big problem with calling Herod Antipas a king, even in English. His father was a king, and he inherited part of his father's kingdom where he ruled.

Perhaps you should take this up with the Romans. Both Herod the Great and Agrippa I were kings according to their coins. Archelaus was an ethnarch! And both Herod (Antipas) and Philip were tetrarchs. The Romans made clear distinctions and apparently they knew what they were doing at the time. If you don't like it you should complain to them.

[spin]

Calling him king makes it interesting.

What can we conclude, then?

It's one of the many indicators pointing to the gospel writer not writing in the Palestinian context. It is ostensibly, as you consider later, an indicator of a confusion between rulers of the same name, as I believe Aretas in 2 Cor 11 hints at.

We have the tendency to hide chronological inaccuracies. Why does it seem that John the Baptist died circa 36 CE according to the indications of Josephus, who has him dying close to the time of the war with Aretas? This was around the time Pilate had already had his marching orders.

This is fairly good indication both that JtB was originally in the text of Josephus (if we had any doubt) and that the association made in Christian sources between JtB and their Jesus may be spurious (or, to go all the way down this rabbit hole, that Jesus did not exist).

I think of the association as not transparent or immediate.

It's an argument from silence, but Photius notes specifically that the contemporary of Josephus, Justus of Tiberias, on account of his common error as a Jew, omits mention of Jesus. I've said that I consider only the potential silence of Josephus to be in any way cogent, but I guess I should add Justus too alongside him.

As to what we can conclude about this βασιλεὺς in GMark, I suppose at minimum that the author had some distance from the area (as also suggested by his description about Jewish customs that - according to Bob Price - were actually diaspora customs) and couldn't get things like titles exactly right. And then, by the same token, that he may have been so befuddled as to put Herod the Great alongside Pilate.

"Well, it was Herod. Was there more than one? Whatever."

(When you can a page ref to Price here would be good.)

But the very fact that Herod is in Galilee while Pilate is in Judea does suggest some awareness of the situation that obtained where Herod wasn't the king of Judea, as Herod the Great (and Archela[]us) were. It seems more appropriate, more probable, that the mistake regarded the title (if we deem it a mistake instead of a vagary, as the latter seems more apt also) than some kind of mixup involving an earlier Herod the Great, ruler of Judea and Galilee, coinciding with the later Pilate.

I don't know how you can mete out the probability here. Is it after a bout with Jack D or Jim B?

But now you've made me argue against this possibility, something that I don't find very necessary to do. It is the possibility that must commend itself to be interesting.

I'm bad, really bad.

[Peter Kirby]

"Well, it was Herod. Was there more than one? Whatever."

(When you can a page ref to Price here would be good.)

In his note to Mark 7:4, he writes, "These customs were those of Diaspora Jews, not those at home in Palestine. The writer is misinformed and yet thinks readers will find Jewish customs as quaint and amusing as he does." (The Pre-Nicene New Testament, p. 86)

[spin]

"Well, it was Herod. Was there more than one? Whatever."

(When you can a page ref to Price here would be good.)

In his note to Mark 7:4, he writes, "These customs were those of Diaspora Jews, not those at home in Palestine. The writer is misinformed and yet thinks readers will find Jewish customs as quaint and amusing as he does."

I have argued frequently that Mark was written for a Roman audience, based on a wide range of Latin influences in the Greek. Do you think Price sees a different target audience?

(The Pre-Nicene New Testament, p. 86)

Thanks.

[Peter Kirby]

"Well, it was Herod. Was there more than one? Whatever."

(When you can a page ref to Price here would be good.)

In his note to Mark 7:4, he writes, "These customs were those of Diaspora Jews, not those at home in Palestine. The writer is misinformed and yet thinks readers will find Jewish customs as quaint and amusing as he does."

I have argued frequently that Mark was written for a Roman audience, based on a wide range of Latin influences in the Greek. Do you think Price sees a different target audience?

(The Pre-Nicene New Testament, p. 86)

Thanks.

Your argument is certainly compatible with Price's.

[spin]

In his note to Mark 7:4, [Price] writes, "These customs were those of Diaspora Jews, not those at home in Palestine. The writer is misinformed and yet thinks readers will find Jewish customs as quaint and amusing as he does."

I have argued frequently that Mark was written for a Roman audience, based on a wide range of Latin influences in the Greek. Do you think Price sees a different target audience?

(The Pre-Nicene New Testament, p. 86)

Thanks.

Your argument is certainly compatible with Price's.

I guess I'll have to find a copy of Price. I can understand the writer presenting customs as out of the ordinary to a Roman audience, but it sounds to me that Price has some different idea. I'd have to see on what he bases his knowledge of diaspora custom and Palestinian.

[Peter Kirby]

Your argument is certainly compatible with Price's.

I guess I'll have to find a copy of Price. I can understand the writer presenting customs as out of the ordinary to a Roman audience, but it sounds to me that Price has some different idea. I'd have to see on what he bases his knowledge of diaspora custom and Palestinian.

You won't actually find anything more in this book. It's basically a heretic's study bible, with 27 noncanonical texts adjoined to the present 27. The notes are fairly sparse. I can suggest looking horizontally at other commentaries on Mark and/or attempts to locate the customs of diaspora VS Palestinian Jews. Or just contacting Price himself.

[stephan happy huller]

I mentioned in that book at least once or twice. I forget. Buyer beware.

[maryhelena]

As Herod Antipas wasn't called Antipas but was just Herod, can we know that the writer of Mark knew that there had to be a Herod Antipas at play in this story?

Maybe not, but the lack of certain knowledge is not very interesting.

Calling him king makes it interesting.

The timeframe of Herod Antipas, ruler of Galilee, coincides with Pilate of Judea.

We have the tendency to hide chronological inaccuracies.

That statement is perhaps necessary to repeat - and repeat....."We have the tendency to hide chronological inaccuracies".

It would surely be foolhardy, when chronological inaccuracies are observed, to explain them away as errors on the part of the writer, or later interpolations, or whatever. Perhaps the chronological inaccuracies are clues; markers that require the reader to stop and think for a bit: to think outside the box of the writer being a bad historian or later mischief by an interpolator. Maybe there is method in the madness. At the very least these chronological inaccuracies can, when allowed to speak for themselves, widening out the scope for research into the origins, the backdrop, of early christian history. It's not always the easy road that leads to that goldmine....

Why does it seem that John the Baptist died circa 36 CE according to the indications of Josephus, who has him dying close to the time of the war with Aretas? This was around the time Pilate had already had his marching orders. Without the other gospels we would take a harder look at the implications of the Marcan chronology.

So there is no difficulty that we know about. That we can imagine a chronological difficulty in Mark by taking GMark's "Herod" to be someone else at a different time doesn't seem to me to go anywhere. It's possible, but we need more than the possibility to do something with it.

[maryhelena]

<snip.

And, as this Thread attempts to demonstrate, Aretas was not actually the King of Damascus just as Herod was not actually the King of Galilee. So is fake history repeating itself?

Joe, 'fake history' is getting near but not quite there.....The gospel story is 'fake', i.e. it is not history - but the gospel 'fake' history is reflecting Hasmonean Jewish history. "Fake history' is not going very far - it needs some historical veneer to present as plausible. Sure, the 'fake history' might well make a dog's dinner of actual history - but it has to have some 'meat' in it if it is going to sustain itself in the long term.

In regard to the Herodias/Herod/Salome/JtB story in Mark; it is a case of the writer re-playing the historical tape of an earlier period. A time period that begins with Herod the King - Herod the Great. The story relates to HG taking the Hasmonean Mariamne as his wife - which resulted in his kingdom becoming a Hasmonean/Herodian kingdom i.e. half of his kingdom was given over to the bloodline of the daughter/children of Mariamne. This Hasmonean/Herodian bloodline/lineage being created after the execution, beheading/crucifixcion, of Antigonus. This is the theme music that runs through the gospel story. It is the historical backdrop that gets replayed in Slavonic Josephus, with the ethernarch Archelaus and John the Baptist. Archelaus, himself, taking as his second wife, Glaphyra, widow of his late brother ( against Jewish law as she already had children). The theme music is replayed again in the gospel story of Herod, Herodias and Salome and John the Baptist.

History being re-run, replayed in a different time slot. Mariamne's grandaughter, Herodias and her daughter Salome, replaying in the gospel storyline, the historical events around 37 b.c. From the grave, Herod the Great and his execution of Antigonus, becomes the theme music of the gospel story.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glaphyra

Glaphyra and Herod Archelaus were married while Herod Archelaus was Ethnarch.[22] The marriage of a widow to her former brother-in-law violated Jewish laws of levirate marriage. It was considered immoral by the Jews and caused a major religious scandal in Judaea

Added later:

As gMark takes the chronology for his gospel story back to Herod the King, Herod the Great, so too does gLuke. Lysanias of Abilene ruled around 40 b.c. to 36 b.c. - the time in which Herod the Great was appointed King while in Rome and executed the Hasmonean King, Antigonus. Tragic Hasmonean history becomes the theme music of the gospel story.

And if one would like to bring Aretas into this chronology issue with the NT - where does gLuke place the birth of his JC? 6 c.e. - 70 years from the events of 64/63 b.c. when Pompey entered Jerusalem - and the year in which Aretas III lost control of Damascus...............6.c.e. being the last year of Archelaus - the last Herodian ruler, ethnarch, of Judea. Methinks the NT writers had more on their mind than simply telling fanciful stories about walking on water etc. Hasmonean history has been recorded, memorized, under the very nose of Rome. A subject people with the wherewithall to keep their own history entombed, safeguarded, within a pseudo-historical literary drama.