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- She Was the Daughter of Jacob and Leah. Scripture tells us that Jacob’s four wives bore 12 sons. After we read of the birth of 10 sons (six of whom were born to Leah),1 we are told, “And afterward, [Leah] bore a daughter, and she named her Dinah.”
- Her Mother Prayed for a Girl. Unlike her brothers, Dinah’s name comes with no explanation in Scripture as to why it was given. Dinah means “judgment,” and the Sages explain that Leah chose it because she had passed judgment on herself.
- Jacob Protected Her from Esau. Dinah was born when the family lived in Padan Aram, near her grandfather, Laban. As Jacob moved them back toward the Holy Land—his birthplace—they encountered her rogue uncle, Esau.
- She Was Raped and Abducted. After the family settled near the city of Shechem, the local prince, whose name was also Shechem, saw her, desired her, raped her, and took her to his home.
Nov 19, 2015 · He begins with a daring move. He abandons what used to be our principal source for the life of Theodora—the vicious account of the empress and the emperor in the Secret History of Procopius of Caesarea (who wrote in the 550s). He rightly dismisses this as no more than a collection of “nasty stories.”
Nicodemus was a ruler of the Jews which meant that he was a member of the court of seventy elders, known as the Sanhedrin, which was the highest religious body among the Jews. He also was described as “the” (article present in Gr.) teacher of Israel.
- Overview
- Family and early life
- King of Palestine
- Construction of the Second Temple and role in the story of Jesus
Herod the Great was king of Judaea from 37 BCE to 4 BCE, appointed by the Roman Empire after its Senate equipped him with an army to fight off a Parthian invasion. Prior to the invasion he had been governor of Galilee since 47 BCE.
What did Herod the Great accomplish?
Herod the Great was known for consolidating Roman rule over and advancing the Hellenization of Judaea. He built the city of Sebaste on the site of ancient Samaria as well as the port city of Caesarea and rebuilt the Temple of Jerusalem.
Who were Herod’s parents?
Herod, born in southern Palestine, was the son of Antipater, an Edomite whom Julius Caesar later appointed procurator of Judaea. Herod’s mother was the daughter of a noble from Petra, the centre of a rising Nabataean polity.
How did Herod the Great die?
Herod was born in southern Palestine. His father, Antipater, was an Edomite (a Semitic people, identified by some scholars as Arab, who converted to Judaism in the 2nd century bce). Antipater was a man of great influence and wealth who increased both by marrying the daughter of a noble from Petra (in southwestern Jordan), at that time the capital of the rising Arab Nabataean kingdom. Thus, Herod was of Arab origin, although he was a practicing Jew.
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When Pompey (106–48 bce) invaded Palestine in 63 bce, Antipater supported his campaign and began a long association with Rome, from which both he and Herod were to benefit. Six years later Herod met Mark Antony, whose lifelong friend he was to remain. Julius Caesar also favoured the family; he appointed Antipater procurator of Judaea in 47 bce and conferred on him Roman citizenship, an honour that descended to Herod and his children. Herod made his political debut in the same year, when his father appointed him governor of Galilee. Six years later Mark Antony made him tetrarch of Galilee.
In 40 bce the Parthians invaded Palestine, civil war broke out, and Herod was forced to flee to Rome. The senate there nominated him king of Judaea and equipped him with an army to make good his claim. In the year 37 bce, at the age of 36, Herod became the unchallenged ruler of Judaea, a position he was to maintain for 32 years. To further solidify his power, he divorced his first wife, Doris, sent her and his son away from court, and married Mariamne, a Hasmonean princess. Although the union was directed at ending his feud with the Hasmoneans, a priestly family of Jewish leaders, he was deeply in love with Mariamne.
During the conflict between the two triumvirs Octavian and Antony, the heirs to Caesar’s power, Herod supported his friend Antony. He continued to do so even when Antony’s mistress, Cleopatra, the queen of Egypt, used her influence with Antony to gain much of Herod’s best land. After Antony’s final defeat at Actium in 31 bce, he frankly confessed to the victorious Octavian which side he had taken. Octavian, who had met Herod in Rome, knew that he was the one man to rule Palestine as Rome wanted it ruled and confirmed him king. He also restored to Herod the land Cleopatra had taken.
Herod became the close friend of Augustus’s great minister Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, after whom one of his grandsons and one of his great-grandsons were named. Both the emperor and the minister paid him state visits, and Herod twice again visited Italy. Augustus gave him the oversight of the Cyprus copper mines, with a half share in the profits. He twice increased Herod’s territory, in the years 22 and 20 bce, so that it came to include not only Palestine but parts of what are now the kingdom of Jordan to the east of the river and southern Lebanon and Syria. He had intended to bestow the Nabataean kingdom on Herod as well, but, by the time that throne fell vacant, Herod’s mental and physical deterioration made it impossible.
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Herod endowed his realm with massive fortresses and splendid cities, of which the two greatest were new, and largely pagan, foundations: the port of Caesarea Palaestinae on the coast between Joppa (Jaffa) and Haifa, which was afterward to become the capital of Roman Palestine; and Sebaste on the long-desolate site of ancient Samaria. At Herodium in the Judaean desert Herod built a great palace, which archaeologists in 2007 tentatively identified as the site of his tomb. In Jerusalem he built the fortress of Antonia, portions of which may still be seen beneath the convents on the Via Dolorosa, and a magnificent palace (of which part survives in the citadel). His most grandiose creation was the Temple, which he wholly rebuilt. The great outer court, 35 acres (14 hectares) in extent, is still visible as Al-Ḥaram al-Sharīf. He also embellished foreign cities—Beirut, Damascus, Antioch, Rhodes—and many towns. Herod patronized the Olympic Games, whose president he became. In his own kingdom he could not give full rein to his love of magnificence, for fear of offending the Pharisees, the leading faction of Judaism, with whom he was always in conflict because they regarded him as a foreigner. Herod undoubtedly saw himself not merely as the patron of grateful pagans but also as the protector of Jewry outside of Palestine, whose Gentile hosts he did all in his power to conciliate.
Unfortunately, there was a dark and cruel streak in Herod’s character that showed itself increasingly as he grew older. His mental instability, moreover, was fed by the intrigue and deception that went on within his own family. Despite his affection for Mariamne, he was prone to violent attacks of jealousy; his sister Salome (not to be confused with her great-niece, Herodias’s daughter Salome) made good use of his natural suspicions and poisoned his mind against his wife in order to wreck the union. In the end Herod murdered Mariamne, her two sons, her brother, her grandfather, and her mother, a woman of the vilest stamp who had often aided his sister Salome’s schemes. Besides Doris and Mariamne, Herod had eight other wives and had children by six of them. He had 14 children.
May 14, 2024 · Updated May 14, 2024. Nicodemus, which means "conqueror of the people," was a Pharisee, a ruler of the Jews, and a teacher of Israel ( John 3:1, John 3:10 ). His secret visit to our Lord led to a significant discourse recorded only by St. John. Nicodemus showed noble candor and a simple love of truth despite his hesitation and fear of man.
Herod the Great. Herod I [2] [3] [a] or Herod the Great ( c. 72 BCE – c. 4 BCE) was a Roman Jewish client king of the Herodian Kingdom of Judea. [4] [5] [6] He is known for his colossal building projects throughout Judea. Among these works are the rebuilding of the Second Temple in Jerusalem and the expansion of its base [7] [8] [9] —the ...
- Cypros
- 37–4 BCE (Schürer), 36–1 BCE (Filmer)
Dec 19, 2017 · How Herod Got His Power. Herod “the Great” ruled as king of the Jews under Roman authority for thirty-three years, from 37–4 BC. It is this Herod who appears in the account of Jesus’ birth ( Matt. 2:1–19; Luke 1:5 ). From the start, Herod proved to be an extraordinary political survivor.
