Who Was Salome? Jewish Biography as History Dr. Henry Abramson

[@nicolesawyer-jm6ir]

Thank you for bring woman into the historical perspective. Love the clarity , art and scholarship.

[@KolaFinger]

Thanks. I followed some of your lectures and learned to LOVE IT. Not only are they educationally of high historical values, helps me in what I look after and truly have found. I enjoy the way you explain it, all the details you add, even the jokes you put are the right issues... I get what I'm after from all the lectures I heard and will continue with. Thanks, dear Dr. Henry Abramson, for the great job you truly do. I'm a follower of your precious lectures!

[@cedricgist7614]

I wondered how you could milk 40 minutes out of the story of Salome who played a "bit part" as you say in history. You did a marvelous job of bringing together the historical references, the centuries of depictions and interpretations, and the connection to how Jews have been perceived based on this brief tragic story. You reviewed the influence of the Herods. You reviewed the medieval contrast between the Church and the Synagogue. Did not intend to summarize or critique your lecture except to applaud your efforts to make your topics tangible and relevant to your audience. I have enjoyed your talks this week that I've discovered you - probably the 7th lecture I've watched. Thank you for sharing your scholarship and personal perspective on these subjects. You may not be an actual rabbi, but you are definitely a master-teacher in the eyes of this non-Jew.

[@steele0strella]

Your classes and jokes are phenomenal. I have a theory about John the Baptist, that when he was beheaded and his head put on a tray, it was actually a way to suggest he wrote down his teachings (from his brain), possibly in the form of the gospels and his body was the text buried and is still waiting to be discovered or possibly buried within the text of the Gospels. Thank you Dr. Abramson

[@lesliejohnson140]

Wow! I recently stumbled upon Dr. Abramson's lectures and just can't get enough. Thank you so much for making this available to the public - as a follower of Jesus and a Gentile, I have been profoundly ignorant of Jewish history, culture, etc. I really cannot thank you enough for allowing me to watch these wonderful lectures!!

[@daniel-meir]

tetra means four. tetrarchy is a division of a state into 4 parts.

[@brentleebowman3594]

AH! I have found my new favorite youtube channel! :)

[@HenryAbramsonPhD]

Thank you!

[@bingeltube]

Very recommendable! This is about the second time I have learnt about Ecclesia and Synagoga from Henry Abramson. I had no idea about those depictions

[@RafaelRabinovich]

The coin in 39:20 is in Greek, not Latin. It says Βασίλισ (Basilis), all in caps, which means "queen".

[@craighiggins2873]

Thank you for posting this. I've been doing some writing on Herod the Great and this was very informative.

[@paulpopescu2757]

This is not just a story.. If you understand the patterns of parental alienation, you will see that that mother is preventing the daughter from receiving a good gift, sabotaging her relations with the step father, because what kind of step father is the one who made this gift: a head on a plate? I think the story is true, because it FITS perfectly the pattern of a divorced mother preventing the child from receiving a gift from the step father. This kind of behavior from the mother usually results in the child getting an avoidant attachment style, and this also FITS the story.

[@wellingtonking4344]

Dear Dr. Henry Abramson, did you say that inscription on the coin of Salome was in Latin? The inscription is in Greek. I couldn't make out all the letters. However, I'm fairly confident that it starts with the Greek word for queen. Next it has her name Salome. After the final eta (E) of her name, there is a letter that I think is a gamma. I think the gamma serves as a numeral indicating the third year.

[@68halima]

+Wellington King You're partly right- it says Basilis Salomis, meaning Queen Salome in Koine Greek. The other side shows her husband King Aristobolus. Salome married him after the death of her first husband, Herod Philip II. Aristobolus was a grandson of Herod the Great, so they were distantly related. He was given the kingdom of Chalcys- what is roughly Armenia today.They both wear the diadem of royalty.

[@lilafeldman8630]

I have a question: dancing for the king and being offered anything, up to half the kingdom. Sounds like Ahasuerus with Vashti and Esther. Was this a common thing with ancient kings? I know someone asked this, but still curious.

[@thejoker2569]

Thank you for this Rabbi. I am Christian and a bride. I am painting the scene at present. The Lord has showed me what the characters in this scene looked like and what they wore there and then. A dark skinned servant girl dressed in light brown with black hair held the silver platter with John's head. Salome had blonde hair and dark eyes and wore a light blue dress for her dance. Herodius wore a gold head piece like you see the Egyptians wear and an orange dress. The bodyguard had short brown hair and long beard and wore a blue uniform. John had blue eyes and dark brown hair and a long beard. He used to wear green under his camel hair coat. Green was his mother Elizabeth's favourite colour.

[@martasoltys9091]

The Joker How can Salome have blond hair? 😁

[@nicolejcornett]

Thanks for this information! Just wanted to add 😁: If everything was written in the “book of life” and everything that happens is already known, then There should never be a monument that is hated because the “dark or bad” we see is only a reflection of our own thoughts being projected onto others and things. We should be grateful for all. Namaste 🙏😇

[@abbyfrancisco3764]

I enjoy and learned a lot. Thanks! This is really helpful for me as young pastor.

[@abbyfrancisco3764]

@@HenryAbramsonPhD thanks for sharing your knowledge . God bless !

[@TheWhitsundayWanderer]

John the baptist - great prophet head on a plate. IMPORTANT Jewish figure. He was a jew prophet sent to be a voice in the wilderness.

[@josephwarren4994]

I really enjoy your lectures. Will you consider making one on queen sheba, king shlomo's wife?

[@paulokas69]

8:30 tetra is four. Tetrarchy is a division of power of four rulers

[@briankelly5828]

Very interesting - thank you. Flaubert also wrote a famous story on this in his 'Trois Contes' where he calls John 'Yohanan'.

[@olly3700]

oh my god :-)))tetra means four, of course. for example in chemistry: monomer, dimer, trimer, tetramer, pentamer, hexamer. heptamer, and so forth.By the way, GREAT LECTURE. Thx for all your vids from over the lake, Germany.

[@davidsavage6324]

on ram head painting, it reminds me of how you have said in another lecture in renaissance times people were grabbing antlers for sanctuary in synagogues, maybe no connection; in an ancient Hebrew context, from what I've learned from Jeff A. Benner's you tube videos, horns symbolized authority, I'm not saying that is what that painter intended though.

[@davidsavage6324]

on solome being mellified, mellified mummified remains were sold as medicine; men would agree to eat nothing but honey before dying and then being preserved in honey for materia medica so that their family could be financially compensated.

[@dawnschaeffer5728]

I am trudging through Josephus' works (most recently Wars of the Jews) and there are a few stories of another Salome, sister-in-law to Herod the Great. She is reported to have denounced both her husband Joseph and Mariamne to Herod and was also instrumental in flaming the fires of argument between Herod's three sons who became the Tetrarch. I was confused by the name at first, but then I realized that the more 'popular' Salome was probably a relative, most likely named after her sly ancestor. Thanks as always for the lecture. I look forward to one on Herod the Great.

[@str.77]

That's actually Herod's sister, whose first marriage was to Herod's uncle Joseph (whom she denounced). She later denounced Mariamne and others, some of them correctly. She was charged by her brotehr have an arena full of Jews killed upon the King's death so that all Israel would weep upon his death but she then didn't carry out the order.

[@AlannahRyane]

Enjoyed this very much. I have been trying for years to find this Herod's illegitimate daughters whose names started with H ..i.e. specifically someone named Halomena or something like that. Thank you for covering this.

[@ExploringtheKawithRa]

So is salome herodias??

[@TheAngelin2000]

very good information

[@lynxminx4]

Strauss used Wilde's play as the basis of his libretto- they're almost identical depictions. In their depiction Salome isn't dimwitted, but she's unable to hear Jokaanan's holy messages...and she's narcissistic to the exclusion of everything around her.

[@murrayaronson3753]

Alla Nazimova was an actress, not really a dancer. Nazimova was a major star of the silent period She was also of Jewish period. Nazimova created on her estate a hotel resort complex which came to be known as the Garden of Alla and was located on the Sunset Strip. I believe F. Scott Fitzgerald lived in a cottage at the Garden of Alla. Later the property was developed by the Jewish businessman Bart Lytton who was a major philanthropist and founder of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, until his financial collapse. Just recently both the former Lytton Savings Bank and the LACMA building which contained a small plaque in honor of Bart and Beth Lytton were demolished. There's a story here. .Oscar Wilde's play was the basis for Richard Strauss's 1905 opera. Salome is firmly in the international operatic repertory. a great work, but one I would never take a child to.

[@RafaelRabinovich]

Salome was the granddaughter of King Herod. How about Shlomtzion HaMalka (Alexandra Salome)?

[@RafaelRabinovich]

People are thinking about Latin, or modern Spanish. "Third" in Greek is Τρίτον, Triton, and "Fourth" is τέταρτο, Tetarto. Herod was neither third, nor fourth. "Cuatrarch" is a non-existing word. A tetrarch is one whose kingdom has been divided in a tetrarchy, that is in four parts. A τετράρχης, in Greek, is rendered in English, via Latin, as a Tetrarchy. Herod's kingdom, upon his death, was divided between his three sons and one daughter. This is in no way related to the Spanish word for the number four, "cuatro". en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herodian_Tetrarchy en.wiktionary.org/wiki/tetrarch

[@rmezo64]

three sons and one sister

[@rmezo64]

and this salome referenced in the video is the great-granddaughter of Herod the Great

[@beeeb8831]

Salome was a front, a figure to distract from the political machinations going on behind the scenes. She was about thirteen years old and mainly concerned with pleasing Mommy. If there had been a husband, she would have had to obey him instead. She would have been married by her mid teens; young women, even royals, were not free to make their own decisions. But she certainly made a good distracter from whatever was really going on. Who would the death of John the Baptist have benefited? Sorry, Hillel, you could have handled this subject in a far more interesting way. You seemed to have chiefly been concerned about the embarrassment to the Jewish faith caused by Salome and her centuries long salacious reputation. How Canadian.

[@angelabacker1177]

isn't there a similar story involving the 10 martyrs?

[@HenryAbramsonPhD]

Not sure

[@angelabacker1177]

@@HenryAbramsonPhD I think invoving Rabbi Yishmael. I am not a Torah scholar but perhaps you have access to one?

[@blasater]

Interesting lecture Henry-- I would add that the stained glass depiction also has a connotation of the "blind Jew" who does not understand that akeida was a foreshadowing of Yeshu's atonement. The chalice is being held up to say, look, the blood of Yeshu in the chalice, was foreshadowed by the the akeida is a superior sacrifice and now reigns. Replacement theology art. All of it in error of course.

[@tbillyjoeroth]

8 minutes in and we know more about Oscar Wilde than we do about Salome. Sheesh.

[@craigbrush5784]

A few years ago I was in a church in Genoa, and on display was allegedly the plate that John the Baptist's head was delivered on. It made me giggle. It wasn't even silver! Anyway, as someone interested in this, I found it interesting.

[@brianpatrickofficial]

I’m hear because of the Titanic song “Vision of Salome” lol I really wanted to know what it meant.

[@68halima]

Thank you- very interesting. I'm enjoying your lectures on historical Jewish women. Probably the only character who has fared worse than Salome in terms of an evil reputation is Jezebel- whose very name has come to mean a shameless, disreputable woman. Of course, she was Phoenician and not a Jew I surmise because she tried to get her husband King Ahab to abandon the God of Abraham for the worship of Baal. So, no wonder she's not so loved and no one names their daughters after her. Oh- and she ended up being thrown out a window and her corpse eaten by stray dogs. Yeah. Not a great legacy. LOL

[@michaelkadunce3155]

Highgate Angel.

[@thejoker2569]

The prophetic nature of John the Baptist is even in his death by beheading. He was the last prophet before Christ. The saints who die in the tribulation are beheaded being the last saints before the second coming of Christ. That's why he was beheaded.

[@mariammaramamurthy288]

Discription bout Salomi

[@simossosias3727]

Herod did not finance his public works with taxes. You got it wrong Abramson.

[@Islesfan-ho3uc]

He lived in early mesapotmia

[@rmezo64]

this video is a HOT MESS. i have progressively lost confidence in this historian turned rabbi turned comedian. there is not one thing in this video that represents Salome as a critical historical figure, let alone a metaphor. and for a historian to present such a controversial religious figure - a female figure, for G~D's sake - demonstrates the heinous misogyny that sustains our inability to break through the barriers of the strength of women as dynamically influential as this woman must have been ... she became a queen - in historical record - for JEEEZUssss sake, when will we give women their rightful due in history if not the present?!

[@watermelonlalala]

In my experience Christians never much thought or talked about Salome except when some Jewish dominated industry would produce a play or movie about her. "The Dance of the Seven Veils", head of the Baptist on a tray, her mother. End of topic.

[@michaelpalmieri7335]

Dr. Abramson says that Salome, King Herod, and the other people connected with her were all Jews. Yet, all the retellings of the story (books, movies, plays, operas, television shows, etc.) never say anything about it. I once saw a movie about Jesus called "King Of Kings" which merely referred to Herod as an "Arab" but said nothing about his religion. How does Dr. Abramson explain that?

[@eliyahum4285]

Herod the Great was a Jew and was raised as a Jew. Maybe check out Wikipedia instead of a Hollywood movie for historical information.

[@andrewsuryali8540]

@@eliyahum4285 I'm actually surprised that there's a modern English-speaking Western person who can't figure out that "Herod, king of the Jews" was a Jew. Or was he born into a perfectly secular community with no access to the Christian Bible?

[@woinshatemulate6277]

Salome in Jesus story is male selects the father of kilqias and his brothers the family of the true messiah it is Yosef in Jesus case

[@adamsurge5761]

A correction, the coin depicts Queen Salome Alexandra from the Hasmonean period, not the Salome under discussion here. These are two different people.