Who Was King Herod?

According to the gospels, Jesus of Nazareth was born during the reign of Herod the Great, King of Judea. Herod was a great builder who reconstructed the Jerusalem Temple where Jesus taught as well as fortresses including Masada. Who was Herod and how did he acquire his throne? John Hamer of Toronto Centre Place will look at the history Herodian dynasty and its predecessor, the Hasmoneans and their short-lived, independent Jewish kingdom, placing them into the context of the larger Hellenistic and Roman worlds.
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[@t0nyR0s3]

Just wanted to say that I look forward to these lectures every week. I got my degree from a christian university in the US and you remind me of my favorite professor. Thank you for my favorite channel! Also I'm a 33 guy from the US and I mostly watch comedy podcasts but this is still by far my favorite part of KZbin haha.

[@JamesCroney]

I really like how you tell what people's interpretations of history are and then leave the audience to find their own spirituality in it.

[@annwood6812]

Fabulous! I had no idea of the connection between Herod and Mark Anthony. Really interesting, thanks.

[@atheistapostate7019]

I’m loving this channel! So unbiased to history and scholarship and not indoctrinating

[@annascott3542]

Finally! So excited, I feel like I’ve been waiting weeks for this lecture! Also, so glad to be returning to history 🙏

[@exoplanet11]

Another fantastic lecture on a complex topic. Thanks John. What might have helped would be a 2 page chart: 1.) The historical Herod(s) 2. The biblical Herod(s)

[@CirclingDuck]

I absolutely love these lectures. I appreciate they must take a toll to write. But if John ever feels up to it again, he'd find an infinitely appreciative audience 😀

[@alexvince461]

2nd comment, great video although I have only just started watching, I know it is from the stunning quality of all previous lectures

[@benjammin4840]

16:15 I was always baffled by the maps in the back of bibles when I was a kid too

[@adamdudziak1958]

Thanks!

[@danielgreen341]

I loved the lecture. What sources of information were used? It would be cool to research this.

[@jsonitsac]

There was a character named Herod in the book and TV miniseries I Claudius apparently hanging out with Claudius in Rome. Which Herod was that and did he spend as much time in Rome as the TV show suggests?

[@annascott3542]

You’re thinking of Agrippa I, the grandson of Herod the Great. He Grew up in the imperial court in Rome under Tiberius, where he became friends with and was educated alongside Claudius, Agrippa also had a close friendship with Caligula.

[@Ken_Scaletta]

" The one in I Claudius was Herod Agriippa, granndson of Herod the Great. He grew up in Rome and was friends with Caligula.

[@yahwehforchristians]

What are your thoughts about the Temple Prayer Wall NOT being the actual part of the Temple destroyed by Rome in 70 AD?

[@TheJgibbons]

I quote from the official United Kingdom gov. page "Office of National Statistics", "The Romans conducted censuses every five years, calling upon every man and his family to return to his place of birth to be counted in order to keep track of the population. "

[@langreeves6419]

Please can you give me a publication date, a page number, a way to look this up? I've heard multiple scholars say that there was no censes being taken where you traveled back to your Hometown so I'm very interested to see something that says otherwise

[@alexvince461]

Why are there no new lectures, is John on holiday?

[@andrewisjesus]

Where are the lectures

[@tevis3]

Honest. I hate when programs just stop with no announcement.

[@rhondadearborn3265]

Wondering if you can do an exploration or series on Emma Smith and her story

[@Stadtpark90]

Great.

[@paulrhome6164]

Are there any significant pre-Septuagint writings from the Egyptian (or other non Babylonian) part of the diaspora? I'm mostly curious if they showed more or less tendency to monotheism than their more Zoroastrian influenced brethren. That seems to be the main influence of Yahweh going from their god to God, and I'm curious how much of that came from actually being in Babylon and how much was from being neighbors before the captivity, which would have spread with the diaspora.

[@annascott3542]

I’ve heard scholars note that it was in the air, as a general trend at the time to consolidate various gods into one major deity. I just watched an interview yesterday with a scholar about this topic. If you’re interested it’s on Gnostic Informant interview with Matthew Monger.

[@Ken_Scaletta]

From Egypt there is really only the Elephantine Papyrii. The Elephantine Jews had their own temple, were polytheistic and seem to have never heard of the Torah, Moses or the Patriarchs. This is into the 3rd Century BCE. They apparently even had permission from the high Priest in Jerusalem to build a temple, which should have been forbidden by Torah, but the letters show no awareness of Mosaic law even existing yet.

[@Ken_Scaletta]

@@annascott3542 This was the trend in Greek Philosophy and Neo-Platonism.

[@paulrhome6164]

@@Ken_Scaletta Thanks for the reply, but after a bit of looking, I don't think these are the droids I'm looking for. When I first read the description I was hopeful but then it struck me that to not even have a tradition of Moses or the Patriarchs suggests a more ancient split than the Babylonian Captivity, which is what I was trying to focus on. I guess when talking about Jewish history, I should specify which diaspora I mean. I haven't looked much further, but it seems the Elephantine do come from the earlier Assyrian period of invasion and disruption. That at least seems to put an at most 8th century period where polytheism was at least acceptable. Still a lot of time between then and Babylon for monotheism to become more prominent/dominant. In trying to find any evidence to narrow that window. Not sure why, just curious if monotheism was already ascendent before the captivity, or really got its kickstart during. I'm definitely curious to learn more of the Elephantines, especially what specifically identifies them as Jewish without even a tradition of the Patriarchs, unless Abraham gets a pass on that.

[@Ken_Scaletta]

@@paulrhome6164 The Pentateuch wasn't written until after the Babylonian exile and Mosaic law never existed before then either. I know that's not what the Bible says, but that's what the evidence and the archaeology says. Israelite religion was polytheistic at least until the Babylonian conquest. William Dever's "Did God Have a Wife" is a good book about that. There is some recent scholarship (most notable Russel Gmirkin) arguing that the Pentateuch may have been composed as late as the 3rd Century BCE. Strange as it may sound, there is no objective evidence for the existence of the Pentateuch before the Septuagint. No contemporaneous writers show knowledge of Hebrew books of Moses before the appearance of the Greek LXX and some scholars think the LXX might have been produced simultaneously with or even before the Hebrew. .

[@stevenv6463]

So how were there so many Jews in the Galilee if between Galilee and Judea were a ton of Samaritans in Samaria? Also going into the preislamic Arabs or Nabateans would be great.

[@FilippoDiNoto]

So the whole "north star" appearing in the sky has always bothered me. There are other cultures who study astronomy, do they concur that the star appeared when Jesus was born? That part of the story confuses me.

[@370530e]

Didn’t he run a kindergarten in Jerusalem?

[@antonius_006]

Psychology includes History of religion.

[@OzzMazz]

It's not the Doomsday Book, it's the Domesday Book.

[@hiswillbedone642]

“Christmas” story lol

[@GuitarJimBourke]

Reading Josephus, you would come to the conclusion that King Herod would be capable of doing something like Mathew's gospel sez, King Herod, both of em I and II were unsavory despicable Characters.

[@Ken_Scaletta]

Yeah, but the Matthew story still falls under the literary genre of mythology and is based on the infancy narrative of Moses, (which was in turn based on the infancy narrative of Sargon). Scholars do not believe Jesus was even born in Bethlehem. That's a later tradition developed in order to get Jesus born in the same town as David.

[@GuitarJimBourke]

@@Ken_Scaletta I do not agree with you, I think the sources of the writers were put down by word of mouth by people who witnessed it. So I believe it is accurate a enough.

[@Ken_Scaletta]

@@GuitarJimBourke You simply state that you believe it, but offer no explanation for WHY you believe it or foe how you deal with the overwhelming weight of scholarship against that view. The Gospels themselves never claim to be eyewitness accounts. None of the authors identify themselves. They are all formally anonymous. They did not get those names until around 180 CE, when they were assigned those names by Ireneaus based on his own erroneous attempt at detective work. The mainstream consensus of 200 years of critical scholarship done mostly by Christians reveals that the Gospels could not have been written by eyewitnesses to the life of Jesus or to anyone close to him. They were written 40-80 years after the life of Jesus by authors with formal Greek educations living far outside of Judea Palestina. There are far more problems than this but I won't go over them all unless you want me to. You should just be aware that even most Christian New Testament scholars do not believe the authorship traditions are authentic.

[@GuitarJimBourke]

@@Ken_Scaletta Why?Because faith is a mystery! it's there like a language through a telephone pole. Did I not say the stories were passed down from the eyewitness accounts? It has always been a matter of faith, faith is simple and nice. Disbelief the opposite is divisive,vile, and cruel.

[@Ken_Scaletta]

@@GuitarJimBourke The stories were not handed down from eyewitnesses either, that's not what the evidence shows and not a claim the Gospels make themselves. Luke says he read accounts already written, not that he talked to witnesses. His primary narrative source is Mark. When scholars talk about oral tradition in the Gospels, they do not mean that the whole Gospel or necessarily even a large part of it is some sort of transcription of any individual memoir or speaker. They speak in terms of strands of possible oral tradition embedded within the larger text. The Gospels are literary works which incorporate multiple sources. Some stories may come from remembered history but others can be shown to be literary constructions, often based on retellings of Old Testament stories. Some of those stories are meant to be understood as parables or allegories, not literal history. Even the bits which may have come from oral tradition are arranged and used by the authors in literary manners. The Gospels are extremely sophisticated works, which use specific literary techniques and structures that were only taught in Greek schools and which cannot arise from natural human speech. Illiterate, Aramaic speaking fishermen do not spontaneously speak in formal Greek chasms. Do you care if your beliefs are TRUE? Shouldn't you try to find out if they're true before you commit to them?

[@VSP4591]

The Temple of Jerusalem was not finished in the days of Herod the Great. The building was begun in 19 B.C. and finished in 10 years, but the work of decoration was not completely finished until A.D. 64. Six years later in A.D. 70, the Romans burned down and destroyed the brand new temple at Jerusalem and it has never been rebuilt since.

[@kaloarepo288]

You may be aware of the great Roman temple complex at Baalbec in Lebanon which was the biggest temple to Greco-Roman gods in the Roman empire.Well it was constructed at approximately the same time as Herod's temple and there are some amazing similarities between the two especially the giant stone blocks on which the temples are built -the ones at Baalbec are especially massive and engineers are puzzled as to how the Romans were able to set them in place.Some scholars now think that maybe the same architects and personnel were involved in the same projects,maybe even the same architects and skilled workers and there is even a suggestion that Herod himself may have funded the Baalbec project in recognition of and to maintain the support of his Roman overlords.

[@VSP4591]

@@kaloarepo288 This is something different. It has nothing to do with Second Temple Judaism.

[@cooldogbearbutt3806]

@@VSP4591 The precious words of an expert educating us. Who needs conversation.

[@Ken_Scaletta]

@@kaloarepo288 Of course the world was and is filled with temples, but Mosaic law stipulates that Jews can only have one temple and it has to be the one in Jerusalem. right now there's a big ass mosque on the spot, though. Herod was noted as a prolific builder, though, as well as sycophantic to Roman power.

[@VSP4591]

@@cooldogbearbutt3806 Inteligent people.

[@user-du5tg4si2j]

No such person ever existed by that name!

[@friendo6257]

I used to like your lectures. You’ve been letting your bias show lately. I thought you were one of the good theists but it turns out you’re just like the rest.

[@abrahamcollier]

This is such an interesting comment @Avant Gourd. How do you feel the lectures have changed over the years? I have been watching for a few years as well and would love to hear your thoughts.

[@friendo6257]

@@abrahamcollier It might have always been that way but I'm basing this off of what I've observed in the videos that I've watched. The earlier videos I watched were more historically honest about what likely did and didn't happen. Lately I've seen a lot more scoffing at historical agnosticism. Like the historical method will come to a conclusion that we can't possibly know that something happened, but Hamer will imply that it did happen. This could also be exacerbated by my learning that Hamer is not a professional historian, but rather a preacher who is also an amateur/hobbyist historian. It makes me trust his lessons less. When combined with an apparent increase in religious bias toward "these claims are likely true" when we can't possibly make that claim honestly I've lost trust in the acuracy of the subject matter presented in his lectures.

[@paulrhome6164]

@@friendo6257 Do you have some examples of this? I'm sure there might be some times when his conclusions are not quite up to a rigorous academic examination. I'm struggling to think of how he is expressing a religious bias, however. The one thing that has struck me about his lectures the most is an almost anti religious bias. There's not a sacred scripture that he doesn't at least imply is a pious fraud, and he seems to take any mention of the supernatural as a definite sign that a source is unreliable as a description of historical events.

[@friendo6257]

@@paulrhome6164 I will try to find some timestamps to share.

[@langreeves6419]

This is really an unusual comment. Usually if people are complaining about John Hamer, it's because they're upset because he doesn't accept scriptures as historically accurate, nor does he accept them as being the words of God.