1. Not The Man You Thought He was!
King Herod The Great
Not The Man You Thought He was!

2. King Herod Was Not Slide 1 please A Jew A “baby killer” (theory)
A coward
The enemy of Israel

3. King Herod Was The best Gentile leader Israel ever had A great builder
A highly intelligent man
A compassionate king

4. Not a Jew
Slide 2 please
Let’s look into the fact that Herod was not a Jew…
The Father of Herod was Antipater, a governor in the region.
Josephus says of him, “An Idumean by race”
Edomite (Idomeon)
Descendant of Esau.

5. Not a Jew Slide 3 Herod’s mother was a Nabatean Her name was Cypros.
She wasn’t just any Nabatean either, she was a Nabatean Princess from Petra… the Nabatean capital

6. Not a Jew If you click on slide 4, you will see that Nabatea is on
the other side of the Dead Sea in present day Jordan

7. Not a Jew
There’s a lot of Misinformation out there concerning Herod’s ethnicity
On Answers.com it says
“Herod himself never lived down the charge that he was only a half Jew - and he seems to have spent part of his childhood among the Nabateans.”

8. Not a Jew Misinformation Catholic Encyclopedia
“Antigonus called Herod a half- Jew.”
Antigonus was a Macedonian not a Jew himself.

9. Not a Jew So why all this confusion? There are two reasons
One is that Herod’s father was a converted Jew. He wasn’t Jewish by blood, he was a convert. Though he was a convert, he wasn’t one by choice.

10. Not a Jew
A Historian by the name of Ptolemy who lived in the first century BC and wrote the “History of King Herod” said that the Idumeans were conquered by the Jews, forced to be circumcised and convert to Judaism.
Now this is confirmed later by Josephus who tells us that the Hasmonean ruler John Hyrcanus the 1rst did exactly that. He conquered them and forced them to become Jews.

11. Not a Jew
So were they really Jews? No. Even the Jews of that time didn’t welcome them as Jews. So if they didn’t why should we?
Another reason some people think Herod was a Jew was because he married a Jewess. But that’s kind of silly, just because you marry a Jew doesn’t mean you ARE a Jew.

12. Not a Jew So no, Herod was not a Jew!
Why do some want so badly to believe that Herod was a Jew even after presented with the facts?
Because they want to think he was a Jew. There are anti-Semites who like to think that Jews are so bad that they even hate their own people.

13. Not a Jew
That’s how the whole myth that Hitler was actually a Jew got started. Hitler wasn’t Jewish either
Find a bad man and you’ll find an anti-Semite trying to prove that the bad man is a Jew. It never fails.

14. Not a Baby Killer The Story Matthew 2:16-18 (King James Version)
  Then Herod, when he saw that he was mocked of the wise men, was exceeding wroth, and sent forth, and slew all the children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the coasts thereof, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had diligently inquired of the wise men. Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet, saying, In Rama was there a voice heard, lamentation, and weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not.

15. Not a Baby Killer Population Matthew 2:16 Greek word horios
translated as “coasts” in the KJV is actually “districts”… plural.
The Byzantine liturgy had 14,000 “Holy Innocents” and an early Syrian list that states that there were 64,000.

16. Not a Baby Killer Population
The world's population was about 200 million in the time of Jesus' birth.
If we assume a proportional growth, there would have been about 209,000 people in Palestine at that time. If we guess that the population of Bethlehem and surrounding district

17. Not a Baby Killer
Continued…
was about one fiftieth the population of Palestine, we arrive at a Bethlehem population of about 4,200.We furthermore assume that the age distribution ranged from zero to about forty. Thus, there would have been about one-twentieth of 4,200,

18. Not a Baby Killer
Continued…
or about 210 infants and toddlers under two years who would’ve been slashed to death by Herod's swordsmen!

19. Not a Baby Killer Sizable Event
Only mentioned once in Matthew. Not recorded in any of the other Gospels.
Not mentioned in the rest of the New Testament, not once!
We have many other writings from that time period….

20. Not a Baby Killer Sizable Event Slide 5 please
Flavious Josephus A.D. 37/38 - Hasmonean historian writing at the time of Yeshua gives detailed, info on Herod.
His ability to hunt, ride a horse, shoot an arrow,etc. (War ).

21. Not a Baby Killer Sizable Event Slide 6 please Volumes were written by
Josephus!
1. War of the Jews
2. The Antiquities of the
Jews
3. Flavius Josephus
Against Apion
4. The Life of Flavius
Josephus.

22. Not a Baby Killer Sizable Event Slide 7 please Volumes were written by
Philo!
Philo (20 BC - 50 AD), known also as Philo of Alexandria, a Hellenized Jewish philosopher who represented the Jewish community before the Emperor!

23. Not a Baby Killer Sizable Event Slide 8 please Volumes were written
by Philo!
1. Exposition of the Jewish
Law
2. Apologetical works;
3. Philosophical treatises

24. Not a Baby Killer Sizable Event These were Jews who
lived during this time and
they wrote nothing of it?
Are Jews not good at
remembering/recording
history?
I think we’ve written the
best history books!

25. Not a Baby Killer So what happened? Is it possible that one of
the scribes copying in
Greek, from the Hebrew
Original, added a little of
his own opinion
concerning Herod?

26. Not a Baby Killer So what happened? Slide 9 please
The Jews at that time
hated Herod but that has
to be taken in context.
They despised Herod like I
despise Bill Clinton. But
better ruled by Bill Clinton
then say someone like
Yassir Arafat.

27. Not a Baby Killer 1. The Jews had to pay high taxes.
2. Herod had a pro Roman
attitude.
3. He wasn’t the ruler they
wanted. They wanted
the Hasmoneans, better
known as the
Maccabees, to rule.

28. Not a Baby Killer So is it possible or even likely that a scribe
would add this little
tidbit? Absolutely!

29. Not a Baby Killer This is important because:
what we think of Herod is based largely on this depiction of him as a baby killer. What I’m going to show a little later is that he was the best gentile friend Israel ever had.

30. Wife Killer? Slide 10 please
Yes he did kill his wife in 29 B.C. he had his wife, Mariamne, put to death. But why?
Josephus says that he killed her out of jealousy because she committed adultery. Mariamne’s own mother, Alexandra, testified against her, saying it was true.

31. Wife Killer?
And this was the second time this charge had been put against her. The first time, Herod refused to believe it.

32. Wife Killer? After her death
Josephus wrote Herod, ‘talked to her as if still alive, until time revealed to him the terrible truth, and filled his heart with grief as passionate as his love had been while she lived.’

33. Wife Killer?
Josephus relates also that “after her death Herod tried in hunting and banqueting to forget his loss, but that even his strong nature succumbed and he fell ill in Samaria, where he had made Mariamne his wife” ("Ant." xv. 7, § 7).

34. Wife Killer?
Josephus was a Hasmonean! He hated Herod because Josephus felt that the Hasmoneans were supposed to be in power!

35. Wife Killer?
Herod loved her so much that upon her insistence, he made her brother High Priest of the Temple.

36. Wife Killer? Slide 11 please
The Mariamne tower in Jerusalem, built by Herod, was named after her.
(not the actual tower, but below it)

37. Wife Killer?
In Fact Herod didn’t even want to put her to death but was only going to imprison her. It was his sister Salome that insisted she be put to death because she thought the people would rebel and try to free her. Herod did finally agree

38. Good Friend Slide 13 please Marc Anthony
a Roman politician and general. He was an important supporter of Julius Caesar as a military commander
Herod met Anthony around 42 bc. Herod was 16 years old when they became friends.

39. Good Friend
Herod went with Antony and Caesar, as well as other officials to offer sacrifices (in doing so, Herod was engaging in avodah zerah, idolatry).
Herod a Jew?

40. Good Friend Slide 14 please After Herod became King
He named the Antonio Fortress after Anthony

41. Good Friend Slide 15 please Marc Anthony fell in love with Cleopatra.
Later, Herod went to visit her and she tried to seduce him! (Antiquity of the Jews 15.4)

42. Good Friend Herod refused her! This was the woman
his best friend was in love with. It was tempting for Herod, all the riches of Egypt at his finger tips. A woman that was worshipped as a god. None could deny her.

43. Good Friend
Herod did! For the sake of his friend he left her. Cleopatra hated him for this, a woman rejected.

44. Good Friend Slide 16 please
Years later Anthony went to war against Octavian because Cleopatra convinced him to. Anthony asked for Herod’s help in the war but Herod begged him not to go through with it. Herod, being a great General, knew Anthony would lose

45. Good Friend Slide 17 please
After much pleading from Herod. Anthony left his friend and did it anyway. Anthony lost the battle and then took his own life

46. Good Friend Cleopatra did the same.
This concludes part 1 of this class please click on link 2 above for the rest of the lecture. Thankyou

47. Friend to Israel!

48. Friend to Israel
Herod rebuilt Solomon’s Temple. Some say he restored it, but he actually replaced it stone by stone.
It took 8 years to build.
Herod’s Temple was much larger the Solomon’s Temple

49. Friend to Israel Slide 18 please
Herod's Temple was one of the biggest construction projects of the first century BC,
Stood for 80 years before it was destroyed

50. Friend to Israel Slide 19 please
Only the finest materials were used. Some of the walls were made of a white limestone that made the structure “appear as if it was glowing”.

51. Friend to Israel
The outer walls were made of Jerusalem stone which at night, when the light is shined on it. They appear golden

52. Friend to Israel
Slide 20 please
Jerusalem, City Of Gold.

53. Friend to Israel Slide 21 please
Other walls were made of white and black marble. Herod was going to overlay them with gold but the priests said not to because it made the walls appear as it they were the “waves of the sea”

54. Friend to Israel
Slide 22 please
Or like this.

55. Friend to Israel
It was said of Herod’s temple that if a person had not seen it, he had not yet seen a beautiful building.

56. Friend to Israel
Herod never collected taxes from the donations that were sent to the Temple from Jews in the Diaspora.

57. Friend to Israel
His Roman counterparts DID collect taxes from outside sources for other temples in the Roman empire.

58. Friend to Israel
Under Herod, the Jews never had to join the Roman army either!

59. Friend to Israel
In countries that were taken captive, most of the men were forced to join the army. Herod went to bat for the Jews and had them disqualified for this. During his reign they never had to fight for Rome

60. Friend to Israel Slide 23 please
Herod was an Arab, what kind of Arab friends does Israel have today?

61. Herod’s Illness Slide 24 please
Herod the Great probably expired from chronic kidney disease complicated by Fournier’s gangrene," according to Medical Doctor Jan Hirschmann.
Extremely Painful!.

62. Herod’s Illness
Josephus lists several major features of the disease that caused Herod’s death. He writes…

63. Herod’s Illness
There was a gentle fever upon him, and an intolerable itching over all the surface of his body, and continual pains in his colon, and dropsical turnouts about his feet, and an inflammation of the abdomen, and a putrefaction of his privy member, that produced worms. Besides which he had a difficulty of breathing upon him, and could not breathe but when he sat upright, and had a convulsion of all his members.
Josephus, The Jewish War

64. Herod’s Illness
It’s hereditary and probably what killed his grandson in Acts 12:21
21On the appointed day Herod, wearing his royal robes, sat on his throne and delivered a public address to the people. 22They shouted, "This is the voice of a god, not of a man." 23Immediately, because Herod did not give praise to God, an angel of the Lord struck him down, and he was eaten by worms and died.

65. Great Architect Slide 25 please
This kind of pain would bring on severe paranoia to a leader of that time. A king could not appear weak, if he did, he’d be overthrown and killed. So because of this paranoia he built many fortresses.

66. Great Architect
Slide 26 please
He built Masada!

67. Great Architect Slide 27 please
After the destruction of the Temple in 70AD many of the Jews fled to Masada to hide out. It took the Romans 3 more years to get into that fortress. You can see on this slide the ramp that the romans built to get into massada

68. Great Architect
Slide 28 please
Herod also built Caesarea!

69. Great Architect Slide 29 please Herod built Herodium down by Hebron.
This is a good example of a “tell”

70. Great Architect Slide 30 please
He built many amphitheaters and hippodromes.

71. King Herod Not a Jew Not a baby killer (theory)
Now I know some try to accuse me here of challenging the wor of G-d and taking away from the bible and they quote Rev 22:19
Let’s look at that passage though

72. (Rev 22:19) And2532 if1437 any man5100 shall take away851 from575 the3588 words3056 of the book976 of this5026 prophecy,4394 God2316 shall take away851 his846 part3313 out of575 the book976 of life,2222 and2532 out of1537 the3588 holy40 city,4172 and2532 from the things which are written1125 in1722 this5129 book.975

73. First of all I’m not challenging the word of G-d I’m challenging the greek translation of the word of G-d.
Theirs a big difference between challend=ging the bible and a translation of the bible
Second of all this scripture in revelation doesn’t apply, it didn’t say take away the words of the Bible, it said this book, what book is that? It’;s the book of revelation. It’s not the whole new testament, There was no new tetstament then then., so let’s wise up.

74. Passionate man
Good friend
Good friend to Israel
Great architect

75. Sources Nicholas Of Damascus
Greek historian and philosopher whose works included a universal history from the time of the Assyrian empire to his own days.
Nicholas an intimate friend of Herod the Great,
instructed Herod in rhetoric and philosophy. Wrote, “A Life Of Herod” .

76. Sources Mestrius Plutarchus
better known in English as Plutarch, was a Greek historian, biographer, and essayist. Plutarch was born to a prominent family in a town about twenty miles east of Delphi.

77. Sources
Josephus (37 – sometime after 100 AD), who became known, in his capacity as a Roman citizen, as Titus Flavius Josephus, was a 1st-century Jewish historian and apologist of priestly and royal ancestry who survived and recorded the Destruction of Jerusalem in 70AD. His works give an important insight into first-century Judaism.