by
Damien F. Mackey
“Herod brought the "games" into the Jewish culture
as part of his attempt to Hellenize his kingdom”.
Ray Vander Laan
Doesn’t this statement read a little bit strangely, to say the least?
King Herod ‘the Great’, supposedly a half-Idumean and (perhaps) half-Jew, a presumed client of Imperial Rome, introducing into Jewish culture a pagan Hellenistic phenomenon in order to make Greek (“to hellenize”) a Jewish kingdom subject to the Romans.
According to Ray Vander Laan:
https://www.thattheworldmayknow.com/herods-arena
The remains of a great arena (or hippodrome-meaning "horse track") are emerging from the sand dunes of the Mediterranean shore.
The stone seats show the beginning of the curve of the southern end of the stadium.
The Mediterranean Sea has eaten away the other side of the arena. In several places, walls were built by later civilizations who no longer used the arena. Since no results have as yet been published of these excavations, it is not clear who built this arena. Herod built a stadium in Caesarea, but it may not have been this one. The magnitude and style of this arena, however, do reflect those he constructed at places like Jericho and Jerusalem.
Herod brought the "games" into the Jewish culture as part of his attempt to Hellenize his kingdom. The events included Olympic contests of running, wrestling, and throwing the javelin. Chariot races were quite popular, as were gladiatorial contests involving men and animals.
The games were often dedicated to pagan gods. The religious Jewish community found these arenas and their contests at odds with their belief in God, but the arenas were present in most large, Hellenistic cities. They certainly had an influence on the local population, religious or not. Paul's use of athletic imagery (1 Cor. 9:24-27; 1 Tim. 4:7) indicates his ability to communicate in the language and pictures that were familiar to his audience. As in our society, it would have been difficult to participate in activities like the games without accepting the pagan cultural values they encouraged. ….
[End of quote]
But isn’t this exactly what the Seleucid king, Antiochus ‘Epiphanes’, and his cronies, had done, “… brought the "games" into the Jewish culture as part of his attempt to Hellenize his kingdom”.
Or, more accurately, they had pressurised - and later forced - the Jews to conform to Greek practices (I Maccabees 1:14-15): “So they built a gymnasium in Jerusalem according to the customs of the nations, and made foreskins for themselves, and abandoned the holy covenant. They joined with the nations and sold themselves to do evil”.
So, doesn’t this bear out my radical view that King Herod ruled as King Antiochus’ right-hand man, Philip - Antiochus then being the same as the emperor Augustus, whilst Herod was the emperor Augustus’ virtual second self, Marcus Agrippa:
Herod, the emperor’s signet right-hand man
https://www.academia.edu/113954468/Herod_the_emperors_signet_right_hand_man
and with:
Rome surprisingly minimal in [the] Bible
(2) Rome surprisingly minimal in Bible | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu
Apropos of this connection, Herod as Marcus Agrippa, there is an intriguing article by Robert L. Hohlfelder, “Beyond Coincidence? Marcus Agrippa and King Herod's Harbor” (JNES, 59(4), 2000): The Roman harbour at Caesarea “commissioned by Herod the Great in 22 BCE and sponsored by Augustus' military commander Marcus Agrippa …”.
According to Todd Bolen (July 2010), Herod’s Games at Caesarea, in honour of Augustus, occurred about half a century before Agrippa’s games at Caesarea, in honour of Claudius: https://bibleinterp.arizona.edu/opeds/agrippa357926
Scholars identify this festival with either the quinquennial celebration of the city’s founding, on March 5, AD 44, or a celebration of Emperor Claudius’s birthday on August 1 of that same year. The former was originally organized by King Herod in 12 BC. …. It was styled after the Olympic Games, but called “Caesar’s Games” (Josephus, War 1.21.8 §415).
Do we need not only to re-write the life and career of King Herod, in his partnership with the emperor, as I have already begun to do, but, as well, to consider that Herod, as Marcus Agrippa, was the same person as Herod Agrippa, also involved with Games at Caesarea?
This composite Herod cannot, however, be the same person as the would-be divinised and later “Herod” of Acts 12:19-23, who, note, is never therein referred to as “Agrippa”.
Comments