The Many Faces Of Herod The Great

Author : Adam Kolman Marshak
Publisher : Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
ISBN 13 : 0802866050
Total Pages : 432 pages
Book Rating : 4.59/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Many Faces of Herod the Great written by Adam Kolman Marshak and published by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. This book was released on 2015-04-22 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An old, bloodthirsty tyrant hears from a group of Magi about the birth of the Messiah, king of the Jews. He vengefully sends his soldiers to Bethlehem with orders to kill all of the baby boys in the town in order to preserve his own throne. For most of the Western world, this is Herod the Great -- an icon of cruelty and evil, the epitome of a tyrant. Adam Kolman Marshak portrays Herod the Great quite differently, however, carefully drawing on historical, archaeological, and literary sources. Marshak shows how Herod successfully ruled over his turbulent kingdom by skillfully interacting with his various audiences -- Roman, Hellenistic, and Judaean -- in myriad ways. Herod was indeed a master in political self-presentation. Marshak's fascinating account chronicles how Herod moved from the bankrupt usurper he was at the beginning of his reign to a wealthy and powerful king who founded a dynasty and brought ancient Judaea to its greatest prominence and prosperity.

Author : Norman Gelb
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
ISBN 13 : 1442210672
Total Pages : 229 pages
Book Rating : 4.77/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Herod the Great written by Norman Gelb and published by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. This book was released on 2013-02-21 with total page 229 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Herod the Great, king of ancient Judea, was a brutal, ruthless, vindictive and dangerously high-strung tyrant. He had many of his subjects killed on suspicion of plotting against him and was accused of slaughtering children in Bethlehem when informed that a new king of the Jews had been born there. Among the victims of the murderous paranoia that ultimately drove him to the brink of insanity were his three oldest sons and the wife he loved most. But there was a crucial aspect to Herod’s character that has been largely ignored over the centuries. Norman Gelb explores how Herod transformed his formerly strive-ridden kingdom into a modernizing, economically thriving, orderly state of international significance and repute within the sprawling Roman Empire. This reassessment of Herod as ruler of Judaea introduces a striking contrast between a ruler’s infamy and his extraordinary laudable achievements. As this account shows, despite his horrific failings and ultimate mental unbalance, Herod was a fascinatingly complex, dynamic, and largely constructive statesman, a figure of great public accomplishment and one of the most underrated personalities of ancient times. History buffs and those interested in popular ancient history can are introduced to this ruthless tyrant and his victims.

Author : Michael Grant
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 280 pages
Book Rating : 4.82/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Herod the Great written by Michael Grant and published by . This book was released on 1971 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Herod of popular tradition is the tyrannical King of Judaea who ordered the Massacre of the Innocents and died a terrible death in 4 BC as the judgment of God. But this biography paints a much more complex picture of this contemporary of Mark Antony, Cleopatra, and the Emperor Augustus. Herod devoted his life to the task of keeping the Jews prosperous and racially intact. To judge by the two disastrous Jewish rebellions that occurred within a hundred and fifty years of his death -- those the Jews called the First and Second Roman Wars -- he was not, in the long run, completely successful. For forty years Herod walked the most precarious of political tightropes. For he had to be enough of a Jew to retain control of his Jewish subjects, and enough of a pro-Roman to preserve the confidence of Rome, within whose territory his kingdom fell. For more than a quarter of a century he was one of the chief bulwarks of Augustus' empire in the east. He made Judaea a large and prosperous country. He founded cities and built public works on a scale never seen before: of these, recently excavated Masada is a spectacular example. And he did all this in spite of a continuous undercurrent of protest and underground resistance. The numerous illustrations presents portraits and coins, buildings and articles of everyday use, landscapes and fortresses, and subsequent generations' interpretations of the more famous events, actual and mythical, of Herod's career.

Author : Martin Goodman
Publisher : Yale University Press
ISBN 13 : 0300277288
Total Pages : 247 pages
Book Rating : 4.89/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Herod the Great written by Martin Goodman and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2024-03-12 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A vivid account of the political triumphs and domestic tragedies of the Jewish king Herod the Great during the turmoil of the Roman revolution Herod the Great (73–4 BCE) was a phenomenally energetic ruler who took advantage of the chaos of the Roman revolution to establish himself as a major figure in a changing Roman world and transform the landscape of Judaea. Both Jews and Christians developed myths about his cruelty and rashness: in Christian tradition he was cast as the tyrant who ordered the Massacre of the Innocents; in the Talmud, despite fond memories of his glorious Temple in Jerusalem, he was recalled as a persecutor of rabbis. The life of Herod is better documented than that of any other Jew from antiquity, and Martin Goodman examines the extensive literary and archaeological evidence to provide a vivid portrait of Herod in his sociopolitical context: his Idumaean origins, his installation by Rome as king of Judaea and cultivation of leading Romans, his massive architectural projects, and his presentation of himself as a Jew, most strikingly through the rebuilding of the Jerusalem Temple. Goodman argues that later stories depicting Herod as a monster derived from public interest in his execution of three of his sons after dramatic public trials foisted on him by a dynastic policy imposed by the Roman emperor.

Author : David A. Peters
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN 13 : 0761839585
Total Pages : 446 pages
Book Rating : 4.83/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Many Faces of Biblical Humor written by David A. Peters and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2007-11 with total page 446 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Many Faces of Biblical Humor examines how the Bible writers intentionally used humor, irony, and sarcasm to argue their points concisely. This work begins with the dysfunctional families of Genesis, continues delightfully through every book of the Bible, and ends with a glorious fulfillment in Revelation. Along the way, the reader is presented humorous stories, pathetically funny characters, and poignant quips and quotes from prophets, poets, and principals. The author paraphrases each biblical text in an engaging prose that highlights the humor of that passage--humor that may not have been previously noted by the reader. Between the paraphrases, the author sets the historical and linguistic setting, allowing the reader to see how the humor (and puns) of the text enrich the biblical understanding of God's message. Also included are applications of these marvelous passages to our daily lives as we see our own foibles portrayed in the biblical characters. In many ways, this is a Bible commentary with an accent on the humorous. In another sense, it is simply a delightful book that makes the Bible come alive through the latent humor of its characters and their stories. This revised edition contains corrections of typographical errors in the first edition as well as some clarifying material to make the humor more enjoyable. For more information, visit the author's website.

Author : Bruce Chilton
Publisher : Fortress Press
ISBN 13 : 1506474292
Total Pages : 384 pages
Book Rating : 4.98/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Herods written by Bruce Chilton and published by Fortress Press. This book was released on 2021-08-03 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Until his death in 4 BCE, Herod the Great's monarchy included territories that once made up the kingdoms of Judah and Israel. Although he ruled over a rich, strategically crucial land, his royal title did not derive from heredity. His family came from the people of Idumea, ancient antagonists of the Israelites. Yet Herod did not rule as an outsider, but from a family committed to Judaism going back to his grandfather and father. They had served the priestly dynasty of the Maccabees that had subjected Idumea to their rule, including the Maccabean version of what loyalty to the Torah required. Herod's father, Antipater, rose not only to manage affairs on behalf of his priestly masters, but to become a pivotal military leader. He inaugurated a new alignment of power: an alliance with Rome negotiated with Pompey and Julius Caesar. In the crucible of civil war among Romans as the Triumvirate broke up, and of war between Rome and Parthia, Antipater managed to leave his sons with the prospect of a dynasty. Herod inherited the twin pillars of loyalty to Judaism and loyalty to Rome that became the basis of Herodian rule. He elevated Antipater's opportunism to a political art. During Herod's time, Roman power took its imperial form, and Octavian was responsible for making Herod king of Judea. As Octavian ruled, he took the title Augustus, in keeping with his devotion to his adoptive father's cult of "the divine Julius." Imperial power was a theocratic assertion as well as a dominant military, economic, and political force. Herod framed a version of theocratic ambition all his own, deliberately crafting a dynastic claim grounded in Roman might and Israelite theocracy. That unlikely hybrid was the key to the Herodians' surprising longevity in power during the most chaotic century in the political history of Judaism.

Author : John Van Maaren
Publisher : Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN 13 : 3110787482
Total Pages : 417 pages
Book Rating : 4.81/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Boundaries of Jewishness in the Southern Levant 200 BCE–132 CE written by John Van Maaren and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2022-06-06 with total page 417 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Recent research has considered how changing imperial contexts influence conceptions of Jewishness among ruling elites (esp. Eckhardt, Ethnos und Herrschaft, 2013). This study integrates other, often marginal, conceptions with elite perspectives. It uses the ethnic boundary making model, an empirically based sociological model, to link macro-level characteristics of the social field with individual agency in ethnic construction. It uses a wide range of written sources as evidence for constructions of Jewishness and relates these to a local-specific understanding of demographic and institutional characteristics, informed by material culture. The result is a diachronic study of how institutional changes under Seleucid, Hasmonean, and Early Roman rule influenced the ways that members of the ruling elite, retainer class, and marginalized groups presented their preferred visions of Jewishness. These sometimes-competing visions advance different strategies to maintain, rework, or blur the boundaries between Jews and others. The study provides the next step toward a thick description of Jewishness in antiquity by introducing needed systematization for relating written sources from different social strata with their contexts.

Author : Kevin W. Kaatz
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN 13 : 1610698088
Total Pages : 245 pages
Book Rating : 4.85/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Rise of Christianity written by Kevin W. Kaatz and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2015-12-07 with total page 245 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An outstanding resource for high school readers and first-year college students, this book explores early Christianity from its beginnings in the first century through the fourth century when Christianity went from a persecuted faith to the only legalized faith in the Roman Empire. How did Christianity become one of the most widespread religions as well as one of the most influential forces in world history that has shaped politics, wars, literature, art, and music on every continent? This book contains more than 40 entries on various topics in early Christianity, 15 primary documents, and 6 argumentative essays written by scholars in the field. The breadth of materials enables readers to learn about early Christianity from a number of different viewpoints and to come to their own conclusions about how historical events unfolded in early Christianity. This single-volume work focuses on the first four centuries of early Christianity, including topics on Jerusalem, Herod the Great, Paul, Tertullian, Mani, The Arians, Constantine the Great, and many others. Readers will be well equipped to answer three critical questions that scholars of early Christianity deal with when they study this period: Why was Christianity popular? Why were Christians persecuted? How did Christianity spread?

Author : Kendra A. Mohn
Publisher : Lexington Books
ISBN 13 : 1978709498
Total Pages : 245 pages
Book Rating : 4.92/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Masculinities in the Gospel of Matthew written by Kendra A. Mohn and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2024-02-15 with total page 245 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Kendra A. Mohn traces how the constructions of nonelite men in the Gospel of Matthew negotiate expectations of elite Roman masculinity. Highlighting wealth, divine service, and dominating control, Mohn shows how the depictions of Joseph, John, Peter, and Judas shape expectations of men in terms of discipleship, power, and leadership.

Author : Tyler Smith
Publisher : BRILL
ISBN 13 : 9004396047
Total Pages : 317 pages
Book Rating : 4.43/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Fourth Gospel and the Manufacture of Minds in Ancient Historiography, Biography, Romance, and Drama written by Tyler Smith and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2019-03-27 with total page 317 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Fourth Gospel and the Manufacture of Minds, Tyler Smith offers an account of how conventions for representing minds in ancient historiography, biography, romance, and drama illuminate the cognitive dimension of the Fourth Gospel.