Relief depicting Herod Antipas. Wikimedia Commons. Public Domain
3. Civic Unrest did break out, and Herod’s kingdom split.
Herod’s death may have passed without mourning or celebration. However, civic unrest erupted. During Herod’s final days, encouraged by the king’s imminent demise, a group of students removed the golden eagles Herod had set at the entrance of the Temple of Jerusalem, claiming they were false idols. Two popular teachers, Judas and Matthias, had incited the students. Once captured, students and teachers were all burned alive. Once Herod was dead, Augustus enforced his will and divided his territories between his three surviving sons. Herod Antipas inherited Galilee and the east bank of the Jordan, Philip became the ruler of the Golan Heights, and Archelaus became ruler of Samaria and Judaea.
2. Herod was buried in Herodium. His tomb was rediscovered in 2007… but not his body.
Josephus described how Herod’s body was carried by “two hundred furlongs’ from Jerusalem to Herodium. Here, the deceased King had given orders for his tomb to be built next to a pool called the Serpent’s Pool. The builders appropriated private gardens and land which they leveled, and the tomb was constructed halfway up a hill. In 2007, archaeologists used Josephus’s description to pinpoint the exact location of the tomb. They excavated and found that Herod’s sarcophagus, although broken, remained inside. However, there was no sign of Herod’s body.
Methuselah Date Palm at Kibbutz Ketura, Israel.Picture Credit: DASonnenfeld. Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license. wikimedia Commons
1. Herod’s palace at Masada, however, contains a positive relic.
In 1963, archaeologists excavated Herod’s palace at Masada. They discovered a cache of seeds on the site that proved to belong to a species of Judean date palm experts had believed to be extinct for nearly a thousand years. In 2005, one of the seeds was planted and germinated and the resulting plant was named Methuselah because of its great age. However, the plant was male and so unable to produce fruit. It looked like Methuselah was finally doomed to die out until in 2015 more seeds were planted. These germinated into female plants, meaning Methuselah’s future is assured. Herod’s historical reputation may have been one of carnage and death. However, at least this part of his legacy is one of life.
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