Real Life Biblical Kings and Other Historic Bible Facts and Figures

22. Crazy in Love – Literally

Herod was born to an Edomite father, from a people forcibly converted to Judaism only a generation or two earlier. Nonetheless, he was raised as a nominal Jew and married into the ruling Jewish Hasmonean Dynasty, wedding Princess Mariamne, one of the last Hasmonean heirs. He then killed her relatives to remove rivals for Judea’s throne, and got the Romans to make him king of the Jews. Unsurprisingly, Mariamne resented how her husband had treated her relatives. Letting her resentment show did not turn out well for Mariamne. It also did not turn out well for two of her sons with Herod, Alexander and Aristobolus, who resented their father’s treatment of their mother.

21. A Toxic Family

Mariamne was gorgeous, and Herod was crazy about her – but not in a good way. Herod was passionately in love with Mariamne. He was also crazy jealous. While Herod loved Mariamne, she did not feel the same. It was probably understandable, since Herod had killed her brother and uncle. Also, Herod’s father had killed Mariamne’s father, then embalmed him in a tub of honey. Nonetheless, Herod had five children with her – two girls and three boys. Herod might have been crazy in love with Mariamne, but considering how many of her relatives Herod had murdered, loving him back was difficult. Eventually, after she gave birth to their fifth child, Mariamne stopped sleeping with him. That fueled his suspicions that she was cheating on him. Herod’s mother and sister fanned those suspicions, and added to them accusations that Mariamne planned to poison him.

20. A Clingy King

Herod eventually ordered Mariamne executed in 29 BC. That was bad enough, but things soon went from bad to grotesque. Although he had ordered her execution, Herod exhibited intense grief for Mariamne’s death. He often broke into uncontrollable fits of sobbing, went into a deep depression, and was unable to let her go. That is, he was literally unable to let her go. As recounted in the Talmud, Herod had his dead wife’s body preserved in honey, and he continued to make love to the corpse for seven whole years. The Talmud described it as Herod “fulfilling his animalistic desires” with the cadaver. It wasn’t just icky, but also sticky: Herod had supposedly preserved Mariamne’s corpse with honey.

19. The King Who Executed His Sons

Herod’s children by Mariamne resented the fact that he had ordered their mother put to death, or that he had continued to get it on with her corpse. So they grew up with a fractious relationship with their father. Two in particular, Alexander and Aristobolus, did a poor job of hiding that resentment, and Herod suspected them of plotting against him to avenge their mother. So he imprisoned Alexander in 10 BC, and three years later, had him and his brother Aristobolus charged with treason. Both were convicted, and Herod ordered his sons strangled to death in 7 BC, giving rise to Augustus’ quip that it was better to be Herod’s pig than his son.

18. From One Baddie Bible Ruler to Another: The Pharaoh From the Moses Story

I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said—”Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away – Ozymandias, by Percy Bysshe Shelley

Pharaoh Ramses II (circa 1303 – 1213 BC), or Ramses the Great, a title he might have bestowed upon himself, was the powerful Egyptian monarch whom the Greeks named Ozymandias. Often identified as the pharaoh who clashed with Moses in the Exodus story, this Ramses was the greatest, most powerful, and most celebrated ruler of the New Kingdom, ancient Egypt’s most powerful period.

17. A Warrior Pharaoh

A warrior through and through, Ramses II battled sea pirates, fought numerous campaigns in the Levant, and led several military expeditions into Nubia. He fought earliest battle in recorded history for which details such as tactics and formations are known, the Battle of Kadesh, 1274 BC. Six thousand chariots took part, which also made it the biggest chariot clash in history. It occurred against a backdrop of a generations-long rivalry between Egypt and the Hittite Empire of Anatolia, as they jockeyed to control the lands of Canaan between them. Early in his reign, which lasted from 1279 to 1213 BC, Ramses decided to finish off the protracted war once and for all. Over a period of years, he patiently assembled a powerful army, and built up supply depots.

16. Marching to Battle Through Biblical Canaan

When all was ready, Ramses marched north from Egypt into Canaan with four divisions. First was the Amon Division, led by the pharaoh in person. It was followed by the divisions of Re, Ptah, and Sutekh. To meet him, Hittite King Muwatalli II marched south from Anatolia into Canaan, with 3000 heavy chariots and 8000 infantry. In late spring, 1274 BC, Ramses emerged from the hills above the city of Kadesh on the Orontes River, near today’s Syria-Lebanon border. Throughout, he had not spotted the enemy, but they were far closer than he knew. The Hittites were hidden behind Kadesh when Ramses II reached the city. However, nomads falsely informed the pharaoh that his enemies were nowhere near. Emboldened, Ramses hurried with the Amon Division to Kadesh, and left the rest of his army behind to catch up.

15. A Surrounded Pharaoh

As Ramses advanced, the Hittites circled around Kadesh, staying concealed from the Egyptians by constantly keeping the city in between. While Ramses and the Division of Amon made camp, the Division of Re straggled up the road behind. That was when 2000 massed Hittite chariots charged directly across the Egyptian line of march. They wrecked the Division of Re, then surrounded Ramses in his camp. The pharaoh gathered his personal guards, and led a desperate charge that drove some Hittite leaders into the Orontes River. Fortunately for Ramses, the Hittites behind him abandoned their chariots to loot the Egyptian camp. That was when the Division of Sutekh arrived in the nick of time, and slaughtered the looters.

14. How a Massive Propaganda Campaign Preserved the Memory of Mosses’ Pharaoh

The last Egyptian Division of Ptah arrived just as King Muwatalli sent in the rest of the Hittite chariots, and the battle lasted until sunset. After prolonged slaughter, the Hittites finally withdrew into Kadesh, and left the field – and technically the victory – to Ramses. When he returned to Egypt, the warrior pharaoh littered his kingdom with monuments and murals that detailed the engagement – or at least his version of the engagement. In them, he described himself as “Ramses, the Great, Conqueror of the Hittites” – which is how we know so much about the battle.

13. The Rebellious Maccabeus Family

Elazar Maccabeus (died 162 BC) was the younger brother of Judas Maccabeus, leader of the 167 – 160 BC Maccabean Revolt against the Seleucid Empire. He is best known for a brave but ultimately misguided battlefield exploit that got him killed. The revolt in which Elazar fought was caused by decrees from the Seleucid King Antiochus IV that banned Jewish religious practices and ordered the worship of Zeus instead. The father of Elazar and Judas sparked the rebellion by killing a Hellenized Jew who sacrificed to Greek idols. He then fled into the wilderness with his five sons and began a guerrilla war. After his death, his son Judah took over the revolt, and in 164 BC, he successfully entered Jerusalem and restored Jewish worship in its temple – an event commemorated in the feast of Chanukah.

12. Standing Up to the Seleucids

Elazar’s death occurred at the Battle of Beth Zechariah in 162 BC, two years after his older brother Judas Maccabeus had defeated Judea’s Seleucid overlords and entered Jerusalem. The city’s liberation was incomplete, however, because a Seleucid garrison still controlled a fortress inside Jerusalem, in front of the Temple Mount. Judas Maccabeus besieged the garrison, but a Seleucid army of 50,000 men, accompanied by 30 war elephants, marched to its relief. So Judas lifted the siege, and marched out at the head of 20,000 men to intercept the enemy. In a misguided bit of bravado, he ditched the guerrilla tactics that had won him victories and served him well so far. Instead, Judas formed his men to meet the Seleucids in formal battle. It was a mistake.

11. An Odd Ending

The Jewish forces proved no match for their enemy’s heavy infantry phalanx, professional cavalry, and armored war elephants. The Seleucid elephants especially unnerved the defenders, who began to panic and break in fear of the pachyderms. Elazar Maccabeus sought to encourage his comrades with a demonstration of the elephants’ vulnerability. So he charged at the biggest elephant he could find, got beneath it, and thrust his spear into its unarmored belly. That killed the pachyderm, but Elazar did not get to savor his success for long. The dying elephant collapsed on top of Elazar, and crushed him to death. His comrades did not rush in to emulate him, and the courageous demonstration did not suffice to keep the Jewish army from breaking soon thereafter.

10. When John the Baptist Ticked Off a Queen and Princess

Nowadays, when people think of famous historic dances, what comes to mind might be modern era performances like Fred and Ginger, Michael Jackson’s Moonwalk, or the final scene from Dirty Dancing. In earlier centuries, however, the most famous dance that sprang to mind was one recounted in, of all places, the Bible: the Dance of the Seven Veils. It was a deadly dance that cost John the Baptist his life. Per the New Testament, this John anticipated the arrival of a messiah, and baptized Jesus. He had followers, and some of Christ’s disciples started off as John’s disciples. He came to a bloody end after he criticized Herod Antipas because he divorced his wife then unlawfully wed Herodias, his brother’s spouse. John pretty much called Herodias a whore. That, understandably, upset both her and her daughter, Salome.

9. A Deadly Biblical Dance

Herodias and Salome wanted John the Baptist’s head, but Herod declined. So Salome seduced her stepfather with a dance at his birthday party. Sources do not reveal the dance’s details, but she performed it so well, that Herod was enchanted. He offered to reward her spectacular performance with anything she wanted, up to half his kingdom. Salome wanted the head of John the Baptist. Trapped by his promise, a reluctant Herod had John beheaded. It is a fascinating tale that titillated Bible readers for centuries, as they imagined just what kind of dance Salome performed for Herod. Recently, as seen below, a new twist was added to the story: an archaeological find of the dance floor upon which Salome enchanted her stepdad.

8. Finding Fort Machaeurs

Herod Antipas was a son of Herod the Great – the baddie king, above, to whom the New Testament ascribes the Massacre of the Innocents when Jesus was born. Herod Antipas had the good fortune to not be executed by his father, and inherited part of the kingdom, over which he reigned as a client king of the Roman Empire. He ruled from atop a hilltop desert frontier fortress, Machaerus. It was reportedly there, in 29 AD, that Salome performed the Dance of the Seven Veils and John the Baptist was executed. Nearly two thousand years later, a Hungarian archaeological team announced a dramatic discovery: they had found the pavilion and courtyard where Salome danced for Herod.

7. The Site of the Dance of the Seven Veils

The location of Salome’s dance is not recounted in the Bible and ancient accounts. However, Machaerus was the only royal citadel and palace that Herod Antipas inherited from his father, so it would have been the logical place for his birthday bash. The Hungarian archaeological dig’s director, Gyozo Voros, announced the discovery beside a courtyard at Machaerus of a semi-circular niche that would have housed a throne. There is evidence that stairs led to an elevated platform by that niche. Herod Antipas would probably have sat there as he watched Salome dance for him.

6. The Fall of Jericho’s Walls and the Sodom and Gomorrah Accounts

In the Old Testament, Joshua and the Israelites besieged the walled city of Jericho, marched around it while blowing horns, and the walls came tumbling down. Elsewhere in the Old Testament, Sodom and Gomorrah are cautionary examples of divine destruction as punishment. Both tales might have a common origin in a real life ancient natural disaster. In the Book of Genesis, God informs Abraham that Sodom and the nearby city of Gomorrah are to be destroyed for their wickedness. Abraham pleads for the lives of righteous inhabitants, especially his nephew Lot and his family. The Lord agrees to spare the cities if fifty good people could be found in them – a figure that Abraham bargains down to ten. Two angels disguised as men are sent to Lot in Sodom, only for a depraved mob to demand that he hand over his guests so they could slake their lusts upon them.

5. The Old Testament Destruction Account

The horny mob turns a deaf tear to Lot’s entreaties, so the angels blind the crowd, tell their host to immediately flee the city with his family, and not look back. As God rains down fiery destruction upon Sodom, Lot’s family escapes and is spared the heavenly wrath. Except for Lot’s wife, who looks back and is immediately turned into a pillar of salt. All in all, a great story packed with action and drama – but is there is any basis for it in ancient historic facts? As seen below, there just might be. Not the bits about angels or wives getting turned into pillars of salt, but the part about a city getting destroyed from the heavens.

4. The Real Life Catastrophe Behind the Biblical Story?

One day, circa 1650 BC, the inhabitants of a Bronze Age city a few miles northeast of the Dead Sea went about their daily business, blissfully unaware of their impending doom. Unbeknownst to the residents of what is now known as Tall al-Hammam, an archaeological site in Jordan, an unseen icy space rock was speeding their way at 38,000 miles per hour. As it ripped through the atmosphere, the small asteroid left a fiery trail in its wake, before it burst about two and a half miles above the ancient city. The explosion was about 1000 times more powerful than the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. Those unfortunates whose eyes had been focused on the plunging space rock when it blew up were instantly blinded. In a minor mercy, they did not have long to contemplate their loss of sight.

3. Did the Destruction of Tall al-Hammam Give Rise to Two Biblical Stories?

Tall al-Hammam was instantly transformed into an inferno. Wood and clothes burst into flames, while pottery, bricks, swords, spears, and metal melted as air temperatures spiked about 3600 degrees Fahrenheit. A few moments later, the shockwave arrived. Winds whose speed exceeded 740 mph tore through the city and destroyed all in their path, sheared the top of the ruler’s four-story palace, and blew the wreckage into the next valley over. All in the city, an estimated 8000 people, and every animal, perished, mangled, ripped apart, broken, and burnt to ashes. The shockwave continued on, and a minute later, slammed into biblical Jericho about fourteen miles west of Tall al-Hammam, and brought down its walls. That could have been the inspiration between the Old Testament account of the blast that brought down Jericho’s walls. Scholars also believe that this ancient catastrophe gave rise to the biblical narrative about Sodom and Gomorrah.

2. Support for a Biblical Disaster Tale

Archaeologists oversaw excavations by hundreds of people at Tall al-Hammam. Their findings were examined by dozens of scientists in the US, Canada, and the Czech Republic. One thing that jumped out was a five-foot-thick layer from around 1650 BC, comprised of charcoal and ash, intermingled with melted metal, melted pottery, and melted bricks. There was also shocked quartz, generated at pressures of 725,000 psi or more, and diamonids, wood and plant particles turned tough as diamonds under great heat and pressure. It was evidence of an intense firestorm, but not one caused by ancient warfare, an earthquake, or volcano: they don’t generate enough heat to melt metal, pottery, or bricks. The only known culprits that could inflict such damage are nuclear blasts, and asteroid airbursts. Nuclear weapons were unknown 3650 years ago, so that narrowed it down.

1. The Real Life Sodom and Gomorrah

Tall el-Hammam and its surrounding region for miles around were abandoned for centuries after the catastrophe. The explosion vaporized and deposited so much Dead Sea salt water in the area, that it became impossible to grow crops. It took about six centuries for rainfall to wash out enough salt for the soil to recover to levels adequate for productive habitation. Tales of the ancient city’s destruction would have been handed down over the generations, and a version probably made it into the Old Testament as the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. Similarities about cities near the Dead Sea destroyed by fire and rocks from the sky make it plausible – even likely – that the biblical narrative can be traced to the air burst that demolished Tell el-Hammam.

_________________

Where Did We Find This Stuff? Some Sources and Further Reading

Catholic Answers – It Is Better to Be Herod’s Pig Than Son

Coniglio, Alessandro, et al. – Holy Land Archaeology on Either Side (2020)

Daily Beast – Have Archaeologists Found History’s Deadliest Dance Floor?

Daily Beast – The Giant Space Rock That Wiped Out Biblical Sodom

Encyclopedia Britannica – Mariamne, Wife of Herod

Encyclopedia Britannica – Sodom and Gomorrah

Gonick, Larry – The Cartoon History of the Universe: Volumes 1 – 7, From the Big Bang to Alexander the Great (1990)

History Collection – Decadent and Depraved Roman Emperors Who Shocked Their Subjects

Jewish Encyclopedia – Eleazar

Jewish Encyclopedia – Mariamne

Kitchen, Kenneth – Pharaoh Triumphant: The Life and Times of Ramesses II, King of Egypt (1983)

Perowne, Stewart – The Life and Times of Herod the Great (1959)

Scientific Reports, 11, Article Number: 18632 (2021) – A Tunguska Sized Airburst Destroyed Tall el-Hammam, a Middle Bronze Age City in the Jordan Valley Near the Dead Sea

Scullard, Howard Hayes – The Elephant in the Greek and Roman World (1974)