The Execution of John the Baptist

Herod Antipas, who ruled Galilee and Perea, had long been married to a daughter of Aretas, king of the Nabataean Arabs. Josephus relates that on a journey to Rome he stayed with a half-brother, fell in love with that brother’s wife, Herodias, and agreed to marry her and send his own wife away. The Nabataean princess learned of the plan and escaped to her father by way of the border fortress of Machaerus (Josephus, Antiquities 18.109–112). Herodias was herself a granddaughter of Herod the Great (Josephus, Antiquities 18.109–112), and Josephus says that in leaving a living husband for his brother she defied the ancestral laws (Josephus, Antiquities 18.136–137).

The Gospels say that John the Baptist told the tetrarch, “It is not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife”, and that Antipas put him in prison because of Herodias (Mark 6:17–18) (Luke 3:19–20). The law of Moses forbade a man to take his brother’s wife (Leviticus 18:16; 20:21).

Mark tells the end at length. Herodias wanted John dead, but Antipas feared him, knowing him to be “a righteous and holy man”, and kept him safe. At a banquet on the tetrarch’s birthday for his courtiers, officers and the leading men of Galilee, the daughter of Herodias danced, and Antipas swore to give her whatever she asked. Prompted by her mother she asked for the head of John the Baptist on a platter. The tetrarch was distressed but would not break his oath before his guests. A guard beheaded John in the prison, and his disciples came and buried the body (Mark 6:19–29). Matthew tells the same story more briefly and says that Antipas had wanted to kill John but feared the people (Matthew 14:3–12). Neither Gospel names the place. Matthew does not name the girl (Matthew 14:6). In Mark the manuscripts differ: the translation quoted here reads “the daughter of Herodias herself”, while the linked translation follows manuscripts in which the girl is herself named Herodias and is called the tetrarch’s daughter (Mark 6:22).

Josephus names the place and gives a different motive. He also names a daughter of Herodias by her first marriage, Salome, without connecting her with John’s death (Josephus, Antiquities 18.136–137). Antipas, he says, feared that John’s hold over the crowds might lead to a rising, thought it better to strike first, and sent him in chains to Machaerus, where he was put to death (Josephus, Antiquities 18.116–119). His account of John says nothing of the banquet or of John’s words about the marriage. He also calls the first husband of Herodias simply Herod, where Mark calls him Philip (Josephus, Antiquities 18.136–137) (Mark 6:17); the “Philip” printed in brackets in the linked translation was added by the translator.

When Antipas later heard of the works of Jesus, the Gospels report, he said that John, whom he had beheaded, had been raised from the dead (Mark 6:14–16). In Mark and Matthew, Jesus speaks of John as the Elijah who had already come and had been treated as his opponents pleased (Mark 9:11–13) (Matthew 17:10–13).