Herod the Great was a king of Judea at the end of the first century BCE. He is most famous today as the king who persecuted Jesus as an infant, attempting to have him killed. The date of the death of Herod the Great is a cause of considerable debate, and it is enormously important for the date of the birth of Jesus himself. What does the evidence show?
Who Was Herod the Great, the persecutor of Jesus?
First, let us see who Herod the Great was. He was one of the Edomites, a nation that had been neighbors of the Israelites and had long been their enemies.
Towards the end of the first century BCE, Herod had been placed on the throne of the kingdom of Judea. Thus, he ruled over the people who had historically been enemies of his own nation.
Herod is known from a variety of historical records. For example, he is mentioned by the Jewish historian Josephus. However, he is most famous for his contribution to the story of the Nativity.
Herod’s death and the birth of Jesus
According to the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, Jesus was born during his reign. He was severely jealous over the possibility of a new king rising up and replacing him or his dynasty. Thus he ordered the execution of all the boys up to two years old in Bethlehem, where Jesus was born.
Jesus managed to escape because his family fled to Egypt. After staying there for a short while, they received news that Herod the Great had died.
This information is very useful for establishing roughly when Jesus was born. It reveals that he was born while Herod was still alive, but fairly shortly before his death. Therefore, establishing when Herod died is of major importance to those who wish to establish the dates of Jesus.
Josephus on the death of Herod the Great
The primary source of information about the death of Herod the Great outside of the Bible is Josephus, a Jewish historian of the late first century CE. He provides us with much useful information about this king of Judea.
One of the most direct statements that he makes about this matter is the statement that Herod was about 70 years old when he died. Josephus also tells us that Herod was 25 (corrected from an impossible “15”) years old when he was appointed governor of Galilee. That was in 47 BCE.
Counting forwards to get to the year in which Herod was 70 years old would bring us to 2 or 1 BCE for his death.
Not all of Josephus’ information is internally consistent. However, it is notable that he says that Herod became the king of Judea 27 years after that city was captured by Pompey. That latter event occurred in 63 BCE. That would indicate that Herod became king of Judea in 36 BCE.
Since Josephus tells us that Herod died 34 years after becoming king of Judea, that would likewise place his death in 2 BCE. If Josephus started counting Herod’s reign from his first regnal year rather than his accession year, that would place his death a year later, in 1 BCE.
When Herod the Great died according to lunar eclipses
However, the aforementioned evidence is based largely on figures that could be rounded up or down. Significantly, Josephus explains that Herod died some time after a lunar eclipse but before Passover. Passover was always in spring, generally March or April.
In the years surrounding 2 BCE, there are only a few options for this lunar eclipse. The most popular option is a lunar eclipse of March 13 in 4 BCE. This occurred before the Passover of that year.
This is broadly in line with when Josephus places Herod’s death based on his age and length of rule at death. Furthermore, there is evidence that Herod’s sons Philip, Antipas, and Archelaus counted the start of their respective reigns as being in 4 BCE. This would appear to strongly support the date of 4 BCE for Herod’s death.
Evidence for a later date for Herod the Great’s death
However, there is other evidence that points to a different conclusion. The lunar eclipse of March 4 BCE was only a partial eclipse, well under 50% in magnitude. It also occurred in the early morning, so some scholars have argued that it would not have been very noticeable.
On the other hand, there was a lunar eclipse on January 10 in 1 BCE. This was total, not partial, and it occurred late at night, so it would have been very noticeable to anyone observing.
There are a number of reasons to prefer this later eclipse as the one that occurred shortly before Herod’s death. For one thing, it is clearly much closer to Josephus’ statements regarding how old Herod was and how long he had reigned before dying than the eclipse of 4 BCE is.
Furthermore, Josephus records various events between this eclipse and the Passover that followed Herod’s death. Some scholars have argued that it would be virtually impossible to fit all of those events into the brief window between March 13 and the Passover of 4 BCE. On the other hand, the eclipse of January 10 in 1 BCE allows for plenty of time before Passover.
How this fits the evidence regarding Herod’s sons
The main obstacle to this conclusion is that there is good evidence that Herod’s sons dated the start of their reigns to 4 BCE. For example, the end of Archelaus’ reign came in 6 CE, and he was recorded as reigning for nine years. Does this necessarily mean Herod must have died in that year?
In reality, when we read Josephus’ information carefully, we find evidence that Herod had already designated his heirs de facto kings. One of Herod’s sons, Antipater, ended up being executed during his father’s lifetime on the grounds of conspiring to kill him. Part of Antipater’s defense, quoted by Josephus, was the following:
“And indeed what was there that could possibly provoke me against thee? Could the hope of being king do it? I was a king already.”
According to this, it was not merely that Antipater was the assured heir of the kingdom. If that were the case, then he might indeed have wanted to hasten his father’s death. Rather, he was already considered to have been a king.
Therefore, it is entirely possible that Archelaus, Philip, and Antipas already had a type of kingship several years before their father’s death. This would explain why they were able to date their reigns from 4 BCE, while their father Herod the Great did not die until 1 BCE.
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