December 9, 2025 • 30 mins
Herod the Great was often not-so-great, but the discovery and excavation of his tomb has revealed much we didn't previously know. World renowned archaeologist and professor Dr. Jodi Magness weighs in.
Dr. Magness' 2-part lecture
VIDEO of this conversation
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/thethinkingatheist--3270347/support.
Dr. Magness' 2-part lecture
VIDEO of this conversation
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/thethinkingatheist--3270347/support.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
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All day's conversation is between me and doctor Jody Magnus.
She is the real thing. She is one of the
world's leading archaeologist of ancient Judaism and early Christianity. Now
she's got a lecture coming up online December thirteenth, two
(01:14):
o'clock Eastern that talks about Herod, the Great King Herod,
who of course is a legitimate historical figure that has
been tied into Bible mythology. The course is called Herod
the Tyrant of Christmas. Well, I wanted to know more,
and so this conversation is with doctor Jody Magnus, a
link to the video version of this is in the
(01:36):
description box. I am honored today to speak to someone
who's done of a deep dive into a specific part
of the Nativity story that many people don't know all
that much about her, have assumed a lot about doctor Jody.
Magnus joins me today. Can I call you Jody wou?
(01:57):
That be all right?
Speaker 2 (01:58):
Yes? Please? Thank you?
Speaker 3 (01:59):
I go at doc, you know, or something like that.
But Jody, right, we're all friends here.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
At least you're not calling me ma'am, which is what
my students call me. We're in I'm in the South.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
I got to start with Matthew makes Herod a big deal, right,
Herod is out slaughtering the firstborn, trying to get to Jesus.
And then you got the Book of Luke that just
sort of leaves Herod out entirely. And I can't talk
about Herod without wondering, Wait a minute, how do you
as a scholar deal with this contradiction in the New Testament?
Speaker 2 (02:33):
Right? Well, that's really interesting. So let me just start
by saying that my field of specialization is archaeology rather
than New Testament. But obviously, as an archaeologist, I draw
on literary sources and information to help me understand better
the past, and so to that. In that regard, I
am familiar with the gospel accounts, but I am not
(02:55):
somebody who's a specialist in let's say, analyzing the gospel account,
you know, Matthew versus Luke. But I do actually find
it very interesting that we only have birth narratives of
Jesus in two of the four Gospels, right in Matthew
and in Luke. And I actually give this as an
exercise to my undergraduate students to look at those two
(03:16):
accounts and to compare them, because when you look at
them closely, you see that they're actually quite different from
each other and not necessarily overlapping in many ways. And
when we think about the way that we talk about
the Christmas story today and celebrate Christmas today, it's kind
of a mashup of what you have in Matthew and
(03:37):
in Luke. So you're absolutely right. The story the massacre
of the innocence, which is part of that birth narrative
in Matthew, occurs only in Matthew and not in Luke.
And that's one of those big differences between them.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
It's like the account of the birth of Christ. And afterwards,
you know where did Mary and Joseph return? Did they
flee to Egypt? Did they go to Bethlehem?
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Exactly right right?
Speaker 3 (04:02):
The account of Christ's open tomb? Who discovered it? Four
conflicting versions. I mean, it does get really sticky. Well,
I'm not asking anyone to take it into heavy New
Testament criticism here, but we have to. I mean, do
you call it mythology? Whenever you look at stories like this,
I know many are borrowed or fabricated. What do you
call the Herod story?
Speaker 2 (04:24):
Well? Okay, so hmm, okay, so I was I was
actually going to say something about Okay, well anyway.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
I don't No, no, no, no, go ahead and take
your time. In fact, I guess I have to. Here's
my asterisk. We know that Herod was not mytholic. We
know that King Herod, right, I'm not saying King Herod
didn't exist. So I wasn't trying to say it, but
as it relates to the supernatural Christ kind of thing.
But go ahead.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
I mean, I do think that we can see whether
or not whether or not the Gospel accounts are historical
or partly historical. I have a kernel of historical truth.
We can see elements that the that the authors of
those gospels presented because they wanted to present the story
in a certain way, right, So for example, the whole
(05:09):
you mentioned the flight to Egypt, well clearly, and you
know many scholars have pointed this out. The idea here
is to sort of recall the story of the Exodus
and to kind of make you think of Moses and
Jesus as kind of the lawgiver who kind of you know,
succeeds Moses. So so there's you know, there's definitely an
element of that going on. I think it's important to
(05:32):
when we when we talk about the story of the
Massacre of the Innocence, to realize that that Matthew is
the only source we have for that story now. So
it's not just that that story doesn't occur in any
of the other gospels, but we don't even have it
in any other outside source. So, for example, Josephus, the
ancient Jewish story of Josephus, who is really our main
(05:53):
source of literary historical information about about about Herod, doesn't
have anything about the Massacre of the Innocence. And that's
what makes it really hard to determine whether that story
ever occurred, whether it's historical or not. I mean, in
modern journalism, people can relate. In modern journalism, ideally, when
journalists report a story in the news, you want to
(06:15):
have at least two independent sources that confirm the story. Here,
in the case of the Massacre of the Innocence, we
only have one source, and there's no way to get
another source of information unless you know, some new papyrus
comes to light someday that you know tells the story.
So so scholars therefore are divided about the historicity or
(06:37):
the extent of the historicity of that story. There's speculation
that maybe it developed out of Herod's reputation for killing
his own sons, because he killed three of his own
sons during his lifetime, So maybe he got this reputation
for killing his sons and that kind of spurred the
development of this story about, you know, the massacre of
the Innocence. But we just don't know. And actually, my
(06:59):
own view is I don't really have a stake in that.
I don't really, I don't. It doesn't really matter to
me whether the story is historical or not. What I
find interesting about the story is what it tells us
about the way Herod was viewed, right, his reputation, whether
or not the story is historical. And the other thing
that I'll say about that's so interesting. Even though the
(07:20):
Gospels of Matthew and Luke present very different birth narratives
of Jesus, in many ways very different, they they both
make a point of situating Jesus's birth in Bethlehem, of
tying Jesus to Bethlehem. So there's definitely this is this
is really kind of the goal, right to situate Jesus's
birth in Bethlehem, to connect him to David as a
(07:42):
you know, as a sort of a legitimate successor of
David and therefore the legitimate Messiah. So so with all
of the differences, that is a really important theme that
ties the two different birth narratives together.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
Why did Herod kill his three sons?
Speaker 2 (08:02):
Oh, well, that's really interesting. I'll be going into that
in the first of the two lectures. But and it's
kind of a complex story, but the sort of bottom
line is is that Herod, among other things, was paranoid,
and I think it's fair to say that that's certainly
the way that he's presented by Josephus. I will say
that some of his paranoia was probably justified, but he
(08:23):
was paranoid that you know, he wasn't popular among all
of the segments of his population, that somebody was going
to try and overthrow him, and ultimately that's what leads
to him having three of his sons executed, the fear
that they were trying to sort of go behind us
back and take over.
Speaker 3 (08:44):
Well, we're going to get to the courses here in
just a moment, because I want to make that a
resource that our people know about before I get into
the archaeology and what has been discovered and how this
informs what we know about Herod. How reliable is Josephus
on this stuff? Herod is what you know half a
century BCE, right, I mean they weren't contemporaries, correct, right.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
That's right, correct. So Herod died in four BC and
Josephus is thought to have been born around thirty seven
AD in Jerusalem. So Josephus is born about forty years
after Herod's death and writes his histories at about the
same time the gospel authors were writing their stories, right,
their gospel accounts, and so Josephus had no you know,
(09:32):
personal overlap or familiarity with Herod, and that means that
he was drawing his information from other sources. We do
know that that at least one or maybe the main
source for Josephus about Herod is a lost biography of
Herod that was written by Herod's court biographers. So that's lost,
we don't have it, but Josephus apparently drew a lot
(09:53):
of his information from that. But what's interesting about Josephus
is that he then portrays Herrod in an overwhelmingly negative light,
and it kind of skews the picture that we have
of Herod. So our understanding of Herod between Josephus's negative portrayal,
which is most of the information that we have about Herod,
and then Matthew's story of the massacre of the Innocence, well,
(10:15):
you know, then Herod is sort of overwhelmingly remembered in
this very negative way, and that is simply the nature
of the sources that we have about about about Herod. Now,
I will also say, you asked about Josephus's reliability, So
how reliable Josephus is an historian depends kind of on
who you ask Over the course of the last few decades,
(10:37):
let's say fifty years or so, scholars have become increasingly
skeptical about Josephus's reliability as an historian. Right, that you
can't literally take everything that Josephus wrote and say, you know,
this is all accurate and it's all true. And so
now the pendulum has swung from what used to be
kind of a scholarly reliance on Josephus as a historian
(11:01):
to kind of a very big skepticism, at least among
some scholarly circles, about using Josephus at all as a
source of historical information. My own personal view as an
archaeologist is that Josephus actually does contain reliable historical information.
But it's like everything else, you have to use Josephus critically, right,
(11:22):
You can't necessarily take him at his word. You can't
just say everything the road is exactly true as that happened.
You have to use it critically. But I do think
that he has a lot of really good, valuable information.
And to illustrate this, I'll tell you that I have
taught two or three times, although not recently, a graduate
level seminar called excavating Josephus. So I had graduate students
(11:44):
who knew ancient Greek, and what I did is I
signed each one an archaeological site or what is now
an archaeological site that was associated with Herod so parts
of Jerusalem, or sites like Cesarea or Masada or whatever,
and I asked them to look at Josephus's descriptions of
these sites and compare the way Josephus describes them with
(12:04):
what have been found in the archaeological remains. And you know,
is Josephus ur Josephys's descriptions accurate or you know, do
they not correspond to the archaeology. And it turns out
that in the overwhelming majority of cases, Josephus's descriptions are
actually pretty darn accurate. So so I do think that
Josephus is a very valuable source. But it's just like
(12:25):
everything else, you have to approach him critically. He had biases,
he had certain agendas, He was motivated in certain ways
to sometimes skew or spin the information. That doesn't mean
that the information is incorrect or inaccurate, but it's presented
in a certain way. And that's what's I think important
to remember about the presentation of Herod by Josephus.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
That's just good science, right, looking for intersections, corroborations, all
of those types of things you've mentioned a few times
your students. I always like to bury the introduction to
my guest in the middle of the interview. Okay, what
is your doctorate in and what do you teach? Give
me your background?
Speaker 2 (13:03):
Thank you? Okay, Well, I'll actually start with my undergraduates.
And I wanted to be an archaeologist since I was
twelve years old, and I was always interested in the
classical world. So I did my BA in archaeology and
history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and I did
my PhD in classical archaeology which means Greek and Roman archaeology,
at the University of Pennsylvania, and I have afterwards for
(13:28):
I taught for ten years at Tuft's University and the
departments of Classics and Art History. I taught classical archaeology there,
and I've been at UNC Chapel Hill since two thousand
and two in the Department of Religious Studies in a
position that is not an archaeology position, but a position
in early Judaism, which basically means Judaism during the time
of Jesus. So here kind of you get the intersection
(13:48):
between my archaeological work but focusing on the sort of
the Holy Land in the time of Jesus.
Speaker 3 (13:56):
Tofts University. That's the philosopher doctor Daniel dennetzeld stan Ground.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
Yeah, that's absolutely right. He was a faculty member when
I was there. That's right. Wow, Okay, I don't know
that he remembers me. I was a very young faculty
member at the time, but I certainly knew who he was.
Speaker 3 (14:12):
An appropriate conversation for the Christmas holiday month, I'm going
to continue with world renowned archaeologist doctor Jody Magnus talking
about Herod, the Tyrant of Christmas. Next. Fascinating conversation today
(14:32):
about how archaeology and recent discoveries have really broadened our
perception or our knowledge about who King Herod the Great was.
We like to tie him into the Nativity story of
the Gospels, but most of us haven't really explored his
life or the history of his life beyond that, and
there's a lot we are discovering on the show today
(14:53):
with my guest archaeologist, doctor Jody Magnus. So what do
archaeology uncover literally about Herod. What are we talking about right?
Speaker 2 (15:07):
Well, And so this is the interesting kind of dichotomy,
which is that if you look at Herod from just
historic from a historical side, like the literary, the written
sources that we have about him, which again is mainly Josephus,
overwhelmingly Josephus, and then you got the story of the messacre,
of the innocence and a little bit in later rabbinic literature,
(15:28):
you get this very negative picture of Herod. And it's
kind of in a way, sort of a one dimensional
negative picture. Right, He's like a really bad guy does
really bad things.
Speaker 3 (15:37):
Well, if I can interject quickly, doctor, I mean he
killed his son, he did no really bad guy would
cut and I'm right.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
And I was just about to say, and he really
was a very bad guy and he really would do
some really bad things. But if you look around the
world today, for example, you can say there are people
in power all around the world who are bad people
who do bad things, but not everything that they do
is necessarily bad, and that is Herod. In other words,
(16:06):
Herod was I think, a bad person in many ways.
He did a lot of bad things, but it's not
just that there's more to Herod than that, and that's
where archaeology, I think fills us in. So when we
look at the archaeology as archaeologists working in the Holy Land, right,
for us, Herod is amazing. He is an individual who
(16:30):
built more than anyone else in the history of the country,
who literally transformed the appearance of the landscape for well
until today. And we can learn a lot about Herod
that compliments and in many ways fills out the picture
the very negative picture that we get from our literary sources.
(16:50):
So I mean between his rebuilding of the Jerusalem Temple
on a massive scale, the artificial port and harbor at Cesarea,
which was the largest artificial harbor that had been built
in the Roman world up until that time, his amazing
desert palaces like the Palace at Masada. So all of
this kind of rounds out the picture of what we
(17:11):
know about Herod. And I'll also say that you know
a lot of times when people talk about Herod's building projects,
which were massive and extensive, they talk about it in
terms of his megalomania. Right, he was a megalomaniac who
did all this to kind of glorify himself. And I mean,
there's certainly an element of that, but it's not just that.
There's all sorts of other things going on. Scholars have
(17:34):
pointed out that the rebuilding of the Jerusalem Temple and
a massive scale, was motivated at least in part by
his desire to win the approval of the Jewish population,
but also, as Josephus himself says, by piety. Herod dedicated, rededicated,
rebuilt and dedicated this temple to the God of Israel.
Motivated by piety. When we talk about the harbor at
(17:57):
Says Area, or for example, also the rebuilding of the
Temple in Jerusalem, those were massive economic projects that generated
all sorts of money coming in through the port at Sasarea.
You have the harbor there, so goods flowing in and
out now through that harbor, which was lacking on the
coast until that time, and so you know, sort of
spurring the entire local economy. The Jerusalem Temple, the massive
(18:22):
numbers of pilgrims who would have flowed into the temple
once it was rebuilt by Herod, and all of this
also creating jobs. Right. Infrastructure week, but it's actually infrastructure decades,
all of these projects generating jobs. People think that this
was all done by slaves. No it was not. It
was actually done by skilled workmen and laborers who are
getting paid. And so there's a lot more going on
(18:45):
here than just you know, Herod's megalomania, which is how
it's often presented.
Speaker 3 (18:50):
Well, the title of your live course is Herod The
Tyrant of Christmas. It is interesting to see that, certainly
the biblical narrative has Herod this sort of mustache twirling
black hat, you know.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
The.
Speaker 3 (19:03):
Foil against the Christ, the villain against which the hero
might be born. Would that be a fair way to
at the very least the Gospels, the parts that are
true are extremely reductive, is what you're saying.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
Yes, although I will I will also qualify and say
that the title of the course was not mine. I
had a different title. Actually, if I had to title it,
I would title it Herod the Great or not so Great? Question? Mark?
Speaker 3 (19:30):
I like that the Tyrant of Christmas does sound like
an action movie.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
Yeah, well, they wanted to tie it in with Christmas,
and you know, draw on Herod's you know, image as
a villain. Right, but anyway, but yeah, but actually the
point is to show that there are many more dimensions
insides to Herod than just that that sort of you know,
one dimensional image that most people have.
Speaker 3 (19:52):
It sounds like Herod even though he was operating at
the pleasure of Rome. Was he doing his own thing?
Did he did he ad to Rome or did they
just let him do his own thing?
Speaker 2 (20:03):
Well he was. He was actually answerable to Rome. I mean,
he was appointed obviously by Rome to rule as client
king of Judea. But but you know he was he
was a very adept politician. So this is a whole
nother side.
Speaker 3 (20:17):
Right.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
He managed to rule from forty BC until four BC
when he died of some sort of an illness, which
is pretty remarkable in that world.
Speaker 3 (20:26):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
And he did it because he was very good at
manipulating and at politics, and so you know, among the
things that he does, for example, is he has these
massive building projects. Well he rebuilt. He builds this you know,
new harbor, Port City at csarea. It was previously called
Stratton's Tower. He names it Cesarea in honor of Augustus, right,
who now has this magnificent harbor in Port City on
(20:50):
the coast, you know, named after him, and and the
Harbor was overlooked by an enormous temple on a platform
that was dedicated to Rome and Augustus. I mean, it's like,
how much more can you show your loyalty? And yes,
I love you Rome, and I love you Augustus and
you know, right, so you know he and he did
this in other places as well. So he was very
(21:13):
good at at kind of you know he did. I
think he actually did a lot of what he wanted,
but he did it in a way that never undermined
his standing with Rome.
Speaker 3 (21:22):
Quick aside, I've got a few archaeologist friends who come
back from their from their journeys abroad, and you know,
people like to think archaeology is glamorous work. And of
course they're talking about days, weeks, months in the hot sun,
sunburns on their neck, insects, their fingers are all shaped
and bleeding. You know, is this year where it's just
(21:45):
your world.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
Just your world, except for maybe the insects. But look,
so I work in the you know, I work in Israel,
which is obviously working in the summer in Israel is
not the optimal time. But because I work, and I
because I teach, and because I take students to work
with me. I can only do it in the summer, right,
it would be better to do it not in the summer. So, yes,
(22:08):
it is hot, but we all dig under shade class nowadays.
We didn't when I was growing up. I got way
too much sun exposure. But we now dig under shade cloths,
so it's not quite that bad. It is hot, but
how hot it depends on where you are. We start
digging at five am when it gets light, it starts
to get light enough to be able to see, and
we quit at lunchtime because after that it is actually
(22:29):
too hot. And it is it is hard work. I
basically say, it's like construction. Right. People think, you know,
we're down on our hands and knees with little toothbrushes.
But if you're talking about like the kind of monuments
that Harod built, you would never get anywhere if you
were digging with a toothbrush. So we're really using you know,
big tools. Most of the time, we're using you know,
picks and hose and shovels, wheel barrowing the dirt. So
(22:51):
it's real physical labor. And yes, you get very dirty,
and you get very hot, and you get very tired,
but it's also very exciting, but it's not for everyone,
you know. I kind of say that it's like New York.
You either love it or you hate it.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
What kinds of things? And will tie this into HEROD?
Have you discovered? Are you discovering? What are we learning?
Speaker 2 (23:14):
Oh well, this won't tie into HEROD actually, But because
my current project, which we finished the field work, the
excavation part in the summer of twenty twenty three. But
my current project is a fantastic sight in Galilee, not
far from Capernaum, the base of Jesus's Galilean Ministry, just
a couple of miles away from there, which is an
ancient Jewish village that was in fact inhabited in the
(23:36):
time of Jesus. But my project has brought to light,
among other things, the remains of a monumental synagogue building
that dates to around the year four hundred AD that
is entirely paved with spectacular mosaic floors depicting an array
of Biblical scenes. So we've got scenes of Samson, We've
got Noah's Ark, we've got the parting of the Red Sea,
(23:58):
the building of the Tower of Babel, We've got Jonah
and the Fish. We've got scenes from the Book of Daniel.
It's absolutely extraordinary. It's gotten a lot of media attention.
We actually were featured in the April twenty twenty four
issue of National Geographic Magazine. And so the name of
the site is who Coke. It's got a weird name, huqoq,
(24:20):
and we have a big website, whocoke dot org and
anybody interested can go to the website and see the
media coverage and also our publications of the mosaics. So
that is but it's it's after the time of Herod,
so it doesn't actually connect indirectly to Herod.
Speaker 3 (24:37):
No, you do make it sound kind of glamorous, although
I know it's not. But I'm sure that those moments
of epiphany discovery have to be like a super rush
of adrenaline.
Speaker 2 (24:47):
Absolutely absolutely, And I mean I like fieldwork in general. Anybody.
I think anybody who's an archaeologist loves has to love digging.
I mean, otherwise you couldn't be an archaeologist.
Speaker 3 (24:57):
Really, being a paramedic gets like ninety eight percent boredom
and two percent wild exhilaration. I'm oversimplifying it. I don't know. Okay, Well,
lay out the course for me, I'm going to put
a link in the description box, but just you know,
give me the elevator speech on this thing. Tell me
what people would be in for as I sort of
(25:18):
nudged them in that direction.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
Sure, So there are two lectures. The first lecture is
sort of the historical background to Herod, and I start
before the birth of Herod, actually going back to the
Hasmonians to understand why it is that the Romans make
him client king of Judea. So to understand that you
kind of have to go back a little bit in time.
Who is Herod? Where did he come from? And then
(25:40):
sort of working our way through Herod's life and some
of the things that he did in including having you know,
three of his sons executed, and then going up to
and ending with the death of Herod in the year
four BC. And then the second lecture picks up at
that point with the death of Herod, who was then
buried at one of his fortified desert palaces, is called Rodium.
(26:01):
It is a site that overlooks Bethlehem, literally overshadows Bethlehem,
and it's a really interesting and important site because although
Josephus tells us that Herod was brought for burial to
Herodium when he died. His tomb was actually not discovered
until the year two thousand and seven by the late
Israeli archaeologist Ahudntzer and his team. And I actually think
(26:23):
that that discovery is the most important discovery in the
region since the Dead Sea Squrolls, because it tells us
how Herod wanted to be remembered for posterity. And that
is where I sort of take a deep dive into
looking at Herod's tomb at Herodium, what it tells us
about Herod and ultimately tying it in with the story
(26:44):
of the Massacre of the Innocence, which of course is
set in Bethlehem right the whole episode there.
Speaker 3 (26:50):
Doctor Magnus, forgive the stupid question, I mean, or at
least a layman, civilian question, how do we know it's
Herod's tomb? Did you really was that determination made?
Speaker 2 (27:02):
Yes, it's actually a great question. It's not an ignorant
question at all in fact, and so look, so again,
we knew from Josephus that Herod was buried at Herodium.
Ahud Netzer, who I mentioned before, literally spent decades excavating
at Herodium and looking for Herod's tomb, and there was
a huge amount of speculation among archaeologists in general about
(27:26):
where the tomb was located. It's a huge mountain, so
I mean it could be anywhere, and there had been
speculation maybe was buried at the top of the mountain,
or maybe was buried inside the mountain kind of like
a pyramid, or maybe he was buried at the base
of it. And it was in two thousand and seven
that nets Are in his team I think stumbled upon
the tom. I don't think they knew that it was
(27:46):
in that particular spot, but they excavated a monument. It's
a mausoleum, literally, it is a mausoleum. So this big
monument on the side of the mountain that clearly is
a mausoleum, meaning a monumental tomb that can take smashed
up sarcophagi, which are giant stone coffins. And the size
of the monument, the placement of the monument, the design
(28:09):
of it and its decoration, the quality which is unbelievable quality.
Everything you know together indicates that this is a royal mausoleum,
and therefore you know it has to be and the date.
I mean, it dates to the reign of Herod, so
it has to be, you know, Herod's tomb. The one
thing that we don't have, and this is why your
(28:29):
question is such a good one. There were no inscriptions
found associated with the mausoleum, and that means that we
don't like have an inscription that says this is Herod's tomb, right.
It doesn't say Herod is buried here. And that has
actually led to at least a couple of my colleagues
arguing that more than I think a couple who argue
that we cannot in fact say that it is Herod's tomb.
(28:52):
It's not necessarily Herod's tomb. I personally agree with the
excavation team, and I think with probably a majority of
my colleagues maybe that it is in fact Herod's tomb.
And I think that when we look at it, and
this is what I'm going to do in the second lecture,
when we look at it, not only is to me
there're no doubt that it's Herod's tomb, but because of
(29:13):
all of the elements that I mentioned, it has really
important information that sheds light on dimensions of Herod's character
and his self representation that we didn't know before from
the information from the sources.
Speaker 3 (29:26):
That we had find out more and doctor Jody Magnus
is exciting course. Herod dunt Dundum the Tyrant of Christmas
formerly known as Herod the Great or not So Great,
which is also a great title. Listening to you speak,
I would love to just sort of audit your class.
You're very enthusiastic teacher, and you have such enthusiasm, and
(29:49):
you're a really good painter of words. So I'm sitting
here going wow, I can almost see Herod's domb in
my brain and I think that's remarkable. So I think
congratulations on the course, and I think it would be
something that our less listeners and beyond would really benefit from.
I will link that in the description box. You've been
very generous with your time, and if I may, I
hope you have a merry Christmas and all my best.
Speaker 2 (30:10):
Thank you you too, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (30:12):
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Speaker 3 (00:53):
All day's conversation is between me and doctor Jody Magnus.
She is the real thing. She is one of the
world's leading archaeologist of ancient Judaism and early Christianity. Now
she's got a lecture coming up online December thirteenth, two
(01:14):
o'clock Eastern that talks about Herod, the Great King Herod,
who of course is a legitimate historical figure that has
been tied into Bible mythology. The course is called Herod
the Tyrant of Christmas. Well, I wanted to know more,
and so this conversation is with doctor Jody Magnus, a
link to the video version of this is in the
(01:36):
description box. I am honored today to speak to someone
who's done of a deep dive into a specific part
of the Nativity story that many people don't know all
that much about her, have assumed a lot about doctor Jody.
Magnus joins me today. Can I call you Jody wou?
(01:57):
That be all right?
Speaker 2 (01:58):
Yes? Please? Thank you?
Speaker 3 (01:59):
I go at doc, you know, or something like that.
But Jody, right, we're all friends here.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
At least you're not calling me ma'am, which is what
my students call me. We're in I'm in the South.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
I got to start with Matthew makes Herod a big deal, right,
Herod is out slaughtering the firstborn, trying to get to Jesus.
And then you got the Book of Luke that just
sort of leaves Herod out entirely. And I can't talk
about Herod without wondering, Wait a minute, how do you
as a scholar deal with this contradiction in the New Testament?
Speaker 2 (02:33):
Right? Well, that's really interesting. So let me just start
by saying that my field of specialization is archaeology rather
than New Testament. But obviously, as an archaeologist, I draw
on literary sources and information to help me understand better
the past, and so to that. In that regard, I
am familiar with the gospel accounts, but I am not
(02:55):
somebody who's a specialist in let's say, analyzing the gospel account,
you know, Matthew versus Luke. But I do actually find
it very interesting that we only have birth narratives of
Jesus in two of the four Gospels, right in Matthew
and in Luke. And I actually give this as an
exercise to my undergraduate students to look at those two
(03:16):
accounts and to compare them, because when you look at
them closely, you see that they're actually quite different from
each other and not necessarily overlapping in many ways. And
when we think about the way that we talk about
the Christmas story today and celebrate Christmas today, it's kind
of a mashup of what you have in Matthew and
(03:37):
in Luke. So you're absolutely right. The story the massacre
of the innocence, which is part of that birth narrative
in Matthew, occurs only in Matthew and not in Luke.
And that's one of those big differences between them.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
It's like the account of the birth of Christ. And afterwards,
you know where did Mary and Joseph return? Did they
flee to Egypt? Did they go to Bethlehem?
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Exactly right right?
Speaker 3 (04:02):
The account of Christ's open tomb? Who discovered it? Four
conflicting versions. I mean, it does get really sticky. Well,
I'm not asking anyone to take it into heavy New
Testament criticism here, but we have to. I mean, do
you call it mythology? Whenever you look at stories like this,
I know many are borrowed or fabricated. What do you
call the Herod story?
Speaker 2 (04:24):
Well? Okay, so hmm, okay, so I was I was
actually going to say something about Okay, well anyway.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
I don't No, no, no, no, go ahead and take
your time. In fact, I guess I have to. Here's
my asterisk. We know that Herod was not mytholic. We
know that King Herod, right, I'm not saying King Herod
didn't exist. So I wasn't trying to say it, but
as it relates to the supernatural Christ kind of thing.
But go ahead.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
I mean, I do think that we can see whether
or not whether or not the Gospel accounts are historical
or partly historical. I have a kernel of historical truth.
We can see elements that the that the authors of
those gospels presented because they wanted to present the story
in a certain way, right, So for example, the whole
(05:09):
you mentioned the flight to Egypt, well clearly, and you
know many scholars have pointed this out. The idea here
is to sort of recall the story of the Exodus
and to kind of make you think of Moses and
Jesus as kind of the lawgiver who kind of you know,
succeeds Moses. So so there's you know, there's definitely an
element of that going on. I think it's important to
(05:32):
when we when we talk about the story of the
Massacre of the Innocence, to realize that that Matthew is
the only source we have for that story now. So
it's not just that that story doesn't occur in any
of the other gospels, but we don't even have it
in any other outside source. So, for example, Josephus, the
ancient Jewish story of Josephus, who is really our main
(05:53):
source of literary historical information about about about Herod, doesn't
have anything about the Massacre of the Innocence. And that's
what makes it really hard to determine whether that story
ever occurred, whether it's historical or not. I mean, in
modern journalism, people can relate. In modern journalism, ideally, when
journalists report a story in the news, you want to
(06:15):
have at least two independent sources that confirm the story. Here,
in the case of the Massacre of the Innocence, we
only have one source, and there's no way to get
another source of information unless you know, some new papyrus
comes to light someday that you know tells the story.
So so scholars therefore are divided about the historicity or
(06:37):
the extent of the historicity of that story. There's speculation
that maybe it developed out of Herod's reputation for killing
his own sons, because he killed three of his own
sons during his lifetime, So maybe he got this reputation
for killing his sons and that kind of spurred the
development of this story about, you know, the massacre of
the Innocence. But we just don't know. And actually, my
(06:59):
own view is I don't really have a stake in that.
I don't really, I don't. It doesn't really matter to
me whether the story is historical or not. What I
find interesting about the story is what it tells us
about the way Herod was viewed, right, his reputation, whether
or not the story is historical. And the other thing
that I'll say about that's so interesting. Even though the
(07:20):
Gospels of Matthew and Luke present very different birth narratives
of Jesus, in many ways very different, they they both
make a point of situating Jesus's birth in Bethlehem, of
tying Jesus to Bethlehem. So there's definitely this is this
is really kind of the goal, right to situate Jesus's
birth in Bethlehem, to connect him to David as a
(07:42):
you know, as a sort of a legitimate successor of
David and therefore the legitimate Messiah. So so with all
of the differences, that is a really important theme that
ties the two different birth narratives together.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
Why did Herod kill his three sons?
Speaker 2 (08:02):
Oh, well, that's really interesting. I'll be going into that
in the first of the two lectures. But and it's
kind of a complex story, but the sort of bottom
line is is that Herod, among other things, was paranoid,
and I think it's fair to say that that's certainly
the way that he's presented by Josephus. I will say
that some of his paranoia was probably justified, but he
(08:23):
was paranoid that you know, he wasn't popular among all
of the segments of his population, that somebody was going
to try and overthrow him, and ultimately that's what leads
to him having three of his sons executed, the fear
that they were trying to sort of go behind us
back and take over.
Speaker 3 (08:44):
Well, we're going to get to the courses here in
just a moment, because I want to make that a
resource that our people know about before I get into
the archaeology and what has been discovered and how this
informs what we know about Herod. How reliable is Josephus
on this stuff? Herod is what you know half a
century BCE, right, I mean they weren't contemporaries, correct, right.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
That's right, correct. So Herod died in four BC and
Josephus is thought to have been born around thirty seven
AD in Jerusalem. So Josephus is born about forty years
after Herod's death and writes his histories at about the
same time the gospel authors were writing their stories, right,
their gospel accounts, and so Josephus had no you know,
(09:32):
personal overlap or familiarity with Herod, and that means that
he was drawing his information from other sources. We do
know that that at least one or maybe the main
source for Josephus about Herod is a lost biography of
Herod that was written by Herod's court biographers. So that's lost,
we don't have it, but Josephus apparently drew a lot
(09:53):
of his information from that. But what's interesting about Josephus
is that he then portrays Herrod in an overwhelmingly negative light,
and it kind of skews the picture that we have
of Herod. So our understanding of Herod between Josephus's negative portrayal,
which is most of the information that we have about Herod,
and then Matthew's story of the massacre of the Innocence, well,
(10:15):
you know, then Herod is sort of overwhelmingly remembered in
this very negative way, and that is simply the nature
of the sources that we have about about about Herod. Now,
I will also say, you asked about Josephus's reliability, So
how reliable Josephus is an historian depends kind of on
who you ask Over the course of the last few decades,
(10:37):
let's say fifty years or so, scholars have become increasingly
skeptical about Josephus's reliability as an historian. Right, that you
can't literally take everything that Josephus wrote and say, you know,
this is all accurate and it's all true. And so
now the pendulum has swung from what used to be
kind of a scholarly reliance on Josephus as a historian
(11:01):
to kind of a very big skepticism, at least among
some scholarly circles, about using Josephus at all as a
source of historical information. My own personal view as an
archaeologist is that Josephus actually does contain reliable historical information.
But it's like everything else, you have to use Josephus critically, right,
(11:22):
You can't necessarily take him at his word. You can't
just say everything the road is exactly true as that happened.
You have to use it critically. But I do think
that he has a lot of really good, valuable information.
And to illustrate this, I'll tell you that I have
taught two or three times, although not recently, a graduate
level seminar called excavating Josephus. So I had graduate students
(11:44):
who knew ancient Greek, and what I did is I
signed each one an archaeological site or what is now
an archaeological site that was associated with Herod so parts
of Jerusalem, or sites like Cesarea or Masada or whatever,
and I asked them to look at Josephus's descriptions of
these sites and compare the way Josephus describes them with
(12:04):
what have been found in the archaeological remains. And you know,
is Josephus ur Josephys's descriptions accurate or you know, do
they not correspond to the archaeology. And it turns out
that in the overwhelming majority of cases, Josephus's descriptions are
actually pretty darn accurate. So so I do think that
Josephus is a very valuable source. But it's just like
(12:25):
everything else, you have to approach him critically. He had biases,
he had certain agendas, He was motivated in certain ways
to sometimes skew or spin the information. That doesn't mean
that the information is incorrect or inaccurate, but it's presented
in a certain way. And that's what's I think important
to remember about the presentation of Herod by Josephus.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
That's just good science, right, looking for intersections, corroborations, all
of those types of things you've mentioned a few times
your students. I always like to bury the introduction to
my guest in the middle of the interview. Okay, what
is your doctorate in and what do you teach? Give
me your background?
Speaker 2 (13:03):
Thank you? Okay, Well, I'll actually start with my undergraduates.
And I wanted to be an archaeologist since I was
twelve years old, and I was always interested in the
classical world. So I did my BA in archaeology and
history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and I did
my PhD in classical archaeology which means Greek and Roman archaeology,
at the University of Pennsylvania, and I have afterwards for
(13:28):
I taught for ten years at Tuft's University and the
departments of Classics and Art History. I taught classical archaeology there,
and I've been at UNC Chapel Hill since two thousand
and two in the Department of Religious Studies in a
position that is not an archaeology position, but a position
in early Judaism, which basically means Judaism during the time
of Jesus. So here kind of you get the intersection
(13:48):
between my archaeological work but focusing on the sort of
the Holy Land in the time of Jesus.
Speaker 3 (13:56):
Tofts University. That's the philosopher doctor Daniel dennetzeld stan Ground.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
Yeah, that's absolutely right. He was a faculty member when
I was there. That's right. Wow, Okay, I don't know
that he remembers me. I was a very young faculty
member at the time, but I certainly knew who he was.
Speaker 3 (14:12):
An appropriate conversation for the Christmas holiday month, I'm going
to continue with world renowned archaeologist doctor Jody Magnus talking
about Herod, the Tyrant of Christmas. Next. Fascinating conversation today
(14:32):
about how archaeology and recent discoveries have really broadened our
perception or our knowledge about who King Herod the Great was.
We like to tie him into the Nativity story of
the Gospels, but most of us haven't really explored his
life or the history of his life beyond that, and
there's a lot we are discovering on the show today
(14:53):
with my guest archaeologist, doctor Jody Magnus. So what do
archaeology uncover literally about Herod. What are we talking about right?
Speaker 2 (15:07):
Well, And so this is the interesting kind of dichotomy,
which is that if you look at Herod from just
historic from a historical side, like the literary, the written
sources that we have about him, which again is mainly Josephus,
overwhelmingly Josephus, and then you got the story of the messacre,
of the innocence and a little bit in later rabbinic literature,
(15:28):
you get this very negative picture of Herod. And it's
kind of in a way, sort of a one dimensional
negative picture. Right, He's like a really bad guy does
really bad things.
Speaker 3 (15:37):
Well, if I can interject quickly, doctor, I mean he
killed his son, he did no really bad guy would
cut and I'm right.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
And I was just about to say, and he really
was a very bad guy and he really would do
some really bad things. But if you look around the
world today, for example, you can say there are people
in power all around the world who are bad people
who do bad things, but not everything that they do
is necessarily bad, and that is Herod. In other words,
(16:06):
Herod was I think, a bad person in many ways.
He did a lot of bad things, but it's not
just that there's more to Herod than that, and that's
where archaeology, I think fills us in. So when we
look at the archaeology as archaeologists working in the Holy Land, right,
for us, Herod is amazing. He is an individual who
(16:30):
built more than anyone else in the history of the country,
who literally transformed the appearance of the landscape for well
until today. And we can learn a lot about Herod
that compliments and in many ways fills out the picture
the very negative picture that we get from our literary sources.
(16:50):
So I mean between his rebuilding of the Jerusalem Temple
on a massive scale, the artificial port and harbor at Cesarea,
which was the largest artificial harbor that had been built
in the Roman world up until that time, his amazing
desert palaces like the Palace at Masada. So all of
this kind of rounds out the picture of what we
(17:11):
know about Herod. And I'll also say that you know
a lot of times when people talk about Herod's building projects,
which were massive and extensive, they talk about it in
terms of his megalomania. Right, he was a megalomaniac who
did all this to kind of glorify himself. And I mean,
there's certainly an element of that, but it's not just that.
There's all sorts of other things going on. Scholars have
(17:34):
pointed out that the rebuilding of the Jerusalem Temple and
a massive scale, was motivated at least in part by
his desire to win the approval of the Jewish population,
but also, as Josephus himself says, by piety. Herod dedicated, rededicated,
rebuilt and dedicated this temple to the God of Israel.
Motivated by piety. When we talk about the harbor at
(17:57):
Says Area, or for example, also the rebuilding of the
Temple in Jerusalem, those were massive economic projects that generated
all sorts of money coming in through the port at Sasarea.
You have the harbor there, so goods flowing in and
out now through that harbor, which was lacking on the
coast until that time, and so you know, sort of
spurring the entire local economy. The Jerusalem Temple, the massive
(18:22):
numbers of pilgrims who would have flowed into the temple
once it was rebuilt by Herod, and all of this
also creating jobs. Right. Infrastructure week, but it's actually infrastructure decades,
all of these projects generating jobs. People think that this
was all done by slaves. No it was not. It
was actually done by skilled workmen and laborers who are
getting paid. And so there's a lot more going on
(18:45):
here than just you know, Herod's megalomania, which is how
it's often presented.
Speaker 3 (18:50):
Well, the title of your live course is Herod The
Tyrant of Christmas. It is interesting to see that, certainly
the biblical narrative has Herod this sort of mustache twirling
black hat, you know.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
The.
Speaker 3 (19:03):
Foil against the Christ, the villain against which the hero
might be born. Would that be a fair way to
at the very least the Gospels, the parts that are
true are extremely reductive, is what you're saying.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
Yes, although I will I will also qualify and say
that the title of the course was not mine. I
had a different title. Actually, if I had to title it,
I would title it Herod the Great or not so Great? Question? Mark?
Speaker 3 (19:30):
I like that the Tyrant of Christmas does sound like
an action movie.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
Yeah, well, they wanted to tie it in with Christmas,
and you know, draw on Herod's you know, image as
a villain. Right, but anyway, but yeah, but actually the
point is to show that there are many more dimensions
insides to Herod than just that that sort of you know,
one dimensional image that most people have.
Speaker 3 (19:52):
It sounds like Herod even though he was operating at
the pleasure of Rome. Was he doing his own thing?
Did he did he ad to Rome or did they
just let him do his own thing?
Speaker 2 (20:03):
Well he was. He was actually answerable to Rome. I mean,
he was appointed obviously by Rome to rule as client
king of Judea. But but you know he was he
was a very adept politician. So this is a whole
nother side.
Speaker 3 (20:17):
Right.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
He managed to rule from forty BC until four BC
when he died of some sort of an illness, which
is pretty remarkable in that world.
Speaker 3 (20:26):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
And he did it because he was very good at
manipulating and at politics, and so you know, among the
things that he does, for example, is he has these
massive building projects. Well he rebuilt. He builds this you know,
new harbor, Port City at csarea. It was previously called
Stratton's Tower. He names it Cesarea in honor of Augustus, right,
who now has this magnificent harbor in Port City on
(20:50):
the coast, you know, named after him, and and the
Harbor was overlooked by an enormous temple on a platform
that was dedicated to Rome and Augustus. I mean, it's like,
how much more can you show your loyalty? And yes,
I love you Rome, and I love you Augustus and
you know, right, so you know he and he did
this in other places as well. So he was very
(21:13):
good at at kind of you know he did. I
think he actually did a lot of what he wanted,
but he did it in a way that never undermined
his standing with Rome.
Speaker 3 (21:22):
Quick aside, I've got a few archaeologist friends who come
back from their from their journeys abroad, and you know,
people like to think archaeology is glamorous work. And of
course they're talking about days, weeks, months in the hot sun,
sunburns on their neck, insects, their fingers are all shaped
and bleeding. You know, is this year where it's just
(21:45):
your world.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
Just your world, except for maybe the insects. But look,
so I work in the you know, I work in Israel,
which is obviously working in the summer in Israel is
not the optimal time. But because I work, and I
because I teach, and because I take students to work
with me. I can only do it in the summer, right,
it would be better to do it not in the summer. So, yes,
(22:08):
it is hot, but we all dig under shade class nowadays.
We didn't when I was growing up. I got way
too much sun exposure. But we now dig under shade cloths,
so it's not quite that bad. It is hot, but
how hot it depends on where you are. We start
digging at five am when it gets light, it starts
to get light enough to be able to see, and
we quit at lunchtime because after that it is actually
(22:29):
too hot. And it is it is hard work. I
basically say, it's like construction. Right. People think, you know,
we're down on our hands and knees with little toothbrushes.
But if you're talking about like the kind of monuments
that Harod built, you would never get anywhere if you
were digging with a toothbrush. So we're really using you know,
big tools. Most of the time, we're using you know,
picks and hose and shovels, wheel barrowing the dirt. So
(22:51):
it's real physical labor. And yes, you get very dirty,
and you get very hot, and you get very tired,
but it's also very exciting, but it's not for everyone,
you know. I kind of say that it's like New York.
You either love it or you hate it.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
What kinds of things? And will tie this into HEROD?
Have you discovered? Are you discovering? What are we learning?
Speaker 2 (23:14):
Oh well, this won't tie into HEROD actually, But because
my current project, which we finished the field work, the
excavation part in the summer of twenty twenty three. But
my current project is a fantastic sight in Galilee, not
far from Capernaum, the base of Jesus's Galilean Ministry, just
a couple of miles away from there, which is an
ancient Jewish village that was in fact inhabited in the
(23:36):
time of Jesus. But my project has brought to light,
among other things, the remains of a monumental synagogue building
that dates to around the year four hundred AD that
is entirely paved with spectacular mosaic floors depicting an array
of Biblical scenes. So we've got scenes of Samson, We've
got Noah's Ark, we've got the parting of the Red Sea,
(23:58):
the building of the Tower of Babel, We've got Jonah
and the Fish. We've got scenes from the Book of Daniel.
It's absolutely extraordinary. It's gotten a lot of media attention.
We actually were featured in the April twenty twenty four
issue of National Geographic Magazine. And so the name of
the site is who Coke. It's got a weird name, huqoq,
(24:20):
and we have a big website, whocoke dot org and
anybody interested can go to the website and see the
media coverage and also our publications of the mosaics. So
that is but it's it's after the time of Herod,
so it doesn't actually connect indirectly to Herod.
Speaker 3 (24:37):
No, you do make it sound kind of glamorous, although
I know it's not. But I'm sure that those moments
of epiphany discovery have to be like a super rush
of adrenaline.
Speaker 2 (24:47):
Absolutely absolutely, And I mean I like fieldwork in general. Anybody.
I think anybody who's an archaeologist loves has to love digging.
I mean, otherwise you couldn't be an archaeologist.
Speaker 3 (24:57):
Really, being a paramedic gets like ninety eight percent boredom
and two percent wild exhilaration. I'm oversimplifying it. I don't know. Okay, Well,
lay out the course for me, I'm going to put
a link in the description box, but just you know,
give me the elevator speech on this thing. Tell me
what people would be in for as I sort of
(25:18):
nudged them in that direction.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
Sure, So there are two lectures. The first lecture is
sort of the historical background to Herod, and I start
before the birth of Herod, actually going back to the
Hasmonians to understand why it is that the Romans make
him client king of Judea. So to understand that you
kind of have to go back a little bit in time.
Who is Herod? Where did he come from? And then
(25:40):
sort of working our way through Herod's life and some
of the things that he did in including having you know,
three of his sons executed, and then going up to
and ending with the death of Herod in the year
four BC. And then the second lecture picks up at
that point with the death of Herod, who was then
buried at one of his fortified desert palaces, is called Rodium.
(26:01):
It is a site that overlooks Bethlehem, literally overshadows Bethlehem,
and it's a really interesting and important site because although
Josephus tells us that Herod was brought for burial to
Herodium when he died. His tomb was actually not discovered
until the year two thousand and seven by the late
Israeli archaeologist Ahudntzer and his team. And I actually think
(26:23):
that that discovery is the most important discovery in the
region since the Dead Sea Squrolls, because it tells us
how Herod wanted to be remembered for posterity. And that
is where I sort of take a deep dive into
looking at Herod's tomb at Herodium, what it tells us
about Herod and ultimately tying it in with the story
(26:44):
of the Massacre of the Innocence, which of course is
set in Bethlehem right the whole episode there.
Speaker 3 (26:50):
Doctor Magnus, forgive the stupid question, I mean, or at
least a layman, civilian question, how do we know it's
Herod's tomb? Did you really was that determination made?
Speaker 2 (27:02):
Yes, it's actually a great question. It's not an ignorant
question at all in fact, and so look, so again,
we knew from Josephus that Herod was buried at Herodium.
Ahud Netzer, who I mentioned before, literally spent decades excavating
at Herodium and looking for Herod's tomb, and there was
a huge amount of speculation among archaeologists in general about
(27:26):
where the tomb was located. It's a huge mountain, so
I mean it could be anywhere, and there had been
speculation maybe was buried at the top of the mountain,
or maybe was buried inside the mountain kind of like
a pyramid, or maybe he was buried at the base
of it. And it was in two thousand and seven
that nets Are in his team I think stumbled upon
the tom. I don't think they knew that it was
(27:46):
in that particular spot, but they excavated a monument. It's
a mausoleum, literally, it is a mausoleum. So this big
monument on the side of the mountain that clearly is
a mausoleum, meaning a monumental tomb that can take smashed
up sarcophagi, which are giant stone coffins. And the size
of the monument, the placement of the monument, the design
(28:09):
of it and its decoration, the quality which is unbelievable quality.
Everything you know together indicates that this is a royal mausoleum,
and therefore you know it has to be and the date.
I mean, it dates to the reign of Herod, so
it has to be, you know, Herod's tomb. The one
thing that we don't have, and this is why your
(28:29):
question is such a good one. There were no inscriptions
found associated with the mausoleum, and that means that we
don't like have an inscription that says this is Herod's tomb, right.
It doesn't say Herod is buried here. And that has
actually led to at least a couple of my colleagues
arguing that more than I think a couple who argue
that we cannot in fact say that it is Herod's tomb.
(28:52):
It's not necessarily Herod's tomb. I personally agree with the
excavation team, and I think with probably a majority of
my colleagues maybe that it is in fact Herod's tomb.
And I think that when we look at it, and
this is what I'm going to do in the second lecture,
when we look at it, not only is to me
there're no doubt that it's Herod's tomb, but because of
(29:13):
all of the elements that I mentioned, it has really
important information that sheds light on dimensions of Herod's character
and his self representation that we didn't know before from
the information from the sources.
Speaker 3 (29:26):
That we had find out more and doctor Jody Magnus
is exciting course. Herod dunt Dundum the Tyrant of Christmas
formerly known as Herod the Great or not So Great,
which is also a great title. Listening to you speak,
I would love to just sort of audit your class.
You're very enthusiastic teacher, and you have such enthusiasm, and
(29:49):
you're a really good painter of words. So I'm sitting
here going wow, I can almost see Herod's domb in
my brain and I think that's remarkable. So I think
congratulations on the course, and I think it would be
something that our less listeners and beyond would really benefit from.
I will link that in the description box. You've been
very generous with your time, and if I may, I
hope you have a merry Christmas and all my best.
Speaker 2 (30:10):
Thank you you too, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (30:12):
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