The Salome Project

Salome and Her Afterlives

Streete

• Publisher: Cascade Books
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781498244718
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Studies

We are not even sure of her name: it might have been Salome; it might have been Herodias, like that of her mother. She appears very briefly in only two Gospels of the New Testament, to dance at the birthday party of her mother's husband, Herod, the ruler of Galilee. We do not even know what kind of dance it was, but we are told that it pleased him so much he promised to give her anything she asked for. What she asked for was the head of the prophet John the Baptist on a platter. Although she disappeared from the pages of the New Testament, Salome and her dance have puzzled, intrigued, and dominated the imaginations of artists and writers for two millennia. Was she just a little girl doing a dance performance to please her stepfather and his guests? Was she a nubile teenager bent on seduction? Was she a femme fatale who aimed at the death of a man she could not possess? The Salome Project is the result of a quest to answer these questions and find the real Salome.

1

The Daughter of Herodias

Who Was Herodias’s Daughter?

The Evidence of Josephus

Before we can consider the afterlives of Salome, if that is indeed her name, we need to look at her original life. Like all stories of legendary and mythic characters, hers begins even before her birth. The dancing daughter of Herodias in the Gospels of Mark and Matthew is either unnamed in some manuscripts, or named Herodias in others; so how does she come down to us by the name of Salome? The daughter of Herodias long continued to be referred to as “Herodias,” “Herodias’s daughter,” “the woman who danced” or the “dancing girl.”37 The answer ultimately comes from the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus (37–100 CE), who wrote a multivolume history, The Antiquities of the Jews, an apologetic attempt to explain Jewish history to Gentiles, particularly the conquering Romans. In his history, he emphasizes the ancient origin of the Jewish religion and the Jews’ deep respect for the law, two areas likely to impress the Romans, who valued antiquity and law highly. The probable need for such a work came from Josephus’s own rather checkered history of relations with the Romans. Josephus was born Yosef ben Matityahu, of priestly and possibly royal descent. He led the Galilean forces against the Romans in the First Jewish War, an uprising against Roman domination (66–70 CE), but was forced to surrender his forces at Jotapata in 67, probably saving his life by deftly interpreting Jewish messianic prophecies to mean that the commander of the Roman forces, Vespasian, would become emperor of Rome, a prophecy that fortunately for Josephus came true. Yosef Latinized his name to Josephus and took his patron’s family name, Flavius.

It is from Josephus’s Antiquities that we find what little extrabiblical evidence there is of a connection between Herod Antipas, his (second) wife Herodias, and her daughter, to whom Josephus gives the name Salome, a Hellenized version of the Hebrew Shlomit (Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 18.5.3). Josephus says that shortly after her daughter was born, “Herodias took it upon her to confound the laws of our country and divorced herself from her husband while he was still alive, and was married to Herod [Antipas], her husband’s brother by the father’s side” (Ant. 18.5.4.). The daughter of Herodias’s first marriage, Salome, married her paternal uncle Philip and later her cousin Aristobulus, eventually becoming queen of Lesser Armenia, a fairly typical dynastic career for a Hellenistic princess.38

All this confusing family history is tangential to Josephus’s main narrative, which relates Herod Antipas’s war with Aretas IV, king of the Nabataeans, a war Josephus believes is occasioned by Herod’s plan to divorce his wife, Aretas’s daughter, to marry Herodias, his half-brother’s wife, with whom he fell in love while staying with them on his way to Rome (Ant.18.5.1). Aretas’s army easily annihilates that of Herod “through the treachery of some fugitives.” When Herod complains to his superior, the Roman emperor Tiberius, the latter dispatches the governor of Syria, Vitellius, later to become a contender for the imperial throne himself, to defeat and capture Aretas. If that is not possible, Vitellius is to kill Aretas and send the emperor his head. Ross Kraemer suggests a possible link between Aretas’s threatened death by decapitation and the death of John as reported in the Gospels of Mark and Matthew, seeing that no other author tells us how John died.39 Tiberius’s plan, however, was foiled by his own death. Nonetheless, “some of the Jews thought that the destruction of Herod’s army came from God, and that very justly, as a punishment of what he [Herod] did against John, that was called the Baptist” (Ant. 18.5.2). Josephus goes on to describe John as “a good man [who] commanded the Jews to exercise virtue, both as to righteousness towards one another, and piety towards God.” As Josephus relates it, John was such a popular preacher that Herod, being “of a suspicious temper,” feared he would “raise a rebellion” and so had him imprisoned at the fortress of Machaerus and subsequently put to death. Josephus does not specify the manner of John’s’ death.

From Josephus, then, we have the following story: Herod Antipas, tetrarch of Galilee and Perea thanks to Roman support, marries his (living) brother’s (ex-)wife, Herodias. Josephus expresses his own view that this marriage is against “the laws of this country,” presumably meaning the religious law of Leviticus 18:16. According to Josephus, Herodias has a daughter from her first marriage, here called Salome. Herod Antipas fears the preacher John the Baptist and has him put to death. By mentioning the belief of the Jews that Aretas’s victory over Herod is the result of divine retribution, Josephus registers his own disapproval of Herod’s self-interested political moves. What we do not have in this account is a banquet, a dance, a beheading, or even a definite age for Herodias’s daughter. All we have is a name, that of her mother. If the events narrated in the gospels indeed took place and were known or even rumored, we may be sure that Josephus, who always loved gossip and a good scandal, especially if it was about elite women and their associations with foreign male religious leaders, certainly would not have hesitated to mention it.40

The Evidence of Mark and Matthew

Two gospels in the New Testament, Mark and Matthew, have a narrative that links Herod, Herodias, her daughter, and the death of John the Baptist. Of the other two canonical gospels, the Gospel of Luke assigns sole responsibility for John’s death by beheading to Herod, who also fears that Jesus may be John raised from the dead (Luke 9:7–9). The Gospel of John features the Baptist prominently in chapters 1–3, both as a prophet (“a man sent by God”) and a forerunner of Jesus (“a witness to the light”), but has no account of John’s death. He simply disappears from the narrative when Jesus takes over. It is only in Mark and Matthew that we have any account at all of Herodias’s and her daughter’s involvement in John’s death, which is opposed to Herod’s reluctance to kill him, and the details of the dance and the outré demand for John’s head on a serving dish.

Nearly all biblical scholars assume that the Gospel of Mark, written around 70 CE, is the first of the canonical gospels, and that Mark’s narrative of the Baptist’s death has been used, with little alteration, by Matthew. As Mark tells the story, Herod Antipas has heard of Jesus’s preaching about repentance, along with his exorcisms and healings, together with the speculation about who Jesus might be (Mark 6:14–15). As in Luke’s narrative, so in Mark’s Herod believes, “John, whom I beheaded, has been raised” (6:16). Mark’s account reads as follows:

For Herod himself had sent men who arrested John, bound him, and put him in prison on account of Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife, because Herod had married her. For John had been telling Herod, “It is not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife.” And Herodias had a grudge against him, and wanted to kill him. But she could not, for Herod feared John, knowing he was a righteous and holy man, and protected him. When he heard him, he was greatly perplexed; and yet he liked to listen to him. But an opportunity came when Herod on his birthday gave a banquet for his courtiers and officers and for the leaders of Galilee. When his daughter Herodias came in and danced, she pleased Herod and his guests; and the king said to the girl, “Ask me for whatever you wish, and I will give it.” And he solemnly swore to her, “Whatever you ask me, I will give you, even half of my kingdom.” She went out and said to her mother, “What should I ask for?” She replied, “The head of John the baptizer.” Immediately she rushed back to the king and requested, “I want you to give me at once the head of John the Baptist on a platter.” The king was deeply grieved; yet out of regard for his oaths and for the guests, he did not want to refuse her. Immediately the king sent a soldier of the guard with orders to bring John’s head. He went and beheaded him in the prison, brought his head on a platter, and gave it to the girl. Then the girl gave it to her mother. When his disciples heard about it, they came and took his body, and laid it in a tomb. (Mark 6:17–29)

This account moves quickly, as is characteristic of Mark’s narrative style, assisted by the regular use of the adverb “immediately”: once, when the daughter “rushed back” to the king with her mother’s request for the head, which she wants “at once,” and again, when Herod sends a guard to bring back the head. There is little time for reflection or description of motive on the girl’s part, but there is nevertheless quite a bit about the motivation and emotions of Herod and Herodias. Josephus assigns a political motive to Herod’s fear of John and his desire to get rid of him; Mark, however, states that the reason for John’s arrest and imprisonment is “on account of Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife.” Mark also implies that Herod’s fear of John may be a form of awe, since he listens to the Baptist with a kind of pleasure. Herodias’s emotions are quite simply stated: she wants John dead. In Matthew’s version of the story, Herod himself “wanted to put him [John] to death” (Matt 14:5) but is afraid of “the crowd” because of their regard for the righteous prophet. In both gospels, Herod is described as “pleased” with the dancer and her dance, but he is later “grieved” at her request because he has unthinkingly sworn an oath he feels he cannot retract. The emotions of the daughter do not enter the narrative, although in Mark she makes one curious addition to her mother’s request for John’s head: she wants it “on a platter.” Why, we are not told. In...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: The Daughter of Herodias
• Chapter 2: Salome and the Head of John the Baptist
• Chapter 3: Salome Counter Salome
• Chapter 4: Reviving Salome
• Bibliography