Free Republic

Twenty-first in a series of clips from the 2000 Jesus Christ Superstar film. With Rik Mayall as Herod.

An archaeological site in northern Israel is now thought to possibly contain a lost Roman temple. The temple, which was housed within a larger ancient Roman complex, would have been built by King Herod, who presided over the province of Judea for 33 years, between 37 B.C.E. and 4 B.C.E. The structure is located within Omrit, an archeological site that is also home to the remains of other buildings with Roman influences. Though Omrit is not very accessible to the public today due to its remote locale, the site was once highly trafficked by international visitors and researchers throughout the...

There are three principal reasons why the 4 B.C. date has prevailed over 1 B.C. These reasons were articulated by Emil Schürer in A History of the Jewish People in the Time of Jesus Christ, also published in the 19th century. First, Josephus informs us that Herod died shortly before a Passover (Antiquities 17.9.3, The Jewish War 2.1.3), making a lunar eclipse in March (the time of the 4 B.C. eclipse) much more likely than one in December. Second, Josephus writes that Herod reigned for 37 years from the time of his appointment in 40 B.C. and 34 years from...

April 13, 2005 1:20 PM Ancient Cypriot copper mine for sale By Michele Kambas NICOSIA (Reuters) - A copper mine in Cyprus where the metal has been mined since Biblical times faces closure unless the Church of Cyprus can find a buyer, officials said on Wednesday. The Skouriotissa mine, which produced copper ore at a site where there has been mining for some 4,000 years, suspended operations in January, leaving its workers unpaid and with debts labour unions estimate at 14 million pounds. Herod the Great, who in the Bible ordered the Massacre of the Innocents in an attempt to...

FLOAT out beyond the Crusader city walls, Roman aqueduct and 19th-century mosque. Then descend through a cloud of quicksilver bubbles 20ft and 2,000 years to Herod The Great’s sunken harbour. Here, just off Caesarea port, a unique underwater archaeological park opened yesterday, showcasing 80,000sq m of a sunken harbour built by the biblical king of the Jews for Caesar Augustus. It is no ordinary “museum” — no chattering schoolchildren, no queues, no headphones, and the only sound that of boat propellers passing above your head as you swim around the “exhibits”. “I am excited. I think anyone in the field...

Excavations in the East Jordan Land13 December 2007 This year Thomas Pola, professor for theology at TU Dortmund, and his team have continued the excavations in the East Jordan Land. With their findings on the mountain Tall adh-Dhahab (West) in the Jabbok Valley the archeologists could substantiate one assumption: everything points to the fact that the building remains from the Hellenistic and Roman era, found in 2006, were part of a yet unknown monumental building of Herod the Great (73-4 BC). This assumption is based on the floors of one of the discovered peristyle yards (yards enclosed by continuous...

Wooden beams from the time of Herod’s Temple Mount in secondary use in the Al-Aqsa MosqueWhat happened to Jerusalem’s Temple Mount when the Romans destroyed Herod’s Temple in 70 C.E.? There is no report of any building left on the Temple Mount by the time the Muslims erected the iconic Dome of the Rock and the gray-domed Al-Aqsa Mosque in the late seventh and early eighth centuries. Did the wooden beams from Herod’s Temple Mount survive? In the May/June 2013 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review, Peretz Reuven studies beams removed from the Al-Aqsa Mosque to reveal the storied history of...

The exact spot upon which Jesus stood as he was sentenced to death, may have been pinpointed by archaeologists in Jerusalem. Discovered around 15 years ago, the remains of Herod the Great’s palace have been carefully examined and a place between a gate and uneven stone pavement has been identified as fitting the description of the event in the Gospel of John. Pilgrims and tourists will be able to visit the Biblical site, because tours are being offered by the Tower of David Museum, which is located nearby.

An astute and generous ruler, a brilliant general, and one of the most imaginative and energetic builders of the ancient world, ... Now who could the National Geographic be talking about? Why of course it is King Herod the Great! Herod guided his kingdom to new prosperity and power. He was all about hope and change. Yet today he is best known as the sly and murderous monarch of Matthew's Gospel, who slaughtered every male infant in Bethlehem in an unsuccessful attempt to kill the newborn Jesus, the prophesied King of the Jews. During the Middle Ages he became an...

Hebrew University announces discovery of Roman king's tomb at Herodium near Jerusalem Reuters Published: 05.08.07, 00:50 / Israel News The Hebrew University of Jerusalem announced on Monday the discovery of the grave and tomb of Herod the Great, the Roman empire's "King of the Jews" In ancient Judea. The University said in a brief statement the discovery was made at Herodium, where Herod's hilltop fortress palace once stood some 7 miles from the holy city where he had rebuilt and expanded the Jewish Temple. The university said it would give further details at a news conference on Tuesday. The Gospel...

THE tomb of the biblical King Herod the Great has been found, archeologists say. The final resting place of King Herod, who ruled Judea for the Roman empire from about 37BC, was found at the ruins of a magnificent palace he built near Jerusalem. King Herod was known for his role in the massacre of the innocents as described in the Gospel of Matthew, where he ordered the deaths of young males in Bethlehem to stop a new king of the Jews, whose birth had been prophesied by the three wise men. Herod was also known for expanding the second...

Alec Garrard, a 78 year old British farmer, has spent the past 30 years building a 100:1 scale model of King Herod's Temple... and he isn't finished yet.The meticulously researched, painstakingly accurate model sits in a long house on Garrard's property. He created over 4,000 minature people to populate the model and hand-baked every clay brick. Amazing.See the entire magnificent thing here.

Herod built three temples in honor of his patron Augustus. One stood at Sebastia (Samaria) and a second one at Caesarea. Where was the third? Some archeologists think it was at Banias itself, but that city was dedicated to the god Pan. Andrew Overman of Macalester College in the US thinks the temple was at Omrit. Overman has been digging at the site for nearly 10 years and sees in the remains all the unique characteristics and high quality of Herod's methods of building. Like the other two temples, Omrit was approached by a grand flight of stairs that led...

While deep within excavations of an ancient Byzantine tower structure in the Ophel area of Jerusalem, a team of archaeologists, students and volunteers recently unearthed two important finds representing ancient times that were centuries apart. The first, only about one inch in length, was a small white necklace pendant made from faience... Originally green, the pendant was a figurine depicting the ancient Egyptian god Bes, a deity worshipped as a fertility god and protector of families and households, and in particular, of mothers, children and childbirth. The find is rare in that it is the first and only artifact of...

Archaeologists from The Hebrew University of Jerusalem's Institute of Archaeology have discovered a monumental entryway to the Herodian Hilltop Palace at the Herodium National Park. The unique complex was uncovered during excavations by The Herodium Expedition in Memory of Ehud Netzer over the past year, as part of a project to develop the site for tourism. The main feature of the entryway is an impressive corridor with a complex system of arches spanning its width on three separate levels. These arches buttressed the corridor's massive side-walls, allowing the King and his entourage direct passage into the Palace Courtyard. Thanks to...

NEW YORK, NY—At a special ceremony Thursday, Planned Parenthood posthumously awarded Herod the Great with its highest honor, the organization's coveted PPFA Margaret Sanger Award. Planned Parenthood gives the award out to individuals who advance the pro-abortion agenda, and baby-murdering King Herod was the obvious choice. "Herod fought bravely for women's rights by slaughtering all the male babies under two years old," said a Planned Parenthood spokesperson. "He was thousands of years ahead of his time, realizing the progressive value of destroying our kids the moment they become inconvenient millennia before it was popular. Yes, we do wish he had...

A translucent orange gem engraved with an image of a goddess of hunting has been found near a mausoleum built by Herod the Great, the king of Judea who ruled not long before the time of Jesus. The carnelian gem shows the goddess Diana (or her Greek equivalent, Artemis) with a sumptuously detailed hairstyle and wearing a sleeveless dress, with a quiver behind her left shoulder and the end of a bow protruding from her right shoulder. Both Diana and Artemis were goddesses of hunting and childbirth. An iron ring that may have held the gem was found nearby. Researchers...

Workers stand near the newly uncovered monumental entryway to the Herodian Palace in Herodium National Park, outside of Bethlehem in the West Bank. The entry, at right, is a corridor with a complex system of arches on three separate levels. The arches buttressed the corridor's massive side walls, allowing the king and his entourage direct passage into the palace courtyard. Israeli archaeologists are showing off the monumental, many-arched corridor that led to Herod the Great's hilltop palace near Jerusalem in the first century. The corridor in the ancient fortress of Herodium, about 7 miles (12 kilometers) south of Jerusalem,...

Documents from the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus suggest Herod was buried at the Herodium, laid out on a gold bed draped with opulent fabrics, and thronged by the entire army and a massive funerary procession, said Joseph Patrich, an archaeologist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. But Herod's exact burial place remained a mystery for thousands of years. Then, in 2007, archaeologist Ehud Netzer announced he had discovered the king's final resting place. The tomb was a 32-by-32-foot (10 by 10 meters) building with a pointy roof and three coffins. One of these coffins, an intricately carved red stone, was...