Real Picture of Herod's Step-daughter Who Killed John the Baptist

[rontiger]

Topic 1

In the Gospel of Matthew 14:6-11 (first book in New Testament of the Bible - for those around the world not familiar with the Word), Herod Antipas ( a son of King Herod the Great) granted the wish of his step-daughter and had John the Baptist(cousin of Jesus) killed.

 

Historians tell us her name was Salome. It is amazing that we have a true, real image of Salome as an adult! Some years after asking for John's head, she became a queen of another territory. Her husband the king of Chalcis, honored Salome by putting her face on an  (ancient) coin of his kingdom - just as Queen Elizabeth II has her face on the coins of several countries today.

 

Just google :" Salome wikipedia "  to see the woman(check the coin of Chalcis) who was responsible  for one of the  most famous murders in history.

 

I recently told a 11 year-old Evangelical Christian youth about the coin of Salome and she replied in shock: " You mean we have a real picture of someone from the Bible!"  Her whole Evangelical family loved seeing a picture of Salome and they told me their faith in Jesus and the Bible was strengthened. They can have greater trust and faith that every single sentence in the Bible is  true if even a minor detail as seeing Herod's step-daughter's real face is made available and known to them.

Topic 2

Emperor Claudius' Nazareth Inscription is Proof of the Empty Tomb of Jesus

 

In 1 Peter 3:15 we are told to give a ready defense of our faith and considering this I would like to bring up Acts 11:28 and Acts 18:2  where the famous Roman Emperor Claudius is mentioned. Claudius incredibly was a great friend of King Herod Agrippa I (nephew of Herod Antipas and grandson of Herod the Great). In fact  Agrippa I  helped Claudius become Princeps(Emperor of the Roman Empire)in AD 41.

 

In Acts 12 ,it is  King Herod Agrippa I  who has James, the apostle of Jesus, killed. { It is the son of Herod Agrippa I  who is called "Herod Agrippa" in the later chapters of Acts when Paul appears before Herod Agrippa ( II)  }

 

As Professor Clyde Billington points out(see his fantastic article "Nazareth Inscription : Proof of the Resurrection" on the web and Artifax) Emperor Claudius was a scholar and keenly interested in religions. During part of Claudius' reign some areas of the capital city of Rome were in a constant state rioting.

 

It is clear that the riots in Jewish quarter of Rome in AD 41 - AD 49 were caused by the reaction of some non-believing Jews to the preaching of the Good News of the resurrected Jesus Christ by Jewish- Christians! This is supported also by the ancient Roman historian Suetonius. Claudius, as Emperor, must keep peace and order in the capital Rome, so he asked his great friend King Herod Agrippa I  of Judaea why the usually quiet Jews were constantly rioting. (There was no difference to Romans between Christians and Jews  until at least Nero's reign.)

 

King Agrippa I  had been living in and around Judaea and Galilee during Jesus' ministry  and would have known about Jesus. He would have told his great friend Claudius about Jesus and how He said He was the only son of God. [google Claudius simple wikipedia to see a coin with the tiny figure of King Herod Agrippa I  crowning Claudius emperor!] 

King Agrippa I would have also told him that the apostles stole the body of Jesus of Nazareth parroting Matthew 28:13-15. (This would have been impossible because Pilate put many heavily armed Roman soldiers around Christ's tomb as you know.) King Agrippa I  would have said that Jesus' followers were telling everyone in Rome that Jesus had come back from the dead and ruled the universe as God; some Jews violently opposed this message about Jesus and that is why Rome was being turned upside-down in rioting.

 

We can see Claudius' angry response in Acts 18:2, where it says Claudius kicks out the Jews from Rome.

 

Emperor Claudius desperately does not want more followers of possibly even more "risen gods" coming to Rome, in the future, from Judaea and Galilee , so in fact he writes a decree called the Nazareth Inscription.

In the Nazareth Inscription Claudius writes that no one must disturb graves that are sealed with stones(only Jews had these type of tombs) and steal bodies for wicked purposes (Claudius thought it was evil to claim someone had risen from the dead and try to convince the entire world of this. "Only the gods can create gods", he wrote in another of his letters.) The penalty for this would be death, he decreed in the Nazareth Inscription.

 

Today we have Claudius' actual letter/decree, the Nazareth Inscription, in the National Library of Paris -it was discovered in 1878!

 

Professor Gaetano De Sanctis ,the greatest Roman historian of the past 200 years, said Claudius' Nazareth Inscription absolutely proves there was an actual empty tomb of Jesus and therefore of course the real historical person, Jesus of Nazareth. Many of the best Roman historians agree with De Sanctis about the meaning of the Nazareth Inscription.

 

We can know with certainty that in about AD 49, the Jews and Jewish-Christians were expelled from Rome because of the rioting that came from those who were against the Good News of Christ Jesus being preached as  the historian Suetonius confirms in his "Lives of the 12 Caesars ". The Nazareth Inscription even further proves Claudius' anger at those who preached about Jesus and those others in reaction  caused the riots which occurred in Rome.

 

The Jewish-Christians were preaching about the resurrected Jesus in Rome so very close in time to Jesus' crucifixion and burial in AD 30, that we can certainly say that if they were only just "making up" a story that Jesus had risen from the dead, then the non-believers against Christ ,in Rome could just ignore the Jewish-Christians and have a good laugh. But because there were actual eye-witnesses to the Risen Jesus in Rome in AD 41 - AD49 (and many also still living in Jerusalem and Galilee) giving undeniable testimony to the Jews and gentiles -and very likely doing great miracles- the Good News of Jesus spread successfully in Rome and those against Jesus could not ignore his followers but had to use force in desperation to try to stop them. This force resulted in the riots that Suetonius wrote that Claudius blamed on  all the Jews because of "Chrestus" ( F.F. Bruce,Menahem Stern and Harris show that  Suetonius did indeed mean Jesus by "Chrestus"- otherwise he would have added "a certain" to Chrestus had he meant an unknown agitator.) The riots also caused Claudius to install the emergency decree, the Nazareth Inscription, throughout the ancient Holy Land.

 

It is in this proven historical context that we can more deeply understand  Acts 18:2, where the Holy Spirit inspired Luke to write that Claudius expelled the Jews from Rome. And to recognize Acts 18:2(when we combine it with the historical evidences written above)  destroys any argument that says Christians just made up the story of the Risen Jesus many years later.

 

[ Furthermore we have a copy of a letter of Claudius from actually AD 41.It is called:  "Claudius' Letter to the Alexandrians". This letter is the first secular allusion to Christianity according to the great Roman scholars Reinach Salomon, F. Cumont, Blaiklock and De Sanctis and others. Alexandria had as many Jews as Jerusalem did. At the very least we can see his anger against Jewish-Christians when Claudius says" he will come against them... for creating a general plague that is known in the whole world."  The plague is Christianity in the opinion of the above scholars. It would seem that Christianity had very early come to Alexandria,Egypt, for also in Acts 18:24,25 Paul refers to the Jewish-Christian Apollos from Alexandria.]

 

Topic 3

The "Southern Steps" of Herod's Temple Where Jesus Preached from in Luke 21:37 have been discovered by Archaeologists

 

 When he visited Jerusalem's King Herod's Temple Mount ,Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the Moon, asked archaeologist Dr. Meir Ben-Dov  if there was anything still existing  that one could be sure Jesus had walked on. Dr. Ben-Dov responded by saying the very stone steps (the Southern Steps) that astronaut Neil Armstrong was standing on, were certainly walked on by Jesus.[This is written in 3 time Pulitzer Prize winner Thomas Friedman's book "From Beirut to Jerusalem",page 429].

 

By the way, we can be almost sure that the Temple Mount is the ancient ruins of Herod's Temple(also called the Second Temple) by the proof of the Arch of Titus in Rome,Italy. (At least we can be 100 percent certain that the Second Temple, where Jesus preached, really existed very near today's Temple Mount in Jerusalem.)

 

Neil Armstrong then said he was more excited to walk where Jesus walked than even to walk on the Moon in 1969!

 

It is truly miraculous that we today can simply type "southern steps" and see the actual 2000 year-old stone steps  where Jesus preached from every day the week before his crucifixion, according to the Gospel of Luke 21:37. It is like a time machine.

 

It is truly amazing we still have with us in Jerusalem the very pulpit of our God and Savior Jesus.

 

The Faith in Jesus of the Christian Church Must Be Strengthened

 

I find it just as exciting to read the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John of the New Testament and to realize and believe every word is true. Faith comes from hearing(or nowadays reading)the Word of God. 

 

But very few Christians, I humbly think, have the perfect faith that the 11 apostles and Mary Magdalene had after seeing the risen Christ.Yet we can greatly build up the faith of the Church in Jesus by sharing  these 3 amazing archaeological  and historical  evidences that are connected strongly to the Word - along with of course the Good News of the Risen Jesus who died for our sins. And remember to tell them to pass it on.(The Nazareth Inscription and the Jewish riots in Rome of the AD 40's are too advanced for anyone under 14 , but the Salome coin is for all ages) .

 

People are hungry for a tiny bit of evidence. 

 

Even the " faith ( that) comes from hearing the Word of Christ"  is based on the written evidence of the testimony of  the  apostles as eyewitnesses to the life, death and resurrection of Jesus- and of course the measure of faith the Holy Spirit initially gives us.

 

Evangelical apologist, pastor  and writer Josh Mcdowell has recently warned that 3 out of 4 children in the Evangelical churches in the Western world are ending their faith in Jesus  by the age of 12! At first I did not believe Mr. Mcdowell until an Evangelical friend's 10 year old daughter said she did not believe in Jesus anymore. Thankfully she's back with Jesus today.

 

Children and even adults today have to deal with an incredible amount of lies about Jesus and the Bible coming at them 24/7. Atheists are setting up "Atheist Churches of Fellowship" in every major city in the Western world the news media has reported.  We Christians must stop "being quiet as a mouse" -as one famous pastor described the Church today.We must strengthen the faith of the children and young adults of the Church as a start.

 

Jesus said in John 14:11(NIV) " Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; at least believe me by the evidence of the miracles themselves."

 

For  His church today Jesus has preserved these archaeological and historical "miracles" I have mentioned. ( And even much  more Biblical archaeological evidences have recently been discovered, as you probably know .)

 

I wrote this because at first I thought Biblical prophecy was the best way to strengthen one's faith. And it absolutely is. However after about  50 Christians of all ages told me that I had strengthened their faith in Jesus by sharing the evidences of Salome's coin and the Southern Steps, I realized this was an incredibly simple way of edifying a Christian's faith.

 

My best friend who is an Evangelical Christian, told me that this was because most people are visual. However I believe these archaeological evidences work because they are directly right out of the world of the Word of God- the Bible.

 

Please realize you have the power because of the risen Jesus, to change your church,city ,state/province and country. Those early Christians  did the impossible - they peacefully conquered and changed most of Europe,and many parts of Asia and Africa. And they also converted the mighty Roman Empire from a pagan, ruthless empire into a kinder Christian civilization - all the while being thrown in the arenas to be eaten by lions and gored by bulls. We can  today look back and say wow!

 

Please feel free to copy any of the above for the purpose of edifying the Church or evangelization.

 

Thank you for reading this.

 

Sincerely, Rony.

Edited November 19, 2015 by rontiger
Added "Real" to title. Added "Topic 1,2,3" headings.

[OneLight]

How could a painter who was not born until 1406 AD be able to paint a real life picture of someone who lived 1406+ years before he was born? This is just a interpretation of what he believed she looked like.

I am not sure what the rest of your post is about, except to tell us what historical writings inspired you. May I ask what the discussion is about??

[Arka]

How could a painter who was not born until 1406 AD be able to paint a real life picture of someone who lived 1406+ years before he was born? This is just a interpretation of what he believed she looked like.

 

I thought that the OP is talking about the coin that bears her likeness, not any of the paintings of her: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salome#Historical_account_by_Flavius_Josephus

[OneLight]

If you notice, the post was edited.

[Willa]

Archeological findings prior to 1960 helped me as a new believer to believe God's word. They helped me to find substance in them somehow, like Armstrong standing where Jesus stood. It becomes real in time and space--a place that can be touched and felt.

[rontiger]

THANK YOU ALL, for reading my essay and for  all your replies  - both critical and not. thanks for the link, Arka.