Wick Stick wrote...........Ah... a modern "reconstruction."
S-word...........You think so, do you?
Wick Stike wrote.............It's a fine job of cobbling things together, but like most reconstructions, it seems to ignore primary sources.
The historian Cassius Dio recorded that Alexander Helios (and his twin sister) were captured by Octavian in Egypt while still children, carried back to Rome and paraded through the streets, given to an elder relative to raise, educated in Rome, and the sister married off politically to a minor king in what is now Liberia.
S-word.............And Cassius Dio was correct, as I will soon reveal.
Wick Stick wrote............This fable your author weaves about him living and siring children in Judea prior to that time is, well.. .a fable. Real history precludes the possibility that "Heli" is the same person as Alexander Helios.
S-word.............Christianity appears to have divorced Jesus from the world of reality, and chooses to ignore the historical life and times in which he was born and raised. They seem to be more interested in mysteries rather than in reality.
Although a practicing Jew, Herod was an Arab, the son of an Edomite, named Antipater and whose mother was the daughter of a nobleman from Petra the capital of the rising Nabataean Kingdom. In 63 BC, Antipater sided with Rome when Pompey invaded Palestine and in 47 BC Julius Caesar whose mistress Cleopatra was to later bear to him a son ‘Caesarion,’ appointed Antipater procurator of Judea and bestowed Roman citizenship upon him, an honour that was inherited by the Macedonian’s descendant, ‘Herod the Great’ and his sons.
At the age of 16, Herod met his lifelong friend Mark Antony of Macedonia, to who, in the year of 40 BC, on the 25TH December (An important date to remember) Cleopatra bore the twins whose names are Cleopatra Selene (Moon) and Alexander Helios (Sun) or Heli.
In 37 BC, the Roman senate nominated Herod as the King of Judea, a position he held for 32 years. Even after the defeat by Octavian, (who was to be known as the Emperor Augustus,) over his good friend Mark Antony at Actium (A promontory and ancient town of Macedonia) in 31 BC in their struggle for the throne of the assassinated Julius Caesar, Octavian who knew of Herod’s love and earlier support for his now deceased friend “Mark Antony,” never the less knew that Herod was the one who would best rule Palestine as he himself would want it to be ruled, and Herod and Augustus were to later become friends.
During his reign, Herod the Great built many massive fortresses and splendid cities, amphitheatres, and hippodromes for the Grecian games inaugurated in honour of Augustus, but his most grandiose creation was the Temple in Jerusalem. Not only did he patronize the Olympic games, as did his sons, he was to become the president of those games, which, after his death continued to enjoy the support of his sons, Archelaus, Antipas, and his half-brother Philip from Bethsaida who was very popular and accessible to the Greeks. It was to Philip of Bethsaida that the Greeks came, when seeking an audience with Jesus.
Tetrarch, in Greek, means ‘Ruler of a quarter,’ Nathanael who was introduced to Jesus by Phillip, lived in the town of Cana where Jesus performed his first miracle at the insistence of his mother, who it would appear had some hand in the organization of the wedding. Herod’s descendants were not only the temporal rulers, but also the spiritual rulers of Palestine or parts thereof during the ministries of John the Baptist and Jesus.
In his youth, Herod had married a woman named Doris, the mother of his first born son “Antipater’ who he later disinherited and killed. Because he was of Idumaean/Hittite/Macedonian descent, and hated by the Jews, he attempted to appease them by marrying a Jewess by the name Mariamne, a descendant of the Maccabees family of Jewish patriots, whom he actually loved. Mariamne, who had insisted that her brother be appointed high priest, was the daughter of Salome=Alexandra, an heir from the old ruling Hasmonaean line and she is not to be confused with the niece of Herod Antipas, whose name is THOUGHT to have been ‘Salome’ the daughter of Herodias the wife of Philip the first, (Although many scholars today, are of the firm opinion that there was no Philip1, and Philip2, but only Philip the son of Herod who ruled from Bethsaida) and who was the half-brother to Herod Antipas.
With the support of the Queen of Egypt ‘Cleopatra’, a close friend of the Jewess Salome = Alexandra, (The should have been queen) of the Hasmonaean line, which was defeated by Pompey, Salome attempted to have Herod ousted in favour of her grandsons, finally ‘Herod the Great,’ had Mariamne, her brother and her two sons, plus her mother and grandfather all killed, although one of Mariamne’s grandsons, ‘Herod Agrippa 1’ survived to rule in Palestine from about the late 41 AD to 44 AD.
According to the Encyclopedia Britt, ‘Philip of Bethdaida, the son of ‘Herod the Great’ was born in 20 BC of a young Jewess by the name of ‘Cleopatra’ (A Macedonian name) not Cleopatra the Queen of Egypt who in 40 BC, gave birth to her twins Cleopatra Selena and Alexandra Helios (Heli), the children of Mark Antony the Macedonian.
Cleopatra Selena would have been about 20 years of age at the time of the birth of Philip who was about 14/15 years older than ‘Jesus’ who was born around 6 BC as the grandson of Alexander Helios [Heli,] and the son of Mary from the tribe of Levi, whose aunty Elizabeth, were both, the daughters of the house of Levi.
Philip was given control of southern Lebanon and modern Syria, to the east of the Lake Galilee, and Philip was a model ruler of whom almost nothing is known except for the fact that he ruled (throughout the life of Jesus) the district in which Jesus spent much of his ministerial time and in which he worked most of his miracles. Matthew 11: 20-21, “The people in the towns where Jesus performed MOST of his MIGHTY MIRACLES,” did not turn from their sins, so he reproached those towns on the eastern side of the lake, “How terrible it will be for you, Chorazin! How terrible for you too, Bethsaida etc.”
It was outside the walls of ‘Bethsaida Julias’ that had been rebuilt by Philip, that Jesus healed a blind man, See Mark 8: 22-26. It was in Caesarea Philippi, which according to Luke in Acts 16: 12; was the chief city in that part of Macedonia, a city rebuilt by Philip, (PHILIP, is a Macedonian name) that Jesus asked his disciples ‘who people were saying he was.’ It was in this district that Philip from Bethsaida played a part in the multiplication of the loaves and the fishes, and in medieval art Philips symbol was loaves, See John 6: 1-7 where Jesus puts Philip to the test.
The last Testament of Herod the Great which was approved by Augustus, provided that Archelaus receive ruler ship of Judea, with Philip and Antipas ruling two of the remaining tetrarch’s.
When returning from Egypt with his wife Mary and her child Jesus after the death of Herod the Great, Joseph wanted to live in the land of Judaea rather than to return to their home in Nazareth near Bethlehem of Galilee, which town today, is called “Beithlahm,” and is only a few kilometres from Sepphorus, which towns suffered extensive damage in the great riots of 4BC, which was the same year in which Herod died after a failed suicide attempt, (Which suicide I believe,) was at the command of Caesar, because of the riots that he caused in the territory around Bethlehem/Beitlahm, Nazareth and Sepphorus, in which so many families were murdered and others removed to Rome where they were sold as slaves. Those riots occurred immediately after the parents of the young, ‘one to two’ year old Jesus were warned to flee from their home in Nazareth into Egypt.
The reason why Joseph, who, after the death of Herod the Great, wanted to live in Judea and yet was afraid to live there, was because Herod’s son, the cruel, depraved, and despised Herod Archelaus was ruling there. For this reason they returned to Nazareth in Galilee. Archelaus was later recalled to Rome and banished because he had antagonized the entire population of Judea and Samaria. Judea then became a Roman province and the Herod who was in Jerusalem at the time of Passover when Jesus was being tried by Pontius Pilate, was Herod Antipas who ruled from Sepphorus and Jericho, and was the Herod who had John the Baptist beheaded at the request of Herodias the wife of Philip and mother of Philip’s daughter.
In 34 AD, shortly after the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, Philip’s reign came to an abrupt end. Philip of Bethsaida simply vanishes from the pages of history, and in 36 AD, Herod Agrippa I, the grandson of Herod the Great and nephew of Philip and Antipas, received the tetrarch of the Macedonian district of Batanaera and Trachonitis to the east of the sea of Galilee, formerly held by his uncle Philip. When Herod Antipas and Herodias tried to discredit Agrippa I, who was in favour with the Emperor Caligula, they themselves were banished, Antipas’ tetrarch passing on to Agrippa 1 in AD 39. Then in 41 AD and after the assassination of Caligula, Agrippa’s support for Claudius was rewarded with the government of Judea, which had, since the banishment of Herod Archelaus, been ruled by Roman procurators for about 30 years. It was this Herod who enjoyed the support and adoration of the Jewish authorities, who did all in his power to crush the infant Jewish Apostolic Church.
It was he who executed James, the son Zebedee whose mother, is believed to have been named Salome, a sister of Jesus, and a close friend of Joanna the wife of Chuza, Herod’s minister of finances, who was one of the women who supported Jesus using their own resources. And Agrippa would have killed Peter also, had he not have escaped from prison. Agrippa’s sudden death in 44 AD is recorded in Acts 12: 21-23.
To be continued.
