The Herod family

Selected members of the Herodian family and Roman governors who are significant in New Testament events.

The Herod family tree

The family tree above includes only the Herodian family members in the New Testament plus most of the Roman governors it mentions. It is not a complete family tree. Boldface in the narrative statements below signifies the person is referred to in the New Testament.

Earlier Outcomes: Attempt to kill the infant Jesus, execution of John the Baptist, and the trial of Jesus

1. Herod the Great, founder of the dynasty, tried to kill the infant Jesus by the “slaughter of the innocents” at Bethlehem.

2. Herod Philip, uncle and first husband of Herodias, was not a ruler.

3. Herodias left Herod Philip to marry his half-brother Herod Antipas, Tetrarch of Galilee & Perea.

4. John the Baptist rebuked Antipas for marrying Herodias, his brother’s wife, while his brother was still alive—against the law of Moses.

5. Salome danced for Herod Antipas and, at Herodias’s direction, requested the beheading of John the Baptist. Later she married her great-uncle Philip the Tetrarch.

6. Herod Antipas, Tetrarch of Galilee and Perea (r. 4 B.C.E.–39 C.E.), was Herodias’s uncle and second husband. After Salome’s dance and his rash promise, he executed John the Baptist. Much later he held part of Jesus’ trial.

7. Herod Archelaus, Ethnarch of Judea, Samaria and Idumea (r. 4 B.C.E.–6 C.E.), was replaced by a series of Roman governors, including Pontius Pilate (r. 26–36 C.E.).

8. Philip the Tetrarch of northern territories (r. 4 B.C.E.–34 C.E.) later married Herodias’s daughter Salome, his grandniece.

Later Outcomes: Execution of James the son of Zebedee, imprisonment of Peter to execute him, and the trial of Paul

9. King Herod Agrippa I (r. 37–44 C.E.) executed James the son of Zebedee and imprisoned Peter before his miraculous escape.

10. Berenice, twice widowed, left her third husband to be with brother Agrippa II (rumoured lover) and was with him at Festus’s trial of Paul.

11. King Herod Agrippa II (r. 50–c. 93 C.E.) was appointed by Festus to hear Paul’s defence.

12. Antonius Felix, Roman procurator of Judea (r. 52–c. 59 C.E.), Paul’s first judge, left him in prison for two years until new procurator Porcius Festus (r. c. 60–62 C.E.) became the second judge, and Paul appealed to Caesar.

13. Drusilla left her first husband to marry Roman governor Felix.

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