06 — The Beheading
The death of the Forerunner and its single external witness: the Gospel account of John’s rebuke of Herod Antipas for taking Herodias, his brother’s wife, his imprisonment, and the beheading procured by Herodias through the dance of her daughter (Mark 6:17–29; Matt. 14:1–12), kept as the Decollation on August 29; and the report of Flavius Josephus that Antipas executed John at the fortress of Machaerus (Antiquities 18.5.2 §§116–119), the principal historical control and a classic problem of source-comparison.
Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (Forerunner)
The Forerunner’s martyrdom is the one episode of his life attested both inside and outside the Gospels, and the section is built around that double witness. The first file follows the Gospel narrative of the rebuke, the prison, Herodias’s grudge, the birthday feast, the dance, and the head on a platter, and the Church’s keeping of the Beheading. The second sets the Gospel account beside Josephus — who names Machaerus, gives Antipas a political motive (fear of John’s influence over the crowds), and is silent on Herodias — and presents the relation of the two as a scholarly topic, neither collapsing them nor pretending they are unconnected.
Files in This Section
| File | Description |
|---|---|
| The Martyrdom | John’s rebuke of Herod over Herodias (Mark 6:17–20; Matt. 14:3–5); the imprisonment; the birthday banquet, the dance of Herodias’s daughter (Salome in tradition), the rash oath, and the head on a platter (Mark 6:21–29; Matt. 14:6–12); the feast of the Beheading (Aug. 29) and its strict fast. |
| Josephus and the Historical John | Josephus, Antiquities 18.5.2 (§§116–119): John’s execution by Antipas at Machaerus, the political motive, the silence on Herodias; the location and identification of Machaerus; the relation of the Josephan and Gospel accounts presented as a source-critical problem. |
See Also
- The Greatest Born of Women — the embassy John sends from this same imprisonment
- The Forerunner in Hades — what the Church’s theology makes of the Forerunner’s death
- John and His Context — John within the Second-Temple world Josephus describes
- The Cycle of Feasts — the Beheading among the feasts of the Forerunner
References
- The Gospel According to Mark 6:14–29; Matthew 14:1–12. Revised Standard Version.
- Flavius Josephus. Jewish Antiquities 18.5.2 (§§116–119). Trans. Louis H. Feldman, Loeb Classical Library 433. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1965.
- Meier, John P. A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus, Vol. 2. New York: Doubleday, 1994 (on John the Baptist and the Josephan testimony).