The Apostolic Age · AD 4–70 · External witness

Herodias

c. 15 BC – after AD 39 (exiled to Gaul) · Wife of Herod Antipas · Procured the death of the Baptist · Galilee → exile in Gaul

External witness

Who Herodias was

Granddaughter of Herod the Great, and the reason John the Baptist died. She left her first husband for **Herod Antipas**, his half-brother, and John said publicly that the marriage was unlawful — for which Antipas imprisoned him. Mark is precise about what followed and about where the will lay: Antipas **“feared John, knowing that he was a just man”** and kept him alive; Herodias “had a quarrel against him, and would have killed him; but she could not.” The oath at the birthday feast gave her the opening, and she used her daughter to take it.

Mark says she asked for the head **in a charger**, and that Antipas was **“exceeding sorry”** but would not break his oath before his guests. It is one of the few places in the Gospels where a death is procured by someone who never speaks to the victim.

**Whose wife she had been first is genuinely confused in the sources.** Mark calls her “his brother Philip’s wife”; Josephus names her first husband Herod — a different son of Herod the Great from Philip the Tetrarch of Luke 3:1. The archive records the discrepancy on both this page and the tetrarch’s rather than harmonising it.

Josephus reports that she followed Antipas into exile in Gaul when Caligula deposed him, having refused the emperor’s offer to spare her as Agrippa’s sister.

Also listed in non-christian witnesses and women.

Common questions

When did Herodias live?

Herodias is dated c. 15 BC – after AD 39 (exiled to Gaul) in the archive, which places Herodias in the Apostolic Age (AD 4–70). The dating is traditional and approximate; the archive marks it as uncertain rather than fixing a year the sources do not give.

Which early sources mention Herodias?

Herodias is named in 3 primary-source passages catalogued here, drawn from Mark and Flavius Josephus. Every passage is quoted from a named public-domain translation, earliest first.

Where was Herodias from?

The archive associates Herodias with Galilee, exile in Gaul. The sources record more than one location, so the places are listed in the order the record moves through them.

Who were Herodias’ contemporaries?

The archive links Herodias to 5 other figures, including Herod Antipas, John the Baptist, Salome, daughter of Herodias and Herod the Great. Each connection is drawn from a source that places them together, not from inference.

Scripture record

Primary-source mentions (3)

Every passage below is quoted from a named public-domain translation, earliest first.

Mark 6:17–20

c. AD 29

For Herod had sent forth, and laid hold upon John, and bound him in prison for Herodias’ sake, his brother Philip’s wife: for he had married her. For John had said unto Herod, It is not lawful for thee to have thy brother’s wife. Therefore Herodias had a quarrel against him, and would have killed him; but she could not: for Herod feared John, knowing that he was a just man and an holy, and observed him; and when he heard him, he did many things, and heard him gladly.

Mark · read ↗

Mark 6:24–26

c. AD 29

And she went forth, and said unto her mother, What shall I ask? And she said, The head of John the Baptist. … And the king was exceeding sorry; yet for his oath’s sake, and for their sakes which sat with him, he would not reject her.

Mark · read ↗

Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews XVIII

c. AD 94

[Josephus names Herodias as daughter of Aristobulus and granddaughter of Herod the Great, gives her first husband as **Herod** — not the Philip of Luke 3:1 — and reports that she went with Antipas into banishment in Gaul rather than accept Caligula’s offer of clemency as Agrippa’s sister. He also attributes the defeat of Antipas by Aretas to divine judgement for the death of John, which the Gospels do not.]

Flavius Josephus · Antiquities XVIII.v, vii · source text

Josephus, *Antiquities of the Jews* — held in this library. English: William Whiston (1737), public domain.

Names proposed by later tradition

Herodias’s first husband — Philip or Herod?

Mark 6:17 calls her “his brother Philip’s wife”; Josephus names her first husband Herod, a different son of Herod the Great from Philip the Tetrarch of Luke 3:1. Either the Gospels use a second name of the same man, or the two writers name different men. Recorded, not resolved.