Talk:Herod Agrippa II

message: Why is all the information here based on Acts?  Shouldn't we be using Josephus? john k 20:05, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Acts

message: I have have made some minor changes to the second paragraph of this section to make the sentences easier to read, using shorter alternative synonyms and moving verbs to make the sentence flow.StanleyA1 (talk) 12:29, 12 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Life 

message: The range spans from AD 93 to AD 100. shouldn't that span be put right at the start of the article? (fotoguzzi) 131.252.210.82 (talk) 18:15, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  date of death  

message: This document indicates that the date when Agrippa II and Bernice met with Paul was about 59 AD.  This contridicts the date referenced on the Bernice article (60 AD).  Antonius (Claudius) Feilx was still Roman Procurator in 59 AD.  Porcius Festus was from 60-62AD, the meeting with Paul is probably 60 AD -- since Festus was procurator during the meeting with Agrippa II.  Tesseract501 (talk) 18:15, 1 October 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Discrepency regarding Date with Paul 

message: I've noticed in several articles related to Herodian Judea that references to the Kingdom of Chalcis are linked to Qinnasrin in northern Syria. Qinnasrin is far away from ancient Judea, it's simply not the correct location. Someone must have searched Wikipedia for "Chalcis, Syria" and then found Qinnasrin. In ancient times there were often several places with identical names, some more famous than others. There was a city called Chalcis midway between Berytus (Beirut) and Damascus, in the area of Anjar in Lebanon. This is clearly what we should be looking at. To substantiate what I'm saying (i.e., it's not just speculation), I have linked in the article to Livius.org's article on Herod Agrippa II (), which says "Chalcis was an independent town, halfway between Beyrut and Damascus.". Ideally, I should write an article about the Kingdom of Chalcis and link to that one, but I don't have any articles at my immediate disposal. So I have changed the link in the article to a link to Anjar, Lebanon, rather than Qinnasrin. There's a need for a general clean-up in Chalcis-related articles in this regard, because the error is repeated in several articles. Alfons Åberg (talk) 10:53, 1 December 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Alright, I've created the article Kingdom of Chalcis, translated from the relevant article on Dutch Wikipedia. Alfons Åberg (talk) 14:34, 1 December 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: And I've cleaned up as many of the articles the articles I could find erroneously identifying the Iturean Chalcis with Qinnasrin. BPK (talk) 15:29, 1 December 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Neat! Thank you for your cooperation! Alfons Åberg (talk) 02:21, 3 December 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Location of the Kingdom of Chalcis 

message: Since there is some confusion about the reigns of Herod the Great's grandson and great grandson, and whether or not the great grandson (Agrippa II) had any administrative duties as a king, I wish herein to allay all doubts, based on the following historical records. In Josephus' Book of Antiquities (book 19, chapter 8, verse 2) we learn about the first Agrippa, Agrippa I (who is also called in Hebrew Agrippas), who was the son of Aristobulus IV, the son of Herod the Great, where he writes: "Now, when Agrippa had reigned three years over all Judea, he came to the city Cesarea, which was formerly called Strato's Tower; and there he exhibited shows in honor of Caesar." In the next chapter (ibid., chapter 9, vs. 1), we learn of Agrippa I's death: "And thus did king Agrippa depart this life. But he left behind him a son, Agrippa by name (i.e. Agrippa II), a youth in his seventeenth year of his age, and three daughters, one of whom, Bernice, was married to Herod, his father's brother, and was sixteen years old; the other two, Mariamme and Drusilla, were still virgins." Since Josephus informs us that Agrippa I only reigned 7 years, of which the first four years were entirely under Caius Caesar, it is evident that he died in the 3rd year of Claudius Caesar (see: Antiquities 19.8.2 [end]), or what was then roughly the year 40 CE. In verse 2 of the same chapter, we learn that Claudius Caesar was reluctant at first to confer upon a youth (merely aged 17) such a large kingdom, and so postponed the appointment, sending to Judea Cuspius Fadus to be procurator. In Josephus' Antiquities (book 20, chapter 7, verse 1) we read that in Claudius Caesar's twelfth year of reign, when Agrippa II finally became of an age suitable to rule over his father's kingdom, he bestowed upon Agrippa II "as a gift" the tetrarchy of Philip, and Batanea, and added thereto Trachonites with Abila. It wasn't necessary to say "Judea" because this place was already his dominion, but had mentioned these other places as being added to Agrippa's dominion since they had earlier been divided among King Herod the Great's four sons after his death and they became merely minor kingdoms (tetrarchies). By the time that Nero succeeded Claudius Caesar, in the first year of his reign, he augmented Agrippa II's power by bestowing upon him a certain part of Galilee, Tiberias, Taricheæ (believed to be Magdalla) and Julias (a city of Perea), just as we read in Josephus' Antiquities (book 20, chapter 8, verse 4). Meanwhile, Agrippa II continued to exercise the duty of king over Judea, as we read in Josephus (Antiquities 20.8.8) where it says: "About this time king Agrippa gave the high priesthood to Ismael, who was the son of Fabi." And later on (ibid., verse 11): "King Agrippa built himself a very large dining-room in the royal palace at Jerusalem." While the king may have been a "puppet king," he was still nonetheless the legitimate king of Judea. The same king Agrippa II later removed Ismael as the Jewish high priest and appointed Jesus the son of Damneus to succeed him (Antiquities 20.9.1), who too was supplanted by Jesus the son of Gamliel, by order of Kink Agrippa II (ibid. vs. 4). Although a vassal king, King Agrippa II had the care of the Temple committed to him as early as Claudius Caeasar's reign, just as we learn in Antiquities 20. 9. 7. But for those who assay to think that he was not the legitimate king of Judea, consider that in Josephus' book, The Jewish War (book 2, chapter 14, verse 4) it says: "At this time it happened that the Grecians at Caesarea had been too hard for the Jews, and had obtained of Nero the government of the city[...] in the twelfth year of the reign of Nero, and the seventeenth of the reign of Agrippa." By saying that Agrippa II began to reign five years before Nero's reign, here, no doubt, he is referring to the 9th year of Claudius Caesar's rein (who ruled for a total of 13 years, 7 months and 28 days, according to Epiphanius' chronology of the Caesars and their reigns in his "Treatise on Weights and Measures"), when Agrippa II (the youth) was then made the acting king of Judea, roughly in the year 46 CE, at the age of about 23 (some 6 years after his father had died) - since, as yet, there was no other kingdom committed unto his trust! And by the time when the war with the Romans had begun in earnest, and Agrippa was returning from a short visit to Alexandria in Egypt, it was this same king Agrippa II who tried to dissuade the people from fighting against Rome, as we read in Wars of the Jews (book 2, chapter 16, vss. 2-4), and where it says explicitly about him: "The high priests and men of power among the Jews, as well as the Sanhedrin, came to congratulate the king [upon his safe return]" (Wars 20.16.2). Josephus would have been a contemporary with King Agrippa II. In fact, Josephus says of this king and his father (Wars 5.4.2): "...the father of the present king, and of the same name with him, Agrippa, began that wall we spoke of; but he left off building it when he had only laid the foundation, out of the fear he was in of Claudius Caesar." It is, therefore, conclusive that Agrippa II was, indeed, a king over Judea, and this fact ought to be mentioned in this article. There is no reason to expunge this fact. By the way, the word "ethnarch" as used with reference to Herod Archelaus (the king who reigned before Agrippa I) is used to define a king who rules over one-half of the territorial dominion of the previous king (see: Antiquities 17.11.4).Davidbena (talk) 21:15, 12 December 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Agrippa I and Agrippa II 

message: It is plain from Josephus that, while Herod Agrippa II was still a "puppet king" of Rome, he did indeed begin to exercise regal power over his kingdom in Judea about six years after his father's death, which was then the 9th year of the reign of Claudius Caesar. This is evident by Josephus' words in The Jewish War (book 2, chapter 14, verse 4), that "the twelfth year of the reign of Nero" was actually "the seventeenth year of the reign of Agrippa II." Taking the regnal years of the Caesars into account, this takes us back to the 9th year of Claudius Caesar's reign when he reinstated Herod Agrippa II as the king of Judea. It was only 5 or 6 years later, however, during the first year of Nero's reign (after Claudius Caesar had already died) that Herod Agrippa II was also given kingship over "a certain part of Galilee, Tiberias, Taricheæ (believed to be Magdalla) and Julias (a city of Perea)," just as we read in Josephus' Antiquities (book 20, chapter 8, verse 4). This makes Agrippa II the legitimate king over Judea, Galilee and Perea. The king before Herod Agrippa II, his father by the same name (Herod Agrippa I) and the potentate who ruled before him (Herod Archelaus), were all the legitimate kings of Judea - with different levels of power; Herod Archelaus ruling only over one-half of his father's kingdom (called "ethnarch"), just as we read in Antiquities 17.11.4, and Herod Agrippa I ruling over 1/4 of his grandfather's kingdom (tetrach), but holding on to Judea. The titles "ethnarch" and "tetrach" do not diminish from the fact that these are still kings, albeit kings over territories divided among other kings. A tetrach is defined as the governor of one of four divisions of a country or province. For your information: Agrippa is called in our Jewish historical records as "the king" (Heb. אגריפס המלך), just as we find in the Mishnah (Sotah 7:6) and in the Midrash Rabba (Leviticus Rabba 3:5). Josephus, likewise, mentions this Herod Agrippa II as being the king during his own time, as we learn in the Wars of the Jews (book 5, chapter 4, verse 2): "...the father of the present king, and of the same name with him, Agrippa, began that wall we spoke of [in Jerusalem]; but he left off building it when he had only laid the foundation, out of the fear he was in of Claudius Caesar." Herod Agrippa II, in all this time, continued to exercise the duty of king over Judea, as we read in Josephus (Antiquities 20.8.8) where it says: "About this time king Agrippa gave the high priesthood to Ismael, who was the son of Fabi." And later on (ibid., verse 11): "King Agrippa built himself a very large dining-room in the royal palace at Jerusalem." The same king Herod Agrippa II later removed Ismael as the Jewish high priest and appointed Jesus the son of Damneus to succeed him (Antiquities 20.9.1), who too was supplanted by Jesus the son of Gamliel, by order of King Herod Agrippa II (ibid. vs. 4). It is, therefore, conclusive from these historical records that Herod Agrippa II was also the legitimate king of Judea, albeit a "vassal king."Davidbena (talk) 17:00, 17 December 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: What exactly were the powers invested in King Agrippa II vis-à-vis Judaea is unclear, as this has not been fully disclosed by the historian Josephus. And as someone else once wrote, "...the question is partly one of long-term impact and distortions of the local situation which are produced when a region becomes involved in the Roman empire, either as a province (like Judaea and Galilee from 63 BCE), or else as a client kingdom (like Judaea between 37 BCE and 6 CE) and Galilee even longer." (End Quote). We are to remember too that Simon bar Giora filled the vacuum left by King Agrippa II who had left the city of Jerusalem during the outbreak of the war with Rome.Davidbena (talk) 16:20, 4 April 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Herod Agrippa II and his reign over Judea 

message: The family tree, as opposed to relating all these links in text, is a good idea, and much quicker to ingest.
It would benefit from dates, in my opinion, or even date ranges, if anyone is in a position to provide them, eg, "b.30AD-d.93 to 100AD".
Nick Barnett (talk) 12:31, 17 June 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  The family tree