Was Herod the Great really evil?

CNN's "Finding Jesus" compares the biblical stories of bloodthirsty King Herod to the historical accounts and evidence of his life. Tune in Sunday nights at 9 p.m. ET/PT.

[spaceorbison]

Next on CNN... "Is Lucifer really a bad guy?".

[owensullivan]

CNN has just hit a new low with this video

[AmosPressley]

Soooo... according to CNN, Herod's murderous paranoia was not a bad thing.
Hmmmm.

Oh! I get it! Maybe he was born that way! All right then, Herod. You do you!

[RabiBenLavi]

And the Egyptian there were no slaves and not a shred of jewish anything was ever found. They were all workers and engineers and all Egyptians.

[charlesmaidoh]

Herod was a brutal and canny ruler who wormed his way to the height of power. He wasn’t Jewish by birth. He was an Arab who married a Jewish princess to solidify or legitimize his reign over his subjects.

Many of the accounts narrated by the Jewish Historian, Josephus Flavius are actually true.Emperor Augustus was so disgusted by Herod’s cruelty towards his family that he once commented that Herod treated his pigs better than his sons.

He restored the Temple of Solomon, (remnants which still stand till today, the wailing wall is an example and a testament to Herod’s grand designs and ingenuity).

[ciaronsmith]

Persians are way cooler than Romans or Greeks. Arguably more influential in many respects. Anybody that has read history knows that. Aryan Zoroastrian culture was absolutely stunning.

[wiseass]

You're KIDDING RIGHT? you better be Fools.

[kingcrazymani]

Last week we had undeniable proof chiseled in stone that Pontius Pilate was Tiberius's Prefect. If you were to find Tiberius's tomb, open it up and slap him around a little, he may recall that meeting in Capri with Herod, where he decided to make Herod the PREFECT (not the king) and say, "there will be nobody dumber than this one among my Rocks (of civilization)". Of course, this is oral history, not chiseled in stone 1900 years after the fact, so "does not count". Tiberius, legend has it, used to roar with laughter saying, "(Jesus) Rex Israelis Est; Balaam (Herod) Rectum Israelis Est."

Who could argue with history books? Last I checked there were no doubt multiple Herods.... Just like the History Channel video I saw years ago saying that Sheba must have been in what is now Ethiopia -- completely disregarding the Yemen story. So stupid some of this official history is now that all a sane person can do is wait until the "never corrected" corrections come out. Sheba evidently is back to having been in Yemen, "always".

[jamesalvarez]

Yes, here’s the Reference to Herod but it’s not so great and the decline of Rome during the war with Mexico and the United states 1846 in opposition to what was considered the “unjust war”:


Have the histories of the ruin of Greek and Roman liberty consequent on such extensions of empire by sword no lesson for us? Many men have achieved the title and have been called great, but most have been great in crime and blood; an Alexander the Great, a Pompey the great, a Ceasar, a Herod the great, a Louis, a Henry, a Frederic, a Charles, a Bonaparte, a Houston. They were great in many things ; great, perhaps, in ability, great in resolution of will, great in means of influence, and striking in their results; but little in the elements of a truly great character; little in honesty, in truth, in love, mean, selfish, crafty, cruel, and implacable. They have been willing to sacrifice any amount of human life or happiness, to secure their end, and be accounted the greatest. But how poor the honor, how blood-stained the glory! How many death-pangs it has taken to refine their thrill of pleasure, how many tears to water their garlands of victory, how much human gore to dye their purple robes of royalty! What curses have loaded their names on earth, what awful memories must haunt them in the world of spirits! It was when the Pretorian Guards of Rome bore the emperor into office by their despotic will, that the mistress of nations began to decline. And when, in any nation, the glorious gifts of Christian statesmanship, and ripe experience, and large converse among men, and a life-time of civil services to one's country and the world, are postponed and set aside for “the conquering hero, " the Genius of rational, heaven-descended Liberty is already meditating her departure to some more congenial clime. We want civilians, not swordsmen; Catos, not Caesars, nor Syllas at the head of Christendom, Christian American and nations. We must show them how much greater in reality Jesus, the well-beloved of the Father, was in washing his disciples' feet, than Xerxes riding forth at the head of his army to lay waste the fairest countries with fire and sword, Jesus dying in ignominy on the cross, than Caesar making a triumphal procession into Rome with the spoils and captives of vanquished kingdoms. 'They have wandered back into the
desolated Pantheon, and there, amongst the Polytheistic relics of that " pale mother of dead empires, " they have found a God whom these Romans, centuries gone by, baptized, "Terminus". We have seen the end of him and his empire. Whoever would know the further fate of the Roman Diety, so recently taken under the bosom of American Democracy, may find ample gratification of his curiosity, in the luminous pages of the historical accounts of "Gibbons Decline and Fall of Rome". For What Rome was in her decline, America was in her infancy! Such will find that Rome thought as you now think, it was her destiny to conquer and divide nations, and no doubt she sometimes says as you do now "I will conquer a peace!". And where now is she, the once omnipotent Rome, Mistress of the World? And it needs no prophet's eye to read, in the future, the impartial condemnation of history. There we shall be defeated, without doubt and without help, No matter however successful we may be in blowing up Mexican cities and dispersing Mexican armies! Sermons, which are now before us, were preached both on the Rio Grande, and at the city of Mexico before the troops, justifying the war, talking largely of the " Anglo Saxon destiny." Comparing the progress of the American arms with the entrance of the children of Israel into the land of Canaan, and giving the sanctions and benedictions of Christianity to the awful wrongs and barbarities of one of the most cruel, sanguinary, and demoralizing wars on record!" But if the period ever arrives to when the second largest republic on earth, Mexico, and by far the most hopeful and consistent one besides our own is blotted out of the record of nations and becomes the “Poland of the west” we shall be condemned in the eyes of heaven and our own as authors to such tremendous a catastrophe! - From the War with Mexico Reviewed, Abiel Abbott Livermore 1845, American Peace Society

[radwulfeboraci]

Herod was a Roman ball sucker and NOT a Jew. When you see massive and never ending building campaigns, think despot & tyrant.

[yvesmartin]

All thinking men are atheists. — Ernest Hemingway

"If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed." --- Albert Einstein

Lighthouses are more helpful than churches. --- Benjamin Franklin

"I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I
dismiss yours." --- Stephen Roberts

Professor Stephen Hawking sets out to answer the question: "Did the Universe need a creator?" The answer he gives is a resounding "no".

"Gods are fragile things; they may be killed by a whiff of science or a dose of common sense." --- Chapman Cohen

"Men never commit evil so fully and joyfully as when they do it for religious convictions" - Blaise Pascal

"No man has ever been brainwashed by science" -- Unknown

"Which is it, is man one of God’s blunders or is God one of man’s?" ---- Friedrich Nietzsche

"A man is accepted into a church for what he believes and he is turned out for what he knows." --- Mark Twain

"Religion is an illusion and it derives its strength from the fact that it falls in with our instinctual desires." ---- Sigmund Freud

"Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived." -- Isaac Asimov

[scopasbrune]

At that time I don't believe they were referred to as the jewish people -- I thought they were Hebrews or Israelites... I'm no scholar so I may be wrong

[TruthShallPrevail]

He ordered the head of the beloved prophet Yahya (John The Baptist).
He wasn’t even good just pure demonic soul. May he forever be dust.

[binghamguevara]

ThTs Emperor Hadrian - not Herod - in the thumbnail.

[anthonyalger]

well, he murdered the small children in Bethlehem to try and stop Jesus the Messiah from accomplishing His work..
..and he was an Arab sitting as king of Judea..






..

[alexjohnson]

"Christians imagination" and then they quote Josephus who acknowledged the resurrection of Jesus Christ...yeah the new bias is unbelievable

[LionofPower]

Someones been watching the hebrew israelites

[James._-]

I'm not trusting that Jews opinion on how things rolled out.

[dominicvanlokeren]

Donald Trump is Mussolini reincarnated. Jared Kushner is King Herod reincarnated.