END TIMES?

Chapter 5 - Herod and the Beast's Heads

The Herodian Dynasty:

Now in the next phase of this study, we are going to look at some historical information about genealogies and ethnicities as they came down in time from the Babylonian captivity. This is going to help us identify the "genetic name" if you will, of the beast. Revelation 13:1 says that upon his heads is "the name of blasphemy". So in a rather generic yet legitimate way, we could say the beast's name is "blasphemy". We'll get to the importance of this in a future segment.

Why are the genetics important? It is important because for the most part, the only genetic line that really survived the Babylonian captivity was the line that produced Christ. Of all the tribes of Israel that came down into the 1st century AD; when God speaks of "a remnant" He speaks literally of a remnant. The only tribe that stayed of any resemblance of "in tact", was the tribe of Benjamin. So who'd supplanted the nation of Judah at the point the Babylonians had conquered the land. (The other 10 tribes had already been destroyed by the Assyrians.) Archeology tells us it was the Edomites.

Who is Edom?

The Edomites were the descendants of Esau. Esau was Jacob's brother and Jacob was Abraham's grandson. Jacob had 12 sons who would become the 12 tribes of Israel. The last son born to Jacob was Benjamin. By the time we get to the end of the Babylonian captivity though, the Edomites were known to have migrated across the Persian empire from their original homeland (called Idumea by the Greeks and Romans) before Persia had been conquered by Alexander the Great. They were also known to have held positions of leadership in that empire.

The book of Daniel records for us a vision about a ram with one great horn, which is broken off and 4 other horns take it's place. (Daniel 8) The text itself tells us this ram is the Greek empire. The great horn on this ram is usually interpreted to be Alexander the Great, who's kingdom is divided among four generals after Alexander "mysteriously" dies. (He'd been wounded in a battle, but died two years later under unknown circumstances and for centuries the conspiracy theories about Alexander being murdered have been flying around the history books. He was 32 years old when he died.) Though the text in Daniel never identifies any of these horns by name (these events hadn't happened yet). I believe it is correct to interpret this first great horn as Alexander the Great and the four subsequent as his generals.

Now other than genealogies recorded for us in places like the book of Ezra; (who is coming out of the Babylonian captivity and which lineages they are from) we have no other Scriptural records of anyone's genealogy except for Jesus.

The historian Josephus, states King Herod's (the Herod who died in 4 BC) ancestors came from Idumea, which is part of the nation of Jordan today. (The city of Petra had been an Edomite city about 800 BC.)

King Herod, though he had favor with the Romans who appointed him as a client king in Judea; he really really wanted to believe that he was the Jewish Messiah. Herod had a lot of problems with his Jewish "countrymen" though. They looked at him as an outsider, which could be why Josephus felt the need to point out he was an Edomite (although at this point in history most of "Israel" was of Edomite lineage). Herod was heavily influenced by the Romans and was culturally very Hellenistic (Greek).

The actual genetic makeup of King Herod isn't really known, but the fact that he destroyed the genealogical records when he embarked upon his massive building project of making the second temple bigger; supports Josephus's claim that Herod wasn't "a full Jew" (if he was even really "a Jew" (Judean) at all). So the major "genetic problem" Herod had was that in order to be considered a "candidate" for the Messiah, you had to have been a descendent of King David; (which if Herod had been, he would not have destroyed the genealogical records which would have proved that). So thus Herod's own actions give him away.