The Salome No One Knows - The BAS Library

Footnotes

1.

But she is also known by several other names—Shel-Zion, Shalmonin, Shalmza and Shlamto. The esteemed historian of ancient Judaism Jacob Neusner has called her “a queen whose name no one can get straight.”3 The Dead Sea Scrolls have now revealed for the first time in more than 2,000 years her real name: Shelamzion. Its shorter version is Salome.4

2.

The first compendium of Jewish law and the core of the Talmud.

Endnotes

1.

Salome’s dance (Matthew 14:1–12; Mark 6:17–29); Antipas the “fox” (Luke 13:31–32). The name of Herodias’s daughter is mentioned by the historian Josephus in his Antiquities (Antiquities 18.136). She is not to be confused with the Salome who accompanied Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James to anoint Jesus’ body (Mark 16:1–8).

2.

Salome Alexandra is mentioned in 4QpapHistorical Text C (4Q331 1 ii 7) and 4QHistorical Text D (4Q332 2 4).

3.

Exodus 20:3. For additional discussions and literature on Hellenism, see Victor Tcherikover, Hellenistic Civilization and the Jews (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1959); Eric S. Gruen, The Hellenistic World and the Coming of Rome, 2 vols. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984); Martin Hengel, Judaism and Hellenism: Studies in Their Encounter in Palestine During the Early Hellenistic Period, 2 vols. (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1974).

4.

Antiochus’ decrees (1 Maccabees 1:16–63; 2 Maccabees 5–7; War 1.34–35; Antiquities 12.242–264); “Hasmonean” (Antiquities 12.265; War 1.36). For Judas’s nickname see 2 Maccabees 8:1, which was used as a name for his family as well. Scholars continue to debate the reasons for Antiochus’s proscription of Judaism and the extent to which many Jews had embraced Hellenism at this time. See further Lee I. Levine, “The Age of Hellenism: Alexander the Great and the Rise and Fall of the Hasmonean Kingdom,” in H. Shanks, ed., Ancient Israel: From Abraham to the Roman Destruction of the Temple, rev. and expanded (Washington D.C./Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Biblical Archaeology Society & Prentice Hall, 1999), pp. 231–251.

5.

The math is not easy, but it is there if you look carefully: Salome Alexandra, who ruled for nine years, died at 73, which would make her 64 years old when she ascended the throne in 76 B.C.E. Her husband, Alexander Jannaeus, reigned for 27 years (103–76 B.C.E.), which would make her 37 years old in 103 B.C.E. when he became king. He was either 49 or 51 when he died (his age at the time of his death is uncertain due to variants in the manuscripts). He was either 24 or 22 when Aristobulus’s widow, Salina, placed Jannaeus on the throne. The result: A bride of 29 and a groom of somewhere between 14 and 16.

6.

Antiquities 13.345–346.

7.

According to Josephus (Antiquities 13.398; War 1.106), the city was located in the region of Gerasa east of the Jordan and is likely identified with Regeb in Perea.

8.

War 1.107. Translation from H. St. J. Thackeray, Josephus: The Jewish War, Books I–III (Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1926), p. 53.

9.

Antiquities 13.409. Translation from Ralph Marcus, Josephus: Jewish Antiquities, Books XII–XIV (Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1966), p. 433.

10.

B. Ta’anit 23a. Quotation adapted from Neusner, The Rabbinic Traditions about the Pharasees Before 70, Part 1: The Masters (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1971), p. 106.

11.

Antiquities, 13.407–409. Translation adapted from Marcus, Josephus, 431–433. For the Pharisees during the Hasmonean period, see Steve Mason, Flavius Josephus on the Pharisees (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1991), esp. pp. 82–115, 246–259.

12.

For this evidence, see J.C. VanderKam, “Pesher Nahum and Josephus,” in A.J. Avery-Peck, D. Harrington and J. Neusner, eds., When Judaism and Christianity Began (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2004), vol. 1, pp. 299–311.

13.

See Ehud Netzer, The Palaces of the Hasmoneans and Herod the Great (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 2001), pp. 30–39.

14.

Antiquities 13.411 (Loeb ed.).

15.

Antiquities 13.430 (Loeb ed.).

16.

 Jacob Neusner, The Rabbinic Traditions About the Pharisees Before 70, Part I: The Masters (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1971), p. 139.

17.

 For the various spellings of Salome, see Tal Ilan, Lexicon of Jewish Names in Late Antiquity Part I: Palestine 330 B.C.E.–200 C.E. (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2002), pp. 249–252. Gunter Mayer (Die jüdische Frau in der hellenistisch-römischen Antike [Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, 1987], pp. 107, 110) suggests that Salome is a Hebrew name whereas Shelamzion is Aramaic. Based on a newly discovered ossuary of two sisters, I believe that Shelamzion and Salome are variations of the same name and that each was spelled several ways in Greek and Aramaic. I plan to deal with this issue fully in a planned biography of Salome Alexandra. For these inscriptions, see T. Ilan, “New Ossuary Inscriptions from Jerusalem,” Scripta Classica Israelica 11 (1991/92), pp. 155–157.