DID HEROD WANT TO KILL JOHN THE BAPTIST? (MATTHEW 14:5; MARK 6:20)

This is another biblical contradiction you will find listed on the internet. The problem, as critics pose it, is worded as follows: Matthew 14:5 answers 'yes' while in Mark 6:20, the Evangelist states that “it was Herodias, the wife of Herod [Antipas, not to be confused with Herod the Great] who wanted to kill him. But Herod knew that he was a righteous man and kept him safe.”

But before discussing this difference between the two accounts, let us first review those items on which these two Evangelists agree totally:

    1. Herod had John arrested and put him in prison for the sake of his wife Herodias, his brother's wife. It was because John had told him that his marriage to her was unlawful under Jewish law.

    2. At Herod's birthday party, he promised Herodias' daughter anything she wished because of the pleasure he got from watching her dance.

    3. Herodias prompted her to ask for the head of John on a platter.

    4. The king was very sorry for this request but went ahead with it since he could not go back on his oath.   

    5. Later, Herod heard of Jesus' teaching and was afraid that John had come back from the dead.

The sole point of disagreement concerns not any action taking place in the story, but only in the motive ascribed to Herod at the time. And in the absence of any actual words recorded for Herod, the motive must remain speculative on the part of the Evangelists. Alternatively, there could very well have been a number of conflicting thoughts regarding John's person running around in Herod's mind. In this regard, note the following:

The way the above contradiction is worded on the internet (a) gives the misleading impression that according to Mark, Herod's only thoughts toward John were unmitigated admiration and (b) totally ignores the fact that in both accounts Herod was grieved that he had to execute John.

There are actually four different, but not contradictory, motives behind Herod's actions that we can read into the ancient accounts, and all of them have one common factor – fear:

    1. Herod feared the wrath of his wife Herodias if John were allowed to roam free (Mark 6:17,19).

    2. He was afraid of the multitude of people who considered John to be a valid prophet (Matthew 14:5). As Hendricksen says, “He must have realized that by doing this he would be heaping on himself the ill-will of all those people who thought highly of John.”

    3. He was afraid of God's wrath if John really were a prophet (Mark 6:20). As Lane says, Herod “had a superstitious fear of John whom he recognized as a righteous and holy man.”

    4. He was afraid John would start a revolution. For this final motivator, we are indebted to the account by the Jewish historian Josephus, writing some 50 years after the events. Joel Marcus even expresses the opinion that this account may have been more historically accurate those expressed in the Gospels.

Another common motivating factor in Herod's mind can be seen in the opening words of both Matthew's and Mark's accounts – guilt and fear that John had come back to life in the form of Jesus of Nazareth (Matthew 14:1-2; Mark 6:16).

So here is what various commentators have to say concerning what prompted the early sources to stress different thoughts influencing Herod and the interaction between these factors.

Mann states that Josephus “was wholly concerned to trace the political ramifications which led to a war, while the gospel accounts of the death of John have about them the air of rumors and palace intrigue so characteristic of the Herods. Each account is compatible with the other, and each complements the other...Mark “depicts Herod as being 'afraid of the common people' (14:5), and instead offers us a picture of a bewildered man who liked to listen to John – the classical picture of a man drawn two ways.”

Several commentators such as H. Anderson note that Mark's wording draws a purposeful parallel between Herod and King Ahab (I Kings 21:4ff) and between their respective wives, Herodias and Jezebel (I Kings 19:2). Marcus says, “The Elijan echoes are probably not fortuitous because Mark elsewhere identifies the Baptist with Elijah (1:2-8; 9:11-13).” But it should be noted that Matthew has those very same identifications in his Gospel also. Finally, Cummins adds that the events in the book of Esther may have also been in Mark's mind.

Blomberg: “Mark paints a more nuanced and detailed picture of Herod, who combines anger with admiration for John. Matthew's Herod is more unrelentingly antagonistic, and his narrative is characteristically more abbreviated. But there is no contradiction between the two accounts.”

France even suggests that Herod's regret at having to kill John, as expressed in Mathew 14:9, may not have had as much to do with Herod's admiration of him as due to the execution being carried out in such an illegal manner.

Similarly moderating the false picture that Mark's portrait of Herod is wholly sympathetic is Marcus' comment: “Even in Herod's fascination with John, however, there is a sinister undertone, since the strange mixture of fear of, and attraction to, a holy man is reminiscent of the demon's response to the 'Son of the Most High God in 5:6-7.”

In conclusion, it is fitting to quote Albright and Mann's caveat which we should always keep in mind when comparing the gospel accounts with one another: “Such variations in the tradition give us a perspective which enhances our respect for the independence of the gospel records. If all accounts tallied on every score, then we would have every right to entertain great suspicion that the whole account had been 'rigged' or manipulated in the interests of unanimity.”