Why does Mark call Antipas 'King'?
Historical Error... or Literary Artistry?
If there is any gospel I feel sorry for, it is the gospel of Mark.
Widely referred to as the ‘Second Gospel’ (when in fact it was the first), Mark has had a rather rough reception from ancient times to the present. The main culprit here is one of Mark’s earliest readers, whom we now call Matthew (of First Gospel fame).
Matthew took over nearly the entirety of Mark (600 of his 660 verses) – many word for word – but also spruced up Mark in various ways: he added extra material (a birth story, post-resurrection appearances, the sermon on the mount), took out some of Mark’s weirder and more interesting moments (like when a young man flees naked in Gethsemane) and smoothed out the rougher parts of Mark’s grammar and vocabulary.
The effect is a sort of Mark 2.0. Although the result was not so much an update as a near total eclipse of the earlier model. Mark’s gospel was not nearly as popular as Matthew, nor copied out as frequently by Christian scribes. Moreover, since Matthew came to be (wrongly) attributed to Matthew, Mark’s gospel could not compete against the super attribution to one of Jesus’ own disciples. In its classic treatment by Saint Augustine, Mark’s gospel was a mere abbreviation of Matthew’s earlier text.
Fast forward to the twentieth century, and a close literary analysis had rectified some of these earlier mistakes. If there is one prized result of New Testament scholarship since the modern era, it is that of Markan priority. A huge body of converging evidence shows that Mark wrote first, and then Matthew and Luke made use of Mark.
Still, Mark was not often given the literary credit it deserved. According to the form-critics in the early twentieth century, Mark was not really an author as much as he was a chronicler. His main achievement was collecting together earlier oral traditions, placing them side by side like beads on a string. Even today, Mark is sometimes seen as an unfinished note-book (hypomnemata) rather than a complete, literary work.1
To be clear, Mark was no Homer – though some believe he leant on the poet.2 In the Graeco-Roman world, only Homer (and perhaps Virgil) was Homer. Nor do I believe, as it is now fashionable to say, that Mark and the evangelists were “elite cultural producers,” writing for a cadre of similarly-educated Roman intellectuals. I think my doctoral supervisor more accurately characterises Mark as a “middle brow” work.3
Yet the point remains that Mark was a writer of considerable literary genius. It is now widely recognised that the gospels are some type of ancient “life-writing” or biography (bios).4 As far as we know, then, Mark was the first person to have the idea to set out the ‘good news’ in the form of a biography. His ‘beginning of the good news’ (1:1) refers not to an abstract set of ideas about Christ, but to the life of Jesus itself.
Literary Techniques in Biography
There are many theoretical debates as to what kind of biography Mark is, which I waded into elsewhere.5 Yet whether we see Mark as a fictionalising work (like that of Aesop) or a more historical biography (akin to Suetonius’ Lives), one of the immediate payoffs of reading Mark as a bios is to acknowledge his literary artistry. Mark was not merely compiling material – he can, and indeed must, be appreciated as an author.
In his literary arsenal, Mark employs a panoply of familiar techniques. From the outset of his gospel, he plunges us into a world of irony, secrecy and foreboding, culminating in stunning moments of recognition (anagnorisis) like the transfiguration and the cross.6 Moreover, like other biographers, Mark crafts Jesus’ death in conformity with his teaching – though his slave-like death subverting noble ideals.7
Even more wonderfully, Mark hides a number of ‘easter eggs’, which invite his readers to go back through his narrative to grasp their true meaning. (The most famous of these is the aforementioned young man). And most deliciously of all, he serves us several literary ‘sandwiches’, placing one story inside another to create new layers of meaning. (Elsewhere, I have written on the widow’s mite, the haemorrhaging woman, and the fig tree as good examples of this ‘sandwiching’ technique)
In this piece, however, I want to draw attention to another literary device which was common in ancient biography. The Greeks called it synkrisis – judging one character alongside another. Today, we think of it more simply as contrast or comparison.
Synkrisis is smattered across the biographies of the early imperial period – the epoch in which the Gospels were composed. For example, in his Life of Caligula, Suetonius launches a literary assault on the deranged Emperor. But instead of diving straight into his crimes, he first puts on display the saintly Prince, Germanicus.
It might seem like a simple technique to us. Yet synkrisis was so prized by ancient biographers that it often became the organising scheme of their work. Here we might think of Cornelius Nepos’ lives, which places military and illustrious men side-by-side, or Plutarch’s Parallel Lives, which compares Greeks and Roman figures like for like. While Suetonius’ Lives of the Twelve Caesars can be read more discretely, the collection as a whole also invites comparison of the early Emperors of Rome.
Comparison was certainly not limited to biography. But given how popular synkrisis was in ancient life-writing, it is no surprise that readers have detected its presence throughout the gospels. Commentators have pointed to the way that John is contrasted with Jesus in the Lukan infancy narrative; Judas is contrasted with Peter and Jesus in Matthew; and Jesus and the High Priest are contrasted in John.
A Tale of Two Banquets
My favourite example of synkrisis in the gospels is nestled within Mark chapter 6.
Here, for the first (and only) time in Mark’s bíos, the narrative takes a significant detour from Jesus. We are suddenly taken to Herod’s birthday banquet, at which Herod offers Herodias’ daughter up to half of his kingdom. She requests the death of John the Baptist, and Herod’s hand is forced. According to Mark, Herod liked listening to John, but he does not want to lose face and so complies with the request.
From a literary and historical standpoint, there is much about this scene which is strange. For a start, it doesn’t seem to have anything to do with Jesus, the subject of nearly every scene in Mark from beginning to end. While the death of John is surely an interesting point of historical context – and has some linguistic parallels with Jesus’ death later on – the clear focus of the narrative is Herod.
Even more unusual is the fact that Mark repeatedly describes Herod Antipas as a basileus – a king. Anyone who knew anything about Herod the Great’s son, Antipas, knew that Antipas was not a king, but a tetrarch (literally, a ‘ruler of a fourth’). When King Herod died, his son did not inherit his title and received only a portion of his kingdom. This apparently did not please Antipas’ wife, who at one point sent him off to Rome to petition for the title. For these efforts, Antipas was banished in 39 CE.
The fact that Mark calls Antipas a king has sometimes been seen as betraying Mark’s lack of historical awareness. Perhaps he was confusing King Herod the Great with his son. This would be as egregious an error as a modern historian referring to William Gladstone, the British MP, with his father, William Gladstone – the PM!
Yet when we bear synkrisis in mind, there may be another reason why Mark calls Antipas king. For the only other character that Mark calls a king is Jesus. And the very narrative that follows Herod’s banquet is another kingly banquet: the feeding of the five thousand. Instead of making a historical blunder, Mark is inviting us to compare the respective “kingship” of Herod and Jesus. As Gabriella Gelardini has framed it, the two banquets should be seen as “The Contest for a Royal Title.”8
A Tale of Two Kings
How then does ‘King’ Herod compare with King Jesus? Others have offered an extensive scholarly comparison.9 But it is really enjoyable to read through the text for oneself and notice points of similarity and contrast. I was recently leading a seminar on reading Mark as an ancient biography, and here are three things that stood out:
Fear versus compassion. In this scene, Antipas’ violent actions are driven by fear. Modelled on King Ahasuerus in the book of Esther, Antipas offers Herodias’ daughter up ‘to half of his kingdom’.10 When she requests John’s head, he does not want to kill him, because he recognises that he was a ‘righteous’ man. But he puts John to death anyway, because he does not want to lose face in front of his esteemed guests.
By contrast, Jesus’ kingship is motivated by compassion. Mark tells us that Jesus had ‘compassion’ on the people, because they were like ‘sheep without a shepherd.’ This shepherding image is commonly used of kings in the Hebrew Bible and the wider ancient near east. It is no surprise, then, that when John retells the story of the feeding of the five thousand, the crowds attempt ‘to make him king’ (6:15).
The Elite versus the Crowds. The whole atmosphere of Herod’s banquet is marked by opulence and exclusivity. The occasion is the king’s birthday, and so he invites his ‘high officials and military commanders and the leading men of Galilee.’ Herod surrounds himself with people just like himself in a who’s who of Galilean society.
Jesus’ banquet is also an abundant affair. Mark says that the crowds ‘reclined’ on the green grass. Together with the language of a symposion (a drinking party) and the presence of fish (a standard condiment of classical dining), we are to picture a lavish banquet. Yet while Antipas’ lavish banquet was exclusive, Jesus’ is inclusive. It does not take place among social elites, but among the throng of the Galilean poor.
The Feeding of the Five Thousand?
The story is often called the feeding of the five thousand – but this only counts the men (ἀνήρ). If we assume that women and children are also present, this makes for an even larger and diverse crowd of people.
That Mark is leading us to imagine that Jesus is the king of all Israel is suggested by two further details in the narrative. One is the number of baskets left over – twelve – which represents the fullness of the twelve tribes of Israel.
Another is the way that Jesus organises the crowds into groups of ‘hundreds and fifties.’ This invokes the way that Moses organised the Israelites when he led them into the wilderness (Exod. 18:25-26; cf. Deut. 1:13-15). In the Dead Sea Scrolls, we find a similar expectation for the organisation of a great banquet of Israel when the Messiah comes (1QRule 1:27-2:21).
Death versus Healing. Finally, ‘King’ Herod is modelled on the tyrants of the Hebrew Bible who oppress the righteous people of God. Like the Gentile rulers chastised later in Mark’s gospel, he ‘lords’ his authority over others. The result is that when he sends out those under his authority, it is on a mission for death.
The contrast here with King Jesus could not be sharper. Jesus also has people under his authority, but in the narrative that precedes Herod’s feast, he sends them out to extend the Kingdom of God, preaching, healing and casting out demons. Moreover, in Jesus’ feast itself, a situation of despair (not having food to eat) is turned into a situation of abundance. Jesus appears not as a ruthless tyrant, but as a true philosopher king, who both teaches the people and satisfies their hunger.
The Importance of Synkrisis
Wrapping up, there are four reasons that I like this example of synkrisis so much – and four corresponding lessons we can draw from it for reading the gospels:
The first is that it is not at all obvious upon a first reading. It is only when we have synkrisis in mind – when we consider the techniques available to an ancient biographer – that we work out what Mark is doing. Once we have seen it, we can’t un-see it. This establishes the importance of understanding the gospels as writing within a particular literary milieu for uncovering their meaning.
The second is that it goes against one scholarly narrative about Mark, that he was a shoddy writer whose gospel is rife with factual errors. While I think that Mark was fallible, one of his mistakes – calling Antipas ‘King’ – turns out to be a key literary move which unlocks the synkrisis between Herod and Jesus.
The third is that it forces us to move beyond a ‘lectionary’ reading of Scripture as individual units. In more traditional churches, Herod’s banquet is often read as a stand-alone episode (in Matthew’s version). This does not allow us to fully appreciate the way that Mark has placed the two kingly banquets side-by-side for comparison. I once heard a Professor say that ‘one should never read a bible verse.’ One might expand their advice and say: one should never read a pericope!
Finally, I enjoy this synkrisis of Herod and Jesus because it guides the reader without over-determining what comparisons the reader will draw. Mark is gently inviting us to make a comparison – to read the two characters side-by-side – but the actual work of comparing the two figures is left to the reader. Perhaps then, I might invite you to do the same. Read through the story of Mark 6 again and see how the kings and their kingdoms compare. What points stand out to you?
Thank you for reading this piece! If you enjoyed it, you might also like:
See Matthew D.C. Larson, Gospels Before the Book (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018).
For example, Dennis R. McDonald, The Homeric Epics and the Gospel of Mark (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000).
See Helen K. Bond, The First Biography of Jesus: Genre and Meaning in Mark’s Gospel (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2020).
See Steve Walton, ‘What Are the Gospels? Richard Burridge’s Impact on Scholarly Understanding of the Genre of the Gospels’, CBR 14 n.1 (2015): 91.
See John D. Nelson, Jesus’ Physical Appearance: Biography, Christology, Philosophy, LNTS 715 (London: T&T Clark, 2025), 57-89.
For an overview of Mark’s literary techniques, see David M. Rhoads, Joanna Dewey, Donald Michie, Mark as Story: An Introduction to the Narrative of a Gospel, 3rd ed. (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2012).
See Helen K. Bond, “A Fitting End? Self-Denial and a Slave’s Death in Mark’s Life of Jesus,” NTS 65 n.4 (2019): 425–42.
Gabriella Gelardini, “The Contest for a Royal Title: Herod versus Jesus in the Gospel According to Mark (6,14–29; 15,6–15),” ASE 28 (2011): 93–106.
See Bond and Gelardini (above).
Esther 5:3, 5:6, 7:2.