A Pious Queen

Salome Alexandra (Hebrew: Shalemzion) is an often-overlooked figure in the 2^nd Temple period of Jewish history. Debated and conflicting accounts of her reign as queen leave us with an incomplete picture of her character and impact. She is the only woman explicitly named in the Dead Sea Scrolls (4Q322-4Q324) and scholars believe she is negatively alluded to as a harlot in the Pesher Nahum scroll.[1] Yet, the accounts in the Talmud praise her peaceful and prosperous reign. We encounter her on the pages of Josephus’ histories in both Wars and Antiquities. However, even his two accounts of her life paint different pictures of her character. As the scope of this biographical sketch is narrow, it will rely primarily on Josephus’s accounts.

According to Antiquities, it seems Alexandra was married to Aristobulus I of the Hasmonean dynasty. There is some debate on this point, for in Wars the name of his queen is Salina Alexandra. It is possible these are attempts to render the queen’s Hebrew name into Greek[2] or that Josephus is unifying the accounts of two different women.[3] Assuming that it is the same woman, Alexandra became a widow and upon Aristobulus I’s death she released his brother Alexander Jannus from prison and made him king. Though it is not explicitly stated, it seems that Alexandra married Alexander Jannus, possibly as a levirate marriage as she had no children with Aristobulus I. Alternatively, it is conceivable that a marriage to the queen may have been expedient for political reasons to ensure Alexander’s right to the throne. Despite these questions the couple had two children during his 27-year reign. The king and youngest son were seemingly allied to the Sadducees while the queen and eldest son favored the Pharisees. After her husband’s death she imparted power to the Pharisees and gained their support, thus sealing her authority as regnant queen. She appointed her oldest son Hyrcanus II as high priest because he was uninterested in politics, and she restored the traditions and practices of the Pharisees that had been abolished. Toward the end of her 9-year rule she became ill and her youngest son, Aristobulus II, attempted to seize control of the government. He aligned himself with his father’s former friends and took control of several of the fortresses. When Alexandra realized she was in danger of a coup, she and the elders of the Jews feared his retribution and they put Aristobulus II’s wife and children in prison. Alexandra died without resolution to her children’s battle for control. She did not give any last orders to be administered upon her death but remarked that she was leaving them a happy, prosperous nation with a good army. After her death, her sons engaged in a civil war for power and invited Roman intervention. Ultimately this move brought about the invasion and control of the kingdom by the Roman republic.

Alexandra’s contributions were essential to the safety and affluence of the kingdom and later rabbinic writers praised her rule as a sort of ‘golden age.’[4] Even those that diminish her influence or erase her from historical accounts altogether still regard this time in Judea as successful and peaceful.[5] In Wars, Josephus depicts her as a woman who was beloved by the people because of her piety, her study of the ancient customs, and because she was displeased by crimes that her husband had perpetrated. Going even further, she banished those within the government who had transgressed the holy laws (Wars 1.5.1). She was also skilled and astute in the management of government affairs. Seeing to the issues of the kingdom, she doubled the size of their army, procured foreign troops, and became strong and feared by other surrounding nations. Yet, Josephus continues to remind the reader of the powers at play stating, “she governed other people, and the Pharisees governed her” (Wars 1.5.2). It seems he only begrudgingly acknowledges that she prevented the invasion of Tigranes, king of Armenia, by sending ambassadors and gifts to him as he was besieging Cleopatra Selene in Ptolemais. In Antiquities, Josephus paints an even less favorable picture of her. He describes her at Alexander Jannus’s deathbed as a desperate and desolate woman, weeping and bemoaning about the condition she and her children were left in. Josephus gives Alexander the credit for hatching the scheme to pacify the Pharisees by giving them power (Antq. 13.16.5). In his closing statement on her reign Josephus gives a mixed review of her accomplishments and character:

A woman she was who showed no signs of the weakness of her sex, for she was sagacious to the greatest degree in her ambition of governing, and demonstrated by her doings at once, that her mind was fit for action, and that sometimes men themselves show the little understanding they have by the frequent mistakes they make in point of government; for she always preferred the present to futurity, and preferred the power of an imperious dominion above all things, and in comparison of that, had no regard to what was good or what was right. However, she brought the affairs of her house to such an unfortunate condition, that she was the occasion of the taking away that authority from it, and that in no long time afterward, which she had obtained by a vast number of hazards and misfortunes, and this out of a desire of what does not belong to a woman, and all by a compliance in her sentiments with those that bare ill will to their family, and by leaving the administration destitute of a proper support of great men; and indeed, her management during her administration, while she was alive, was such as filled the palace after her death with calamities and disturbance. However, although this had been her way of governing, she preserved the nation in peace. (Antq. 13.16.6)

Though her life work is not evenly represented, the time of her reign was one of stability and prosperity and she was considered a formidable queen that stalled a sibling war for power.

Alexandra’s main contribution to the culture of the New Testament is the power she imparted to the Pharisees. During her reign, they enjoyed a resurgence to prominence and became influential in the kingdom’s politics. Many of the religious regulations that had been abolished under previous rulers were reinstated and some of the rules that began during this time period were carried on and became the foundation for traditions found in Jewish first century life.[6] The religious rivalry between the Pharisees and Sadducees would continue past her death but her patronage of the Pharisees played a decisive role in shaping the Judaism of Jesus’ day. The fight between her sons is an illustration of the battle that was waging between these two powerful groups with different ideas and agendas. Her sons’ civil war would also prove to have far reaching political consequences by establishing Roman rule in Judea and setting in place the final kingdom from Daniel’s vision before the arrival of the Kingdom of God. During the time the Hasmoneans ruled independently they violated the laws by combining the offices of high priest and king, yet in her time Alexandra was able to separate the balance of powers between religious leaders and government leaders. The proper unification of those roles could only be achieved in Christ, our high priest and king.

[1]Kenneth Atkinson, "Shelamzion Alexandra: A Hasmonean Golden Age," in A History of The Hasmonean State: Josephus and Beyond, 134–145. Jewish and Christian Texts. London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2016. Accessed October 17, 2020. http://dx.doi.org.dtl.idm.oclc.org/10.5040/9780567669056.ch-006.
[2]Grabbe, Lester L. "The Hasmonaean Kingdom: From Jonathan to Alexandra Salome (161 to 67 BCE)." In A History of Jews and Judaism in the Second Temple Period: The Maccabaean Revolt, Hasmonaean Rule, and Herod the Great (175–4 BCE), 388–428. London: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2020. Accessed October 16, 2020. http://dx.doi.org.dtl.idm.oclc.org/10.5040/9780567692962.ch-016.
[3] Ilan Ṭal. Silencing the Queen : The Literary Histories of Shelamzion and Other Jewish Women. Texte Und Studien Zum Antiken Judentum = Texts and Studies in Ancient Judaism, 115. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006.
[4] Grabbe, 425.
[5] Ilan, 37.
[6]Atkinson, Kenneth. Queen Salome : Jerusalem's Warrior Monarch of the First Century B.c.e. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2012.

Atkinson, Kenneth. Queen Salome : Jerusalem's Warrior Monarch of the First Century B.c.e. Jefferson,N.C.: McFarland, 2012.

———. "Shelamzion Alexandra: A Hasmonean Golden Age." In A History of The Hasmonean State: Josephus and Beyond, 134–145. Jewish and Christian Texts. London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2016. Accessed October 17, 2020. http://dx.doi.org.dtl.idm.oclc.org/10.5040/9780567669056.ch-006.

Berrin, Shani. The Pesher Nahum Scroll from Qumran : An Exegetical Study Of 4Q169. Leiden: BRILL, 2004. Accessed October 16, 2020. ProQuest Ebook Central.

Freedman, David Noel. The Anchor Bible Dictionary. 1st ed. New York: Doubleday, 1992.

Grabbe, Lester L. "The Hasmonaean Kingdom: From Jonathan to Alexandra Salome (161 to 67 BCE)." In A History of Jews and Judaism in the Second Temple Period: The Maccabaean Revolt, Hasmonaean Rule, and Herod the Great (175–4 BCE), 388–428. London: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2020. Accessed October 16, 2020. http://dx.doi.org.dtl.idm.oclc.org/10.5040/9780567692962.ch-016.

Ilan Ṭal. Silencing the Queen : The Literary Histories of Shelamzion and Other Jewish Women. Texte Und Studien Zum Antiken Judentum = Texts and Studies in Ancient Judaism, 115. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006.

Josephus, Flavius, and William Whiston. The Works of Josephus : Complete and Unabridged. New updated ed. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2008.