Herod’s golden eagle on the Temple gate: a reconsideration

Abstract

Flavius Josephus reports that Herod the Great erected a golden eagle over the great gate of the Jerusalem Temple ( JW 1:648–55; Ant 17:149–63). Sometime before his death, two doctors of the law convinced their disciples to pull the eagle down, for it ‘had been erected in defiance of their fathers’ laws’. Eventually, they were arrested and sentenced to be burned alive by Herod. This account is often taken to reflect Herod’s impious attitudes towards Jewish law, on the one hand, and his unfailing loyalty to the Romans, on the other, the golden eagle supposedly being a symbol of Roman power. However, a careful reading of this account does raise questions serious enough to reconsider its historicity. The present article proposes that the episode of the golden eagle is a martyrdom narrative conveying a legend.