The Speculations of Herod

Mark For Everyone

MARK 6.14–16The Speculations of Herod...

...Private life is a modern invention. Until quite recently, most people lived in small communities where everyone knew every- one else’s business. Until a few hundred years ago, everybody heard what was going on in the world by talking to neighbours and strangers, gossiping in market-places, and passing on stories of anything curious or striking. Only the royal, and the very rich, could afford something approaching privacy; and they achieved it, often enough, by employing deaf-mute slaves. Even then, word would often leak out as to what the king was doing . . .

That’s the background for understanding what Herod heard about Jesus, and for that matter what the early Christians knew about Herod. In Britain to this day, rumours about royalty are passed to and fro between gossip columnists and fashion magazines; if a member of the royal family comes to town (or, in countries without royalty, if the President comes to town) local people will talk for weeks about who she spoke to, what she said, what she wore, and so on. How much more in a culture like first-century Palestine, without newsprint, radio or television...

Taken from Mark for Everyone by Tom Wright