History of King Herod: Why was he called Great?

The Wise men asked Herod the King:

“Where is he who has been born king of the Jews?”

While this seems an unlikely question to ask a client king of the great Roman Empire, they were not asking in a complete vacuum. During the century around Jesus’ birth, there had been hints.

Historical Context of King Herod

The Roman historian Suetonius, who lived in the late 1st and early 2nd century, had written:

“There had spread over all the East an old and established belief, that it was fated at the time for men coming from Judea to rule the world.”

The Roman senator and historian Tacitus, who lived at the same time, wrote:

“There was a firm persuasion that at this very time the east was to grow powerful and rulers coming from Judea were to acquire a universal empire.”

The Jewish-Roman historian Flavius Josephus writes in his Jewish Wars that the Jews believed that:

One from their country would soon become ruler of the habitable world.

King Herod: Jewish Ruler

However, the Wise Men were asking the currently ruling King of the Jews where the king of the Jews was, perhaps unwisely, and…