1. Repentance of John the Baptist
The events in the previous and current chapters regarding John the Baptist’s repentance and his entry into the Kingdom of Heaven do not appear in the Bible. Only the questions from John’s disciples and Jesus’ answers are recorded; I have woven these accounts together with the messianic prophecies of the Old Testament to create this narrative.
It is hard to imagine that John the Baptist, who is believed to have been closely associated with the Essenes, was unaware of the Old Testament prophecies. Furthermore, Jesus’ entire public ministry was carried out in a way that fulfilled these prophecies from beginning to end. Thus, the statement, “the blind receive sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news preached to them” (Matthew 11:5, WEB), alone would have been enough for John to recognize Jesus’ true identity. For this reason, I chose to portray him as having repented, received forgiveness, and entered the Kingdom of Heaven.
While many interpretations and explanations of this event focus only on the moment when John’s faith was shaken, there still remains the possibility that he repented before his death.
If you ask how such a development is possible, I can only give one answer:
“But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins” (Matthew 9:6, Mark 2:10, Luke 5:24 WEB)
What more needs to be said beyond these words of Jesus? Since the authority to forgive sins belongs to Jesus, even John, who doubted Him, could have entered heaven if he had repented.
2. Herodias, Herod Antipas, and Salome
The content related to these three figures was written with reference to Josephus’ Antiquities of the Jews. Although this is not directly related to the main narrative, I would like to briefly mention their later lives:
Salome, who performed the dance, later married another tetrarch, Herod Philip. This Philip was not her father, but a different person with the same name—a son of Herod the Great by Cleopatra of Jerusalem. He ruled his territory peacefully, which was rare in the Herodian dynasty, but died without heirs around AD 34. Salome then remarried her cousin.
Around AD 36, war broke out between Antipas and the king of Nabatea, who was also the father of Antipas’ former wife. Antipas’ army was defeated, and the people interpreted this as punishment for the execution of John the Baptist. Antipas appealed to Emperor Tiberius for help in subduing Nabatea, but this plan was halted when Tiberius died on the way.
The emperor who succeeded Tiberius was the infamous tyrant Caligula. Caligula, who was on good terms with Agrippa, Herodias’ brother, granted Agrippa the vacant tetrarchy of Philip and appointed him as king, not just a tetrarch. Until then, Agrippa had been in debt and had even lived as a guest in Antipas’ household. Herodias, angered that her brother’s status now surpassed her husband’s, persistently urged Antipas—who was reluctant—to appeal to the emperor. At the same time, Agrippa sent a letter to Caligula slandering Antipas, and as a result, Antipas lost his tetrarchy and was exiled to Gaul.
At this time, Caligula, considering that Herodias was Agrippa’s sister, offered her a pardon and the restoration of her property. However, Herodias declared that it would not be right to abandon her husband in misfortune after sharing his joy, and chose to accompany him into exile. In light of this, her love for Antipas seems genuine, and rather than simply seeking power, it appears that her upbringing and past experiences influenced her involvement in the death of John the Baptist. For this reason, I wanted to explore the event from her perspective.
