The truth about Berenice, sister of Herod Agrippa II

 

As in the Berenice mentioned with him late in Acts.

Per Bruce Chilton, not only will you not find it in Acts (shock me), you also won't find it in Josephus.

First, background. Given Paul's accusation of taking goys into the Holy Place, when he said it was for Jews fulfilling a Nazirite vow, Chilton notes that a couple of years later, she completed her own such vow, complete with shorn hair. That was after Florus replaced Festus. He then notes it was Berenice, not Agrippa II, who appealed to Florus, head still shorn, at this point. Josephus will tell you that, as he'll later tell you that she started an affair with Titus, which drew the ire of later Roman historians such as Dio Cassius.

But, he'll also claim Berenice and Agrippa II had an incestuous relationship. That said, he attacks her morals, not his, in a mix of sexism and probably some sort of political triangulation.

Chilton later scores him on that issue.

This is part of a new book by Chilton. In a later paragraph, he explains why:

Part of the enjoyment of conducting research was that Berenice made an impact on Roman sources, and evaluating them made a break from the attention to Aramaic texts that has preoccupied me in recent years. Yet whether in Latin or in Greek, whether or not pagan, and whether Christian or Jewish, the ancient sources are palpably wary of Berenice. Acts is not the only writing that doesn’t let her come to voice. (Oddly, Luke in Acts 24:24 does not even mention that Drusilla, the wife of Festus’ predecessor Felix, was Berenice’s sister.) Other members of the Herodian dynasty were also controversial, Herod the Great most of all. But Herod had an apologist, Nicholas of Damascus, who permitted that vicious but effective king to come to voice in the pages of the Jewish historian Josephus. Berenice had no such defender, and Josephus—who might reasonably have taken her part—joined in the rumor that Berenice engaged in incest with her brother, Agrippa II (Antiquities 20 §§ 145-146). In regard to Berenice, Josephus showed himself more the partisan of Rome than he was the advocate of Judaism that he liked to pose as. Indeed, he becomes incoherent in his desire to please his Roman patrons, ridiculing Berenice as libidinous but extolling Agrippa II, her alleged sexual partner, as noble. A woman who provoked the pushback that Berenice received from so many quarters obviously deserves attention, and tracing antipathy to her is an education itself.

Indeed, she deserves more attention. 

That said, Chilton adds that Josephus' rumor may have started with Cynic critics in Rome, perhaps in an attempt to block a marriage to Titus. It worked, as most biblical and classical historians know. Titus dismissed her when he took the imperial throne. She died sometime not too long after his own death, it appears. He dismissed her once earlier, in the mid-70s, and may have intended to recall her again in a couple of years. 

That said, the last one-quarter of Acts is far more nonhistorical than Chilton mentions. I discuss that in much more detail.