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Tyndale Open Bible Dictionary

HERODIANS*

Jewish party mentioned three times in the Gospels in connection with two incidents (one in Galilee and one in Jerusalem) and associated with the Pharisees in their opposition to Christ. In Mark 3:6, after the healing of the man with the withered hand, the Pharisees went out and took counsel with the Herodians, plotting to destroy Jesus. In Matthew 22:16 and Mark 12:13, the Pharisees and Herodians allied against Christ to entrap him with their question as to the lawfulness of paying taxes to Caesar. The Herodians are never mentioned in either Luke or John.

The real problem comes in Mark 8:15, where it speaks of the “leaven of Herod.” Another reading is the “leaven of the Herodians.” However, the parallel passage in Matthew 16:6 speaks of the “leaven of the Sadducees.” Are the Sadducees and the Herodians the same?

Matthew tends to label the religious leaders as Jesus’ opponents, whereas Mark emphasizes that Jesus’ opponents were both religious and political. What then is the significance of Matthew’s use of “the leaven of the Sadducees” in place of Mark’s “leaven of Herod” or “leaven of the Herodians”? Some have speculated that the Herodians were a political party composed principally of Sadducees. Some have identified them with the Sadducees, and others with the Boethusians, whose name more often than not was used interchangeably with that of the Sadducees. The Boethusians and the Sadducees were indistinguishable theologically, but the Sadducees were loyal to the Hasmonean dynasty, whereas the Boethusians were attached to the Herodian house and consequently were called the Herodians. Thus the Herodians had political affiliations with the Herodian house and religious affiliations with the Sadducees. Along with the Sadducees, the Herodians were men of influence—the aristocrats of Palestine.

Nevertheless, during Jesus’ time the political differences between the Herodians and the Sadducees were not as distinct because of the marriage of the Herodian Herod Antipas to the Hasmonean Herodias. The Herodians and the Sadducees would have been on the same side politically against the Pharisees, the former being pro-government, while the Pharisees were both anti-Hasmonean and anti-Herodian. Congruent with this, Matthew 16:12 and Mark 8:15 represent the Pharisees and the Sadducees/Herodians as contrary parties opposing Jesus.

In summary, the Herodians were also known as the Boethusians. Theologically they were in agreement with the Sadducees, but politically they were more pro-Herodian than the Sadducees. While the Pharisees looked for a cataclysmic messianic kingdom to remove the present Herodian rule, the Herodians worked to keep Herod’s dynasty in power.