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ALEXANDRA

(Gk. Aléxandra)

1. Alexandra Salome, Hasmonean queen of Judea (76-67 b.c.e.), also known in Hebrew as Shelamzion (or Salome, a Greek diminutive of the Hebrew). The wife of Alexander Janneus (103-76), she may also have been the widow of Judah Aristobulus I (104-3), though this is uncertain (compare Josephus Ant. 13.320 with BJ 1.85); if so, her marriage to Janneus may have been a levirate marriage. Nothing is known of her family. She appointed her elder son, Hyrcanus II, as high priest (Ant. 20.242; 15.179); he acted as regent during her illness, though her younger son, Aristobulus II, seized the opportunity to consolidate his position. Alexandra’s reign, remembered for her piety in the rabbinic literature in glowing terms (Lev.Rab. 35.10; b. Taʿan. 23a; Sipra 110b), was characterized by the ascendancy of the Pharisees (BJ 1.108-114; Ant. 13.408-415). Josephus evaluates her reign in two contradictory ways: in Ant. 13.430-32 she is power-hungry, absolutist, and responsible for the rivalry between Hyrcanus and Aristobulus; in BJ she is kind, intensely religious, a skilled administrator, though under the domination of Pharisees. She strengthened Judea and kept it at peace, unlike the reigns of her husband and her sons. Apparently she is mentioned — alongside Hyrcanus and Aemilius Scaurus — in several Dead Sea calendrical fragments (4Q322, 323, 324a, b).

2. Alexandra, daughter of Hyrcanus II and mother of Mariamme I (wife of Herod); friend of Cleopatra VII of Egypt (Ant. 15.42, 62-63). Much of the dissension in Herod’s household swirled around her. She pressured Herod to appoint her son as high priest, though he was extremely young for the position, and was devastated by his early death. When she schemed to gain control of Judea during Herod’s illness, following his execution of Mariamme (29 b.c.e.), Herod executed her (ca. 28; Ant. 15.247-252).

3. Alexandra, daughter of Aristobulus and granddaughter of Mariamme I, married first to Philippion of Chalcis, who was murdered by his father Ptolemy Mennaeus of Chalcis, so that the latter could marry Alexandra (BJ 1.85-86; Ant. 14.126).

4. Alexandra, daughter of Phasael and Salampsio, granddaughter of Herod and Mariamme I, married to Timius of Cyprus and childless (Ant. 18.131).

Bibliography. P. Richardson, Herod, King of the Jews and Friend of the Romans (Columbia, S.C., 1996), 74-78; M. O. Wise, Thunder in Gemini (Sheffield, 1994) ch. 5.

Peter Richardson

Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

ALEXANDRA

Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible (2000)