Agrippa I and Palestinian Judaism in the first century

Abstract

A number of scholars have argued that Agrippa I, upo? becoming king of Judea, aligned himself with, or at least followed the practices of, the Pharisees. While by no means the unanimous opinion of modern scholarship, this assertion has found its way into almost all recent reference work.1 The religious orientation of Agrippa is significant not just for the biography of the king. It is relevant to issues in the history of first-century Judaism. Affiliation with the Pharisees on the part of a popular ruler would support the widely-held view that the former were an extremely influential group and/or that Pharisaism was the dominant form of Palestinian Judaism. A shrewd politician like Agrippa would be unlikely to adopt religious practices rejected by the majority of his Jewish subjects or to align himself with a peripheral faction lacking broad appeal. While such a posture is not impossible ? especially if Agrippa's motivation was genuine conviction rather than political pragmatism ? a Pharisaic orientation that involved "swimming against the stream" would presumably be reflected in the popular standing of the king,or at least in the sources concerning him. So if we were able to prove that Agrippa followed the Pharisees we would have a strong argument for the dominant position of the Pharisaic party.2 But if, as I hope to show, the Judaism of Agrippa was not Pharisaic in character our understanding of the religion of first-century Judea will be different. I shall argue that the practices of Agrippa in fact reflect the common form of first-century Judaism, but that the common form was not Pharisaic. I shall return to these issues below; first we must examine the available evidence concerning the Judaism of Agrippa. I begin with the testimony of Josephus and then I shall discuss the evidence of rabbinic literature. An appendix follows my conclusions in which I argue that a well known source about "Yannai the King" actually refers to Agrippa I.