What Fueled Zora Neale Hurston’s Fascination with the Biblical Figure Herod the Great?

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As her life approached its twilight, Zora Neale Hurston confided to her editor at Scribner’s about a “great obsession” that consumed her. She had tirelessly delved into the early sections of a writing project that she insisted “has EVERYTHING.”

This passion project? “The life story of HEROD THE GREAT,” she explained with fervor, adding, “You have no idea the great amount of research that I have done on this man.” Hurston felt that history had unjustly tarnished the legacy of Herod, often characterized as a ruthless figure in the biblical narrative who ordered the massacre of infants in Bethlehem in his attempts to eliminate the newborn Jesus. She resolved to spend the final chapter of her life redeeming his image.

Hurston harbored ambitious dreams for the project, reaching out to figures such as Winston Churchill for commentary (he declined) and contemplating collaborations with film legends such as Cecil B. DeMille and Orson Welles for a cinematic adaptation. Her excitement for Herod was palpable in her letters to friends and editors, whom she often addressed with admiration for the ancient monarch, whom she described as “handsome, dashing, a great soldier, a great statesman, a great lover. He dared everything, and usually won.”

Yet, unlike her subject, Hurston faced numerous setbacks and tribulations. When Scribner’s declined to publish the manuscript in 1955, she reassured her editor that the rejection didn’t disturb her, perhaps due to her unwavering confidence in the material. However, two additional publishers also turned it down in subsequent years, 1958 and 1959.

In January 1960, Hurston passed away in a welfare home in Fort Pierce, Florida, and was laid to rest in an unmarked grave within a segregated cemetery. Following her funeral, a janitor was directed to clear out her belongings, inadvertently consigning her papers, including the unfinished manuscript of The Life of Herod the Great, to flames.

However, some precious pages were salvaged from the fire. An alert deputy sheriff, having spotted the smoke, recalled Hurston and pondered whether her documents might carry value—potentially to help alleviate her financial burdens. He extinguished the fire, rescuing the charred remnants, which eventually found their way to Hurston’s archives at the University of Florida, where they lay undisturbed for decades.

Now, after years of dormancy, the long-awaited draft of The Life of Herod the Great has been finally published on January 7—marking Hurston’s 134th birthday. The publisher describes the narrative as one that reinterprets Herod not as a malevolent tyrant of the New Testament but as a “forerunner of Christ—a beloved king who enriched Jewish culture and brought prosperity and peace to Judea.”

“Her commitment to the project was unwavering,” remarked Deborah G. Plant, the scholar overseeing its revival. “She persevered until her final moments, and despite the fire’s destruction, she left sufficient material for us to reconstruct nearly the entire manuscript.”

In The Life of Herod the Great, everyone around the titular character sings his praises—his strength in battle is celebrated (“What a marvelous hurl, O Herod!”), his intelligence admired (“What a wealth of information you have!”), and his kindness acknowledged (“O you who loves and takes care of his people!”), even his fashion sense lauded (“Herod, you have the most exceptional and agreeable taste in dress of any man in the inhabitable world!”).

This portrayal presents Hurston’s Herod in a radically different light—one far removed from the traditional biblical interpretation.

Born in 1891 to a Baptist family, Hurston was acquainted with biblical stories through her father, John Hurston, a church minister in Eatonville, Florida. “One would not assume that a person raised with divine teachings would have inquiries on the topic,” she observed in her autobiography. However, from an early age, she found herself “questing and seeking” for deeper understanding. Her father’s responses aimed to quell her curiosity, detailing “God’s habits, his heaven, his ways and means,” a narrative accepted by the congregation, who resonated with his sermons. Yet, when she dared to voice her inquiries, the reactions from her father and the church leaders were “shocked and angry tirades,” fostering doubt instead of conviction.

This intellectual curiosity ultimately led Hurston to a path in anthropology, drawing her to New York City in 1925. At the age of 34, she secured a scholarship at Barnard College, making history as its first Black graduate. During that period, she undertook field research on Southern Black folklore and became a prominent voice within the Harlem Renaissance, blending her anthropological insights into an expansive body of work that spanned novels, essays, short stories, and poetry. “As an anthropologist, she examined how stories are formed and transmitted,” Plant elaborates. “Even narratives that do not strictly conform to factual events shape our lived reality.”

Her second novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, released in 1937, marked a pivotal moment in her career, portraying a Black woman in her 40s reflecting on her life experiences during the mid-20th-century South. Following this, Moses, Man of the Mountain, which creatively reinterprets the biblical narrative through the lens of Black culture, further solidified her literary influence.

In 1945, Hurston expressed her burning desire to create a “highly controversial” narrative concerning the “3,000 years struggle of the Jewish people.” However, her interest gradually shifted to the peripheral figure of Herod.

As Hurston immersed herself in her research, she began to question the conventional perception of the Judean king, leading him to be central to her manuscript. She was intrigued by the notion that Herod was not the villain she was taught to believe, and she was eager to share her discoveries with an audience.

Yet, during this time, Hurston’s notoriety had dwindled. The renowned author who had collaborated with Langston Hughes and garnered a Guggenheim fellowship in earlier years found herself in dire financial straits, subsisting as a maid and taking on various jobs. Nonetheless, she invested her limited spare time into her exploration of Herod, a venture that soon became increasingly overwhelming. Despite facing persistent rejections, her resolve to present “the real, historical Herod, instead of the folklore version,” continued unabated.

Traditionally, Herod is identified in the Gospel of Matthew as the king who sought to kill the newborn Jesus, resulting in the tragic decree to slay all male infants under the age of two in Bethlehem. This infamous act, referred to as the Massacre of the Innocents, however, lacks corroboration in other biblical texts and remains unsubstantiated by archaeological findings, even though it serves a poignant role within the New Testament narrative. Many historians challenge its authenticity, arguing that the story served to evoke parallels to the Old Testament, particularly the frightening orders of the Pharaoh, who ordered the demise of all Jewish newborns during Moses’s infancy.

“This representation of typology—where both Jesus and Moses are compared—recurs throughout the gospel,” explained Aaron Gale, a religious studies academic. In this way, Jesus emerges as a “kind of new Moses… Moses 2.0.” The narratives draw fascinating parallels, such as Joseph saving Jesus from Herod by retreating to Egypt, reminiscent of the biblical Exodus. “Such correlations raise questions,” Gale mused. “Why not take him to a less notorious kingdom, say, Toledo?”

Scholarly circles speculate that Herod was chosen as a stand-in for Pharaoh because he died around the same time as Jesus’s birth and had garnered a notoriety for cruelty.

The real Herod served as the client king of Judea from 37 to 4 B.C.E. under Roman rule. His era was marked by peace and prosperity, during which he oversaw significant construction efforts, including the fortified palace at Masada and the storied Second Temple in Jerusalem. Despite his architectural triumphs, many believe Herod earned his tyrannical label.

“In many aspects, he was brilliant,” said Gale, “but he was also deeply unpopular owing to his numerous transgressions. His cruelty was evident; he murdered three sons and his own wife among other family members. He was a cunning figure in history.”

Much of what we know of Herod is attributed to the accounts of the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, who was born around 37 C.E.—four decades post Herod’s death. Josephus drew upon direct reports concerning Herod penned by Nicholas of Damascus, a close aide of the king, whose records have sadly disappeared over time.

While Josephus did not mention the Massacre of the Innocents, his characterization of Herod was far from flattering, depicting him as “cruel to all alike, quick to anger, and one who disdained justice.” These narratives outline Herod’s ruthless and paranoid reign, depicting extreme violence against perceived threats, oppressive taxation, and a vanity that preoccupied him with his appearance.

Herod’s demise in 4 B.C.E. was tragic according to Josephus—he described it as punishment from God for his egregious misdeeds. To avoid a lack of mourning upon his death, the ailing king ordered that prominent Jews be gathered, intending for them to be executed posthumously to ensure that the populace grieved, even if their sorrow was not for him.

Long after Herod’s reputation had been firmly established, Hurston would discover in an unspecified text that “scholars state there is no historical basis for the legend of the slaughter of the innocents by Herod.” In The Life of Herod the Great, however, Hurston goes far beyond merely refuting this biblical legend, asserting that Herod was a remarkable monarch whose “popularity was enormous.”

In her manuscript’s preface, Hurston cautions against interpreting “very ancient facts through very modern concepts,” articulating that Herod, like other historical figures, cannot be fully understood unless contextualized within his time. Actions such as political assassinations were commonplace across cultures during that era; similarly, bribery was woven into the fabric of social and political interactions.

Hurston further critiques Josephus’s narratives, designating him a “poisoned source” biased against Herod from the outset due to his aristocratic Jewish lineage. Josephus consistently impugned Herod’s character, fixating on his “mean” or “low” birth because he was “neither a Jew nor of the priestly line.” Hurston contended that while Josephus laid out the chronology of Herod’s reign, he often ascribed nefarious intentions to the king’s actions.

“He claims to narrate the truth, which he does to some degree. But shortly thereafter, he specifies motives for Herod’s commendable deeds that clash with his previous assertions,” she criticizes. “This pattern repeats so frequently that it becomes unmistakable. Josephus could not comprehend Herod’s motivations; he was born 41 years after Herod’s death, which left him with no means to procure insights beyond the documented events.”

Modern historians often consult Josephus but also recognize his inherent biases. “Indeed, he is not without prejudice, and his accounts can contradict each other at times,” noted Gale. “Nonetheless, few who study this material would dismiss his contributions entirely.” In agreement, Martin Goodman, author of Herod the Great: Jewish King in a Roman World, opines that while historians carefully analyze Josephus for perceptible biases, it would be unusual for scholars to disregard all that he documented.

Goodman acknowledges that recent reinterpretations of Herod have emerged, particularly among Jewish thinkers who have reconsidered his divisive association with Judaism and highlighted his accomplishments as an architect. Nonetheless, this re-evaluation has not reached the dramatic proportions that Hurston’s portrayal conveys.

“Hurston’s imagination is commendable,” Goodman remarked. “But can one genuinely argue that Herod died loved by his populace? The consensus suggests otherwise. At least, I am not aware of any historian asserting that notion.”

Initially, Hurston envisioned The Life of Herod the Great as a straightforward biography. The reasons for shifting focus remain ambiguous, though Plant posits that she may have believed a narrative would intrigue publishers more. Regardless, all attempts to salvage the manuscript were ineffective, leaving surviving fragments that highlight the challenges Hurston faced in securing publication, as discussed by Carla Kaplan, a literary scholar, in Zora Neale Hurston: A Life in Letters. “It’s difficult to envision how she could remain oblivious to the manuscript’s shortcomings,” Kaplan noted.

However, the subject of Herod captivated Hurston, consuming her final seven years of life, as recorded in Robert Hemenway’s 1977 biography. “Her relentless pursuit of this story during her waning years is apparent,” Hemenway observes. “Scribner’s rejection makes sense given the manuscript’s shortcomings concerning characterization, scholarly rigor, and stylistic inconsistency, revealing an artist struggling against diminishing proficiency.”

In 2007, nearly half a century after Hurston’s death, archaeologists proclaimed the discovery of Herod’s tomb. Excavations at Herodium, the king’s extravagant palace south of Jerusalem, uncovered numerous red limestone fragments, possibly remnants of the king’s sarcophagus, igniting speculation that they had been deliberately shattered, a reflection of Herod’s complex legacy.

“One could visualize Herod’s adversaries damaging his sarcophagus in fury,” Goodman quipped. Yet he cautions against drawing hasty conclusions from the findings. As Hurston articulated in The Life of Herod the Great, applying contemporary motives to ancient occurrences is “worse than useless.”

There may be a parallel discussion surrounding Hurston’s final fiction: While we possess her letters and known works, will the entirety of the narrative regarding her obsession with Herod the Great ever be uncovered?

Through her correspondence, Hurston asserted that Herod held significant lessons about global dynamics, expressing that “the answers to present events in Europe, Asia, and America lie within that first century [B.C.E.].” On several occasions, she highlighted the “struggle between East and West,” drawing attention to the strained U.S.-Russia relations of her era. “Her keen observations on governance were astute,” said Plant. “When we reflect on the 21st century, these same dynamics persist.”

Plant diligently worked to compile a manuscript that honored Hurston’s vision, grappling with charred pages and incomplete sections. (She had previously edited Barracoon, a nonfiction manuscript that also faced publication barriers; it was released in complete form only in 2018.) “I feel akin to a midwife assisting a challenging birth,” she commented. “I am privileged to witness and aid in bringing Hurston’s compelling obsession to fruition.”

The Life of Herod the Great includes Hurston’s preface and introduction, along with commentary contributed by Plant. The narrative concludes at chapter 19, absent an official ending due to the manuscript’s incompleteness. “While no resolution exists, we know how she intended to conclude it, courtesy of her letters,” indicated Plant.

The novel’s epilogue shares excerpts from these letters, offering a semblance of closure where the final chapters are lacking: after a prosperous reign, Hurston’s envisioned Herod “died peacefully in his bed and was borne to his tomb in splendor.”

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