Herod Antipas (Greek: Ἡρῴδης Ἀντίπας, Hērṓidēs Antípas; c. 20 BC – c. 39 AD) was a 1st-century ruler of Galilee and Perea.

He is widely known today for accounts in the New Testament of his role in events that led to the executions of John the Baptist and Jesus of Nazareth (Matthew 14:1–12, Luke 23:5–12).

Antipas divorced his first wife Phasa'el, the daughter of King Aretas IV of Nabatea, in favour of Herodias, who had formerly been married to his half-brother Herod II.

Besides provoking his conflict with John the Baptist, the tetrarch's divorce added a personal grievance to previous disputes with Aretas over territory on the border of Perea and Nabatea.

The three heirs therefore travelled to Rome to make their claims, Antipas arguing he ought to inherit the whole kingdom and the others maintaining that Herod's final will ought to be honoured.

[17] Recent studies of the coins of Herod Antipas provide a more accurate dating of his years of reign than was previously possible.

3) When counting years of reign, did the Judean kings and tetrarchs using inclusive (also called non-accession) numbering, or non-inclusive (accession) reckoning?

That Judeans in the first century BC and the first century AD used a Tishri-based calendar for governmental affairs, which would include the reigns of Judean kings and tetrarchs, is made explicit by Josephus in Antiquities 1.81/1.3.3: After relating that Moses instituted Nisan as the first month for festivals and "everything related to divine worship," he [Josephus] continues: .

Josephus was stating that all activities other than those related to divinely mandated religious observances would be reckoned by a fall calendar that started with the first day of Tishri.

[26][27] The final issue to be settled before the beginning of Antipas reign can be calculated is whether Judean kings and tetrarchs using inclusive (also called non-accession) numbering, or non-inclusive (accession) reckoning.

"[28] That the accession-year method continued to be used in Judea after the Hasmonean period (second century BC) has received confirmation from a study of the coins of Herod and his successors.

Explaining why the ethnarchs antedated their reigns to a time before the death of Herod in either the Filmer or the Schürer chronologies, Andrew Steinmann writes, Given the explicit statements of Josephus about the authority and honor Herod had granted his sons during the last years of his life, we can understand why all three of his successors [Archelaus, Antipas, and Philip] decided to antedate their reigns to the time when they were granted a measure of royal authority while their father was still alive.

[32]After the death of Herod the Great, Augustus confirmed the testament of the dead king by making Antipas tetrarch of Galilee and Perea, a region he ruled for 42 years.

While he had been making his case to Augustus in Rome, dissidents had attacked the palace of Sepphoris in Galilee, seizing money as well as weapons which they used to terrorize the area.

[34] In a counterattack ordered by Quinctilius Varus, Roman governor of Syria, Sepphoris was destroyed by fire and its inhabitants sold as slaves.

[38] However, the tetrarch's most noted construction was his capital on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee, Tiberias, so named to honour his patron Tiberius, who had succeeded Augustus as emperor in 14 AD.

[39] Residents could bathe nearby at the warm springs of Emmaus, and by the time of the First Jewish-Roman War the city's buildings included a stadium, a royal palace, and a sanctuary for prayer.

[43] When Pontius Pilate, governor of Judea from 26 to 36, caused offence by placing votive shields in the Antonia palace at Jerusalem, Antipas and his brothers successfully petitioned for their removal.

[45] Phasa'el learned of the plan and asked permission to travel to the frontier fortress of Machaerus, whence Nabatean forces escorted her to her father.

Some surmise that the marriage of Antipas and Herodias took place shortly before the war in about 34, after the death of Philip,[49] but others have pointed to Josephus' Antiquities of the Jews (Book 18, chapter 5, paragraph 4) comment that Herodias "divorced herself from her husband while he was alive" to argue that it took place before Herod II's death, in about 27, thus making it possible for Jesus to have been born in the reign of Herod the Great (as indicated by the Gospel of Matthew) and to have died in his early 30s (as indicated by the Gospel of Luke).

However, during his birthday banquet, he had been so pleased by the dancing of Herodias' daughter (unnamed in the text but named by Josephus as Salome), he had sworn an oath and promised to grant whatever she asked.

Theodor Mommsen argues that the normal legal procedure of the early Roman Empire was for defendants to be tried by the authorities of their home provinces.

[58] A. N. Sherwin-White re-examined the relevant legal texts and concluded that trials were generally based on the location of the alleged crimes, but that there was a possibility of referral to a province of origin in special cases.

[59] If Pilate was not required to send Jesus to Antipas, he may have been making a show of courtesy to the tetrarch[60] and trying to avoid the need to deal with the Jewish authorities himself.

[64] English historian Robin Lane Fox alleges that the story was invented based on Psalm 2, in which "the kings of the earth" are described as opposing the Lord's "anointed", and also served to show that the authorities failed to find grounds for convicting Jesus.

However, Agrippa simultaneously presented the emperor with a list of charges against the tetrarch: allegedly, he had conspired against Tiberius with Sejanus (executed in 31) and was plotting against Caligula with King Artabanus.

In line with the work's anti-Judaic theme, it pointedly remarks that Herod and "the Jews", unlike Pilate, refused to "wash their hands" of responsibility for the death.

Naive and puzzled by her stepfather's lascivious attentions, the young girl arouses Herod in order to avenge herself on the prophet who has refused her advances.

Flaubert's novella was turned into an opera by Jules Massenet (Hérodiade, 1881) in which Salome, ignorant of her royal parentage, becomes a disciple of John, who is then executed by the lustful and jealous Herod (a baritone).

In Richard Strauss's operatic setting of Wilde's play (1905), Herod (a tenor) is depicted as befuddled by both drink and lust, and in bitter conflict with his wife (as in Flaubert).