The Warrior God, or God, the Divine Warrior

Abstract

In the year 31 B.C. the land of Judea experienced a natural phenomenon with which residents of California are all too familiar-an earthquake. It was of enormous severity, "such as had not been seen before", according to the first-century Jewish historian Josephus, to whom we are indebted for this account (Antiquities 15.108-160). Approximately 30,000 people were killed, not to mention the lost of countless head of cattle. At this very time Herod was engaged in a series of battles against Nabataean Arabs, who had temporarily gained the upper hand and then gone so far as to slay Herod's envoys sent to negotiate terms for peace.