60: The Head and the Harlot? Rethinking Salome’s Story
This week we are visiting the infamous Salome. Salome is a historical and biblical figure most commonly known for her role in the execution of John the Baptist. She was the daughter of Herodias and the stepdaughter of Herod Antipas, the ruler of Galilee and Perea during the time of Jesus. Her story is most famously recounted in the New Testament, where she is not named directly but is traditionally identified as the young woman who performed a dance, often referred to as the "Dance of the Seven Veils," for Herod Antipas at his birthday celebration.
Pleased by her performance, Herod promised to grant her any wish. At her mother Herodias’s urging, Salome requested the head of John the Baptist on a platter, leading to his execution. Though the Bible does not name her, the historian Flavius Josephus identifies her as Salome and provides additional historical context about her life, including her marriages to prominent figures of the time. Over the centuries, Salome has become a symbol in literature, art, and opera, often portrayed as a seductress, though this image is largely shaped by later interpretations rather than the original biblical account.
Primary Source Accounts
Flavius Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, Book 18, Chapter 5. Josephus provides the historical genealogy of Salome, her marriages, and her role as a Herodian princess — with no mention of John the Baptist’s death.
The Gospel of Mark (6:17–29) and The Gospel of Matthew (14:3–11) – These are the earliest Christian sources for the beheading of John. Both describe “the daughter of Herodias,” but never name her.
Early Christian and Patristic Interpretations
Origen (3rd century CE), Commentary on Matthew, interprets Salome as symbolic of lust and corruption, beginning the moralizing distortion.
John Chrysostom (4th century CE), in his Homilies on Matthew, presents the dance as sinful spectacle, reinforcing the trope of women’s bodies as gateways to evil.
Later Christian & Cultural Amplifications
Medieval Christian imagination – Salome is increasingly fused with Herodias, Jezebel, and archetypes of sinful women.
Oscar Wilde’s Salome (1891) – Reinforces her as the archetypal femme fatale, later adapted by Richard Strauss into the infamous opera (1905).
Modern Feminist & Scholarly Reinterpretations
Schaberg, J. (2002). The Resurrection of Mary Magdalene: Legends, Apocrypha, and the Christian Testament. Continuum. (Discusses how women like Salome and Magdalene were distorted through patriarchal lenses).
Levine, A-J. (2001). A Feminist Companion to Mark. Sheffield Academic Press. (Challenges patriarchal readings of women in the gospels, including Salome).
Taylor, J. E. (2001). The Immerser: John the Baptist within Second Temple Judaism. Eerdmans. (Places the Baptist story in historical context, reminding us of its political backdrop).
Kraemer, R. S. (1992). Her Share of the Blessings: Women's Religions Among Pagans, Jews, and Christians in the Greco-Roman World. Oxford. (On the roles of women like Salome in ancient Judea).
