Granted this mood, it was perhaps inevitable that Herod the Great (37–4 BC) would never be accepted as the genuine king of the Jews.45 He made every effort to legitimate himself and his successors as genuine kings: he married Mariamne, who was the granddaughter of Hyrcanus II and thus a Hasmonean princess; above all, he set in motion the rebuilding of the Temple, as the true coming king was supposed to do.46 But his actions had the opposite effect from that intended. The rigorists saw the new Temple as thoroughly ambiguous, and never accepted any of Herod’s successors as the genuine
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