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Archaeologists claim that they have identified the deadly dance floor where John the Baptist...was sentenced to death around A.D. 29. The Bible and the ancient writer Flavius Josephus (A.D. 37-100) both describe how King Herod Antipas, a son of King Herod, had John the Baptist executed. Josephus specified that the execution took place at Machaerus, a fort near the Dead Sea in modern-day Jordan. ...Herod Antipas was set to marry a woman named Herodias, both of whom had been divorced — something that John the Baptist objected to. At Herod Antipas' birthday party, Herodias' daughter, named Salome, performed a dance...

Today being Palm Sunday prompts me to pick a film based(very loosely) on a story from the Gospels. Despite some glaring inaccuracies(the most notorious being the daughter of Herodias dancing before Herod Antipas in an effort to SAVE rather than to behead John the Baptist. Not how it happens in the book, folks), this film manages to entertain thanks to the villainy of Charles Laughton and Judith Anderson and, most of all, the loveliness of Rita Hayworth. I also like how instead of "THE END" appearing at the finale, the film shows the Sermon on the Mount with "this was...

When people hear the name Salome, they immediately think of the infamous dancing girl of the Gospels... At her mother's urging, Salome asked for the head of Herod's most famous prisoner on a platter. Fearful of breaking his word before his guests, Herod granted Salome's request and ordered John the Baptist beheaded. In antiquity there was a considerably more famous Salome, however, who was revered for centuries. She was so admired that generations of mothers, Herodias apparently among them, named their daughters Salome in her honor. This Salome was the only woman ever to govern Judea as its sole ruler....