The setting of this narrative is a public birthday celebration for Herod Antipas. Even though this narrative is built on an interchange of two stories, an analysis of the parallels and comparisons from the intercalation offers little insight about the women in the narrative. Therefore, another narrative approach will be adopted using the implied author’s narrative typology as a means of characterization. Typologically, Herodias is similar to the first soil in Jesus’ parable of the soils (Mk. 4:3-9, 14-29) (Mary Ann Tolbert, Sowing the Gospel, 148-64). Like the response of religious leaders to Jesus, when John the Baptizer speaks against the divorce of her first husband, Herod Philip, and marriage to Herod Antipas (cf. Mk. 6:17-18), she cannot receive the prophet’s revelation–she has a grudge against John for his criticism of her remarriage and wants to kill him. She is also a named woman in the narrative and, as such, shows herself to be flawed–even ruthless.
Through this typology, the implied author/narrator vilifies Herodias and her daughter, as unstable, deceptive women, as a subtle means of vilifying Herod who’s lack of self-control and inability to control those under him, including the women in his house, exposes him to the implied audience as depraved and unmanly. (Jennifer Wright Knust, Abandoned to Lust, 47-49)
What is enlightening when comparing Mark 6 and 15 are the parallels which arise between Herodias’ daughter and the crowds. Just as the chief priests stirred up the crowd to have Pilate release Barabbas to them instead of Jesus (Mk. 15:11), so was it that Herodias stirred up her daughter to ask Herod for John’s head instead of anything else a young girl might desire (Mk. 6:24-25). The daughter and the crowd are lethal instruments in the hands of the more powerful mother and religious leaders. (Elizabeth Struthers Malbon, ‘The Major Importance of the Minor Characters in Mark,’ p. 70.) Furthermore, both the crowd and the daughter go beyond what they are encouraged to do by the religious leaders and by Herodias. Not only do the crowds ask, as instructed, for the release of Barabbas, but they then call for the crucifixion of Jesus (Mk. 15:11-14). Likewise, Herodias’s daughter goes beyond the request of her mother. As Michele Connolly observes: “She does not merely repeat what her mother said, but makes it her own, insisting, ‘I want you to give me at once.’ She adds her own grotesque recognition of the birthday scene, asking that her request be presented ‘on a platter,’ as though it is to be yet another course of the banquet.” (Connolly, Disorderly Women, p. 138)
These disruptive, disorderly, deadly consequences arise because of how people respond to the revelation they are given as foretold in the parable of the soils in Mark 4. Herodias is shown to act like the religious leaders, and her daughter becomes a pawn like the crowd to force the hand of a Roman official. Yes, Herodias and her daughter are portrayed negatively in the narrative—sly, seductive, deceitful, not to be trusted, not given to repentance, and characterized by uncontrolled revenge—but only because they do not respond well to the message of the prophet and use their power to bring about the prophet’s death. As women, they are powerful—even more powerful, strategically, than their male, Roman ruler. But they are not unique in this struggle. They are like the other characters, including male religious leaders and the crowd in the broader narrative who back the Roman governor into a corner to do their will and crucify Jesus. The subtle message for the implied audience is that these Roman representatives are not “manly” but womanlier than the women in Mark 6 because these Roman pawns are weak, irresponsible, out of control, and without knowledge about how to rule. The rhetorical concern is to beware of those who will not receive the word of God, whether male or female, because they can be treacherous—even deadly.