Unbelievable: An Interpretation of Acts 12 That Takes Rhoda's Cassandra Curse Seriously

Abstract

Abstract:This article addresses two non sequiturs in Acts 12—the disbelief of Rhoda's announcement of Peter's arrival and the apparent disconnect of the death of "King Herod" to the rest of the chapter—by interpreting Rhoda as a Cassandra figure. Like Cassandra, Rhoda is unable to convince others regarding her accurate pronouncement and is then maligned as maenadic. In conjunction with reading Peter's prison escape as imitating Il. 24, this interpretation allows readers to project the vengeance-related logic of these models onto the Acts narrative's presentation of Herod's death and thereby understand it as divine vengeance for executing James and imprisoning Peter.