John the Baptist

[Minimalist]

Is it possible that JtB was arrested after the death of Philip but BEFORE Aratas' invasion?

Anything is possible but Lucius Pomponius Flaccus' term as governor ended in 35 so it is not as if there was a power vacuum. To suggest that Aretas was timing his attack for the transfer of power is interesting but there is no evidence of it.

Aretas had to know the end result of his attack. The Romans could not tolerate an attack upon an ally. It must also be understood that Antipas had entered into a state marriage with a Nabatean princess as well. In addition to everything else such marriages were used to seal alliances and trade agreements so the repudiation of the marriage should have been seen quite properly by Aretas as a rejection of him and his nation. He may have assumed that Antipas was preparing to attack him and tried to strike first. That sort of "balls-first" approach makes more sense than to think that there was any sort of reasoned approach to attacking Antipas. That was not going to turn out well and the only thing that saved Aretas' ass was that Tiberius died and Vitellius decided to wait for new orders. in 39, as a matter of fact, Caligula gave Phillip's old territories to his boyhood friend, Herod Agrippa I, and by 41 he had basically regained Herod the Great's entire realm which hints at Vitellius' political acumen for realizing that Rome did not give a shit about Judaea and his job was to keep an eye on the Parthians.

---

It's not clear in any of them.

Time to take off the holy blinders.