son of Herod, who was of course nuts and killed his own heirs (Herod, that is) and that Mary was a Maccabee, which in terms of Jewish (matrilineal) laws, probably made him the heir to the throne of The King of The Jews.
Read the book "King Jeus"...it's fascinating.
Oh heck, here:
King Jesus (1946) by Robert Graves
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Before getting to Graves novel, let me start with background from the Bible. "And Pilate wrote an inscription also, and put it on the cross. And it was written, 'Jesus the Nazarene, The King of the Jews.'" John 19:19 (see also, Matthew 27:37 and Mark 15:26).FN1 The Latin for this phrase is "Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudaeorum" which may be shortened to the first letter of each word: "INRI". These letters, by tradition, are depicted above Jesus's head on the cross in Catholic churches and in numerous paintings of the crucifixion from the middle ages. Thus, the Bible tells us the Romans crucified Jesus upon the charge of claiming to be King of the Jews. In Roman eyes, only the Emperor in Rome had the power to determine who was to be the lawful king in Judea (a Roman territory).
Consider further Luke's version of the interrogation of Jesus before Pilate:
"And Pilate asked him, saying, "Are you the King of the Jews?" And he answered him and said, "It is as you say." FN2
And Pilate said to the chief priests and the multitudes, "I find no guilt in this man."
Luke 23:3-4. That is an astonishing sequence. Jesus admits to the Roman magistrate that he claims to be the king of the Jews (a serious political crime under Roman law) and Pilate's response is "I find no guilt in this man"? It makes no sense unless Jesus did in fact possess some legitimate claim to the Jewish throne under Roman law.
Enter Robert Graves. His theory, set forth in the plot of King Jesus, is that Jesus was the son of Antipater, the eldest son of Herod the Great by Doris (his first wife). Thus, per Graves, Jesus had a claim to the Jewish throne in a Roman legal sense as being the only son of Herod's eldest son. According to Graves, the Jews in ancient times followed matrilineal descent under which Jewish kings ruled by marriage to a princess of the ruling house. He further states that the line of Michal is older than, and became part of, the line of Eli (to which David belonged). Thus, a Jewish king in the time of Jesus would gain a claim to the Jewish throne under Jewish law through marriage to a princess from the house of Michal. Mary, the mother of Jesus, again according to Graves, was by matrilineal descent a princess in the house of Michal. Thus, Jesus was in fact the true Jewish king under both Roman and Jewish law.FN3
http://www.jjraymond.com/books/historicalfiction/kingjesus.html