Herod the Great, after conquering Jerusalem, began actively reigning as the King of Judea starting in 37 B.C. A few years later, in 31 B.C., a powerful earthquake rocked his kingdom. Although not recorded in the Bible, the Jewish Historian Josephus mentions it and the loss it caused.
". . . and then it was also that there was an earthquake in Judea, such a one as had not happened at any other time, and which earthquake brought a great destruction upon the cattle in that country. About ten thousand men also perished by the fall of houses . . ." (Antiquities of the Jews, Book 15, Chapter 5, Section 2).
With its epicenter in the Jordan Valley, the earthquake is believed to have been a magnitude 7 quake or higher.
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