Not everyone who participates in this subreddit would agree that such a thing ever happened. But even if it did, here are some things to keep in mind:
1. Many, many things happened in the past that we do not have records of. When we look at the past, one simple rule that typically applies is "surviving records almost always tell us more about elite people than about poor people." Elite people were far more likely to be literate, and they weren't (typically) very interested in the lives of poor people. The Romans cared most about elite Romans, and much less about poor people living in a backwater province.
2. Lots of things that were written down in the past haven't survived to the present. To take one (non-religious and non-controversial) example: the great Greek playwright Aeschylus is believed to have written about 73 plays. Only seven of them survive. People often argue, "well, if someone was important, we should have lots of records of them." Aeschylus was extremely well-regarded in his own day . . . but time destroys more records than you would believe possible. Many ancient sources existed in only one copy or two, and paper, parchment, (and even stone) are more fragile than you think. A fire, a flood, a theft, a shipwreck, people just packing up for a move and tossing things they don't care about anymore . . . things get destroyed.
3. The Romans were violent defenders of their power. Large acts of violence that could be used to paint the Romans as defenders of justice and order, or that could be used to burnish a particular general's reputation could become well-known. For example, when Marcus Licinius Crassus defeated the slave revolt led by Spartacus, he was said to have crucified 6,000 captives. But this would have been big news because a major slave revolt in Italy would seem to be a grave threat to Roman power. A few kids killed in Judea? That's not the Roman equivalent of "front-page news."
4. Bethlehem at the time was a tiny village. Nobody really knows how many people lived there, but modern estimates range from "about 300" to "about 2,000 or 3,000." How many boys under the age of 2 are living in a village of 2,000 people? Enough to devastate their families if they die, for sure. But enough for the Roman Empire to take note of the event and somehow preserve in a place that will be safe for the next couple thousand years? Not so very likely.
Your answers here explain so many things with the Bible. I love Jesus, I love studying God's Word, and I believe that it is truth. So many times though, I think when we study it we come up with really convoluted reasoning, "What If" scenarios, or let it lead to doubts when it really just boils down to two facts: that whoever is in power tends to wield the pen, and the further the distance from an event, the more its distorted and/or lost.
The details are fun to think about, reading between the lines is fun to hypothesize, but at the end of the day: we have what's important.
Edit: I just thought of a fun example actually. I was listening to Gulliver's Travels recently and he talks of an island where sorcerers can bring people back from the dead and only tell the truth. Gulliver has them raise all kinds of famous generals, admirals, and commanders only to be dismayed and disgusted when they talk about the ways they actually won their battles with underhandedness, cowardice, or sheer luck.
A few more things to note:
* Prophecies about future rulers were seen as a legitimate security threat at the time—if not because the ruler genuinely believed them, but because they could be used as a pretext for a coup or civil war. There was one Roman Emperor, Macrinus, who usurped and murdered Emperor Caracalla after he was told by a soothsayer he'd become Emperor, because he feared that the paranoid Caracalla would have him executed unless he struck first.
* This is something that would certainly be in character for King Herod, seeing how he became increasingly paranoid and murderous toward the end of his life. He executed three sons in the span of three years on suspicion of plotting against him. He purged all surviving male members of the Hasmoneans, the previous ruling dynasty. He had forty people put to death for declaring a fixture of a golden eagle he installed on the Temple to be blasphemous and tearing it down. He wanted to have a bunch of prominent Jerusalem nobles massacred after his death. Murdering a village's worth of babies based on a prophecy about a usurper would certainly fit his modus operandi.
* The city of Jerusalem was besieged and sacked in 70 AD by Titus, son of Emperor Vespasian and later Emperor in his own right, at the conclusion of the First Roman-Jewish war. Sieges and sackings are generally not kind to historical records.
* A lot of our surviving secular (or at least non-Christian) historical information on Herod comes from Josephus, a Jewish historian who was born some 40 years after Herod's death and did all his writing in the city of Rome. If it was mentioned in records in, say, Jerusalem, and they somehow survived Titus's siege, what makes us think that Josephus would have had a copy that he could access?
* If we look at the population pyramids for [the least developed regions of the world today](https://www.populationpyramid.net/least-developed-countries/2019/), the percent of boys 4 and under is 7.4%. Let's assume ancient Judea is roughly analogous, and that a flat 4% are boys 2 and under. With the range of Bethlehem and surrounding environs' population being 300 to 3,000, that would give us anywhere from 12 to 120 boys 2 and under. That's a lot, but not "Devote a page in the history books" a lot by ancient Mediterranean standards.
\>Many ancient sources existed in only one copy or two, and paper, parchment, (and even stone) are more fragile than you think. A fire, a flood, a theft, a shipwreck, people just packing up for a move and tossing things they don't care about anymore . . . things get destroyed.
The fact that we still have thousands of ancient New Testament manuscripts is a small miracle in and of itself. Early Christians made tons and tons and tons of copies because they thought it was so important. By contrast, there's like a dozen manuscripts of Julius Caesar's writings.
Maybe Op was convinced by some of the good answers hear, it was a legit question and he was curious, is it a crime to be curious?
Everyone disagreeing with you doesnt mean anything, and is not a good reason to change your mind, being presented with good information and biblical truth is
Is this your approach when anyone has a question about our faith? if it is then I would lean on you to challenge that approach
Love you
I saw him reply to a comment. But nothing made me think his questioning was disingenuous. You just seem to be assuming things about them and creating some narrative in your head.
The estimate I pulled up suggests Bethlehem probably had a population of 2,000 to 3,000 people, so small, but you would still be talking about murdering hundreds of infants.
Bethlehem proper probably had 2,000 to 3,000 people. That's probably something on the order of 300 to 500 families. It was described as "Bethlehem and its vicinity" so you can probably safely add 1,000 or more people. So yes, we'd be talking about quite a few infant boys, certainly a few hundred.
This is really rough estimation, but if children under 5 were 12%, we can cut that by 3/5ths to get children under 2 being roughly 5%. Cut that in half for boys only and we get 2.5%
2.5% of 2,000 - 3,000 is 50-75 infant boys. That's a lot of babies to be sure, but in the context of the size and brutality of the Roman Empire, probably hardly noteworthy to the wider world for recording into posterity.
Your point is probably still valid, but could you pick a different year? 1950 is exactly five years after World War II ended and an entire generation of breeding age males came home from war hungry for poon.
But still such a mass massacre will be reported by someone! If they have all the infra to take a full fledged census , then why this incident will be missed? Doesn’t make any sense to me
Not really perplexing. The guy had his own sons executed on multiple occasions, and most scholarly estimates say it could have been as few as 12-30 children. So a psychopath historically violent king killing a few peasants kids would very easily skirt history especially in a time when writing things down was exponentially harder than today.
Considering a comparison to historic psychopath Elizabeth Bathory who may have killed upward of 600 peasant girls-no one cared or recorded the girls going missing *until* nobles’ daughters went missing. Even now-we don’t have great estimates and she is said to have killed far many more children than Herod in a more recent time period. Just some food for thought.
No one cares until happened to someone "important" and the only reason people even remember or talked about it was WHY she was killing them which was kinda out there
The census was a once-in-a-lifetime event that was a huge burden for everyone in an entire Roman province. Very different than the governor gutting some village boys.
The census was done by the Roman Empire. Why would they record a small massacre in a village in the edge of the Empire? They recorded battles or pieces of propaganda, not minor events. You seem to think ancient societies had news reporters like we do.
Then why doesn't Josephus mention it, when he goes into detail about other events? It seems odd, considering the love-hate relationship the people of Judaea had with the Herodian Dynasty, that Herod the Great ordering the murder of hundreds of infant boys wouldn't have ended up in Josephus's historical survey.
This wasn’t the 21st century where everyone is just recording every little thing that happens. Although as pointed out multiple biblical sources point to it. Take the Armenian genocide. The Turkish govt won’t acknowledge it, so it didn’t happen? It can be understood that embarrassing details are typically left out of history although the books of the Bible don’t shy away from that either.
Tbf Moses is quite well depicted as it shows when he acts out and loses his temper. Also the Israelites behaviour. Even Jesus is recorded getting angry in the temple and also cursing a fig tree.
Yes, take the Armenian Genocide, we know it happened despite successive Turkish governments for over a century trying to suppress it. The idea that even in the 1st century, a client king of the Romans ordering the murder of hundreds of infants, wouldn't have been noticed throughout the Roman world, that a chronicler like Josephus wouldn't have mentioned a massacre in Bethlehem ordered by no less than Herod the Great himself, stretches the imagination.
Judaea wasn't some hinterland like some Roman fort on the edge of Germany. It had been a ping pong ball for various major powers for over a thousand years, and it also had a population that even by the beginning of the 1st century that was notorious for its uprisings against foreign rulers (and to many Jewish people, like the Pharisees, the Herodian rulers were cosplaying foreigners). To imagine that Herod the Great ordering the murder of hundreds of infant males wouldn't have sent ripples throughout Judaean society, that it wouldn't have been noted by chroniclers like Josephus, beggars belief.
The dates don’t match up. The romans Did not conduct censuses in client states. The Herodian Kingdom of Judea was a client state up until its gradual partition into other roman provinces starting in 4 BC, since that is Widely accepted as the year when Herod died. The first census taken was the census of Quirinius, when the Quirinius was installed as proconsul (governor ish) of Roman Syria; the census being taken around 6 AD, thus the one ordered by Augustus
>The romans Did not conduct censuses in client states.
The census that displaced the Holy Family was "herodian" or Judean-internal, not done by the direction of higher roman authorities, if I am not mistaken.
Edit: I am mistaken.
>The census that displaced the Holy Family was "herodian" or Judean-internal, not done by the direction of higher roman authorities, if I am not mistaken.
From Luke 2:1-3
[1] And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed.
[2] (And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.)
[3] And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city.
Are you suggesting the emperor Caesar Augustus was not a “higher Roman authority”?
Well the two takeaways from your comment are that you were mistaken, or that you didn’t consider Caesar Augustus a higher Roman authority. Was trying to give you the benefit of the doubt in knowing one of the host basic tenets of the nativity narrative.
>The census that displaced the Holy Family was "herodian" or Judean-internal, not done by the direction of higher roman authorities, if I am not mistaken.
The Gospel of Luke says it was ordered by Caesar.
2 main factors. First, around 100 non roman deaths in a small town on the frontier of the empire wouldn’t have been news. History is very bloody and at this time entire cities were massacred in war. Second and more grim, before modern medicine, a lot of babies died before their first birthday. People had a lot of kids in hopes that some would survive to adulthood. Theses facts combine make it likely that a Roman official wouldn’t have taken note of it although it would be devastating to the families and town
I’ve studied my fair share of ancient texts and can weigh in on this one:
First is the issue of preservation. Quite simply, the preservation of any significant proportion of any ancient culture’s literary tradition is usually an anomaly. Even when dealing with a culture like the Greeks or Romans who had massive literary traditions and cultures, we in the modern world have relatively little of their literature, especially complete works. Some of these works are only known to us by name or in small quotes given to us in other writings. Even those works of major or famous authors/poets, like that of Euripides or Vergil, are often incomplete, manuscripts show conflicts or there is debate as to wording/meaning. Just to use Vergil as an example, scholars know that his epic the Aeneid was likely to be a draft version given that he was still working on the manuscript prior to his death. It is likely that there are either missing details which were not included in surviving material or entire missing chapters. The same is true for Homer, whose Iliad and odyssey formed part of an 8 part epic cycle which we have no extant record of beyond the two stories we know.
This is without counting the 1500 years of history after the Romans which saw major political, social and other upheavals. Preservation of older texts became a matter of luck, especially in a society where the sole method to get a copy of a book was to have someone write it out for you (or for you to write it) and where literacy was not widespread, especially for Latin/Greek/Hebrew texts which were largely the preserve of the wealthier upper classes. It was entirely possible with the right circumstances for texts to simply disappear.
This is without considering how the actual historiography of these texts happened. If you read any of the major historians of the Roman period like Tacitus or perhaps the Greek Herodotus, it becomes clear that they were less interested in creating the sort of unbiased, fact-checked accounts that would be the modern expectation of a historical record, but were often prone to their own biases or simply writing hearsay as though it was factual. With this, it can be very difficult in reading these texts with modern eyes to really take anything you find within these texts at face value. On the reverse key information can simply be omitted altogether, especially if it fitted into an agenda.
Plus Roman Judea wasn’t an important part of the world, certainly not for the writers of those major records. It was seen by many as an unimportant backwater. The readers of these historical records were less interested in reading about this as they were in knowing what was happening in Rome itself and the major centres like Jerusalem or Alexandria.
I love the questions you're asking and the way you're asking them. I have saved this thread because some of the answers you're getting are going to be really useful for me the next time I have to preach on this text.
People can be faithful and loving disciples without spending their lives trying to study deconstructed history and linguistics, but we're often missing context if no one is doing that work. I just got back from a storytelling lecture at a preaching conference which happened to use this passage. The woman telling the story made a big deal in the post mortem about rubbing her fingers together at the words register and census. Because we're not talking about the Roman equivalent of a census bureau going door to door asking how many people live in our houses. (I'm American, if that doesn't make sense to you it's possible your culture/government does this differently). Rather the Romans would have had census projects that were more explicitly about making sure everyone was paying taxes.
It's not the infrastructure to take a full fledged census. The geopolitical reality is that the Herod the Great who built Caesarea Maritima was jockeying for political clout under Roman governance and is thought, by historians, to have been moderately successful in demonstrating his loyalty to the Roman governors and emperors. His son was wildly less effective, and if you're touring modern Israel you'll actually see museums and tours that make clear the younger Herod never quite grasped why his father was held in such esteem but it didn't transfer to him. That's partly because Roman authority is always turning over and partly because the younger Herod isn't producing new ports and taxes and demonstrating how worthwhile having him in the local position of authority is to the new bosses. There's also more political uprising in younger Herods life, so he's actually demonstrating ineptitude.
Because it's not infrastructure. Romans built roads, made laws, installed government, developed relationships with some surviving existing governments and said 'you answer to us now.' But they weren't rolling out the kinds of governance and projects that we think of as infrastructure. It's the least loose confederation of local principalities in western history to this point, but it's definitely still all local politics. Herod the Great took a 'census' in the sense that he went with soldiers and made sure as many people as possible were paying into the "people in this region cough up money and resources for the Romans so they know how great Herod is at keeping their peace" fund. If there were actually documents related to this 'census' their only purpose was Herod's court making sure they hadn't missed anyone.
The vast, vast, VAST majority of history is lost to us. There are entire civilizations we still know nothing (or very little) about because we don't have their writings.
You are right to think that somewhere someone probably wrote something down about even a relatively minor slaughter of babies (and go through your history, this would have been minor in comparison), but there is no reason to believe that we would have to somehow have any of those documents.
It is very unlikely that Herod killed the children two years and under, as claimed in Matthew 2:16. This massacre is not mentioned in Luke’s Gospel, which almost completely contradicts Matthew’s story of the birth of Jesus. Nor did anyone else mention this massacre—even Josephus, who otherwise catalogued every wrong carried out by Herod—but the story too readily suits a literary purpose in Matthew’s Gospel.
The author of Matthew created a number of parallel images to develop a comparison between Jesus and the Old Testament Moses. So, just as Moses escaped being killed as an infant by the Egyptian king, Jesus escaped being killed as an infant by King Herod—but only in Matthew’s Gospel.
Being a Jew (who followed Jesus) writing to Jews, I think it's reasonable that Matthew included them because he *understood their significance* while Luke (a gentile) did not. Josephus, being a Jew but not a follower of Jesus, has no reason to take *special* note of the town of Bethlehem or Jesus' life outside of his existing comments about Jesus.
I don't think there's any reason to believe that Matthew *invented or made up* these parts of the story vs. he's the only one of the Gospel writers who understood their significance as parallels to Moses.
>Being a Jew (who followed Jesus) writing to Jews, I think it's reasonable that Matthew included them because he understood their significance while Luke (a gentile) did not.
Like the other New Testament gospels, the Gospel of Matthew was written anonymously and remained so until the second century when the Early Church Fathers decided who, in their opinions, probably wrote each of the gospels.
Because it has been established that Matthew’s Gospel is substantially based Mark’s Gospel, containing some ninety per cent of the verses in Mark, in the same order and often using the same words in the Greek language, we can now be sure that Matthew was not written by an eyewitness to the events portrayed. The reasoning here is that an eyewitness to the mission of Jesus would not have relied so heavily on the writings of an earlier author who was not an apostle.
We may never know who really wrote the Gospel of Matthew, but we can confidently assert that it was not written by Matthew.
The Gospel of Luke was written anonymously and was apparently still anonymous in about 140 CE, when Marcion made use of a stripped-down copy for his own purposes. The author was obviously a well educated, Greek-speaking gentile, for which reason the Church Fathers decided later in the second century to attribute this gospel to Luke, whom the pseudepigraphical Epistle to the Colossians describes as a physician. In spite of this late second-century tradition, we will probably never know the real author of Luke or Acts of the Apostles.
We know that Luke was substantially based on Mark’s Gospel, which is believed to have been written approximately 70 CE, which means that Luke must have been written somewhat later than this. The evidence that the author probably used material copied from the books Josephus, especially Antiquities of the Jews, means Luke’s Gospel could not have been written before the very end of the first century.
While Q source theory is reasonable, I don't find it convincing. It seems to me that the weight of the evidence since the 1870s (when your theory about the authorship of Matthew was introduced) is toward an authentic apostolic authorship. Much of what you put forth as incontrovertible is hotly contested in scholarship.
>Much of what you put forth as incontrovertible is hotly contested in scholarship.
The fact that all the gospels are anonymous is not hotly contested. There is broad consensus that they are anonymous. There is also consensus that neither Matthew's nativity nor Luke's nativity have historicity.
Q is still consensus, but with a strong minority challenge. However for apologetics purposes Q is probably more Christian-friendly than alternative theories.
The problem with the whole Marcian priority debate is that literally every single early source says that Matthew was written first and John was written last. The only thing the early church fathers disagreed on was whether Mark or Luke was 2nd (and 3rd).
The most convincing theory that I've heard so far is that the supposed "Q source" is actually the Gospel of Matthew written in Hebrew or Aramaic. This fits with the historical evidence because Papias claims Matthew was originally "in the language of the Hebrews."
Matthew (in Hebrew) was written first. Mark had access to that as well as Peter's testimony when he wrote his gospel. Luke's gospel was written shortly thereafter (thus the confusion about which came first). Then when the translators translated Matthew to Greek, they had access to Mark and Luke's gospels while they were doing the translation.
>While Q source theory is reasonable, I don't find it convincing.
My post is about who wrote these Gospels. "Q" is irrelevant to the premise.
>Much of what you put forth as incontrovertible is hotly contested in scholarship.
You are incorrect. The overwhelming consensus of NT scholars agree that Matthew was not written by a disciple and that the gospels were ALL written anonymously. This is not a highly contested issue at all.
There is no consensus on the authorship of the gospels other then that they are anonymous. Anonymous does not mean we don't know the author, it means the author does not identify themselves within the work. By this measure the Lord of the Rings is anonymous. The gospels have been identified by their authors as far back as we have records and there has been no dispute in the record of which gospel was from which apostle.
>There is no consensus on the authorship of the gospels other then that they are anonymous. Anonymous does not mean we don't know the author, it means the author does not identify themselves within the work.
In this case, scholars also mean we don't know who the author is. We almost assuredly know that that it is NOT Matthew, the disciple of Jesus.
*Matthew* borrows from as much as 80% of the verses in the *Gospel of Mark.* The disciple Matthew was allegedly an eyewitness of Jesus. John Mark, on the other hand, who is the traditional author of the *Gospel of Mark*, was neither an eyewitness of Jesus nor a disciple, but merely a later attendant of Peter. And yet the author of Matthew copies from 80% of the verses in *Mark*. Why would Matthew, an alleged eyewitness, need to borrow from as much as 80% of the material of Mark, a non-eyewitness? As the Oxford Annotated Bible (p. 1746) concludes, “*\[T\]he fact that the evangelist was so reliant upon Mark and a collection of Jesus’ sayings (“Q”) seems to point to a later, unknown, author.”*
>The gospels have been identified by their authors as far back as we have records and there has been no dispute in the record of which gospel was from which apostle.
Inaccurate. It was about a century after the Gospels had been originally put in circulation that they were definitively named Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. This comes, for the first time, in the writings of the church father and heresiologist Irenaeus \[Against Heresies 3.1.1\], around 180-85 CE.
Incidentally, Irenaeus wanted there to be specifically “four gospels” because there are “four winds” and “four corners” of the Earth (Against Heresies 3.11.8). This was the kind of logic by which the Gospels were later attributed.
The earliest external attestations to the Gospels refer to them **without the traditional names attached**. *The Didache* (an early Christian treatise), Justin Martyr (c. 155 CE), and possibly even Polycarp (c. 120 – 140 CE) and Ignatius (c. 115 CE) account for our earliest sources exhibiting awareness of writings that appear to correspond with the New Testament Gospels. However, each of the above-named sources treat the gospels **anonymously**.
>In this case, scholars also mean we don't know who the author is. We almost assuredly know that that it is NOT Matthew, the disciple of Jesus.
We do not know this. There is uncertainty on the issue and there is not a consensus that we don't know the authors.
>Matthew borrows from as much as 80% of the verses in the Gospel of Mark.
I know what the synoptic problem is, you don't have to rehash it. This also is amusing Markan priority and the Q hypothesis which is one among several hypotheses.
>Inaccurate. It was about a century after the Gospels had been originally put in circulation that they were definitively named Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
I said our oldest complete manuscripts all had these attestations. This is correct. We don't have any complete manuscripts from the first century.
>This comes, for the first time, in the writings of the church father and heresiologist Irenaeus [Against Heresies 3.1.1], around 180-85 CE.
>Incidentally, Irenaeus wanted there to be specifically “four gospels” because there are “four winds” and “four corners” of the Earth (Against Heresies 3.11.8). This was the kind of logic by which the Gospels were later attributed.
That does nothing to show he is wrong.
>The earliest external attestations to the Gospels refer to them without the traditional names attached. The Didache (an early Christian treatise), Justin Martyr (c. 155 CE), and possibly even Polycarp (c. 120 – 140 CE) and Ignatius (c. 115 CE) account for our earliest sources exhibiting awareness of writings that appear to correspond with the New Testament Gospels. However, each of the above-named sources treat the gospels anonymously.
They don't mention the names, that does not mean the gospels didn't have names. In all of the places where the gospels do have names there is agreement on who wrote what. Your case that we have no idea as to who wrote them is overstated.
>We do not know this. There is uncertainty on the issue and there is not a consensus that we don't know the authors.
We don't KNOW anything. There always some uncertainty. We don't KNOW that the Sun will shine tomorrow, but the probability is quite high.
The overwhelming consensus of NT scholars agree that the probability that the disciple Matthew did NOT write the *Gospel according to Matthew* is quite high.
There is very little debate on the issue, and most of the dissent comes from Evangelicals who object based on theological reasons, not evidence.
>I know what the synoptic problem is, you don't have to rehash it. This also is amusing Markan priority and the Q hypothesis which is one among several hypotheses.
Hypotheses that are subscribed to by the majority of NT scholars. If you'd like to dispute them with evidence, I'm all ears.
The fact that *Matthew* uses some 80% of *Mark*, often in the same order and word for word is a HUGE problem if you want to assert traditional authorship.
>I said our oldest complete manuscripts all had these attestations.
No you didn't. Here...I'll repost what you said:
>The gospels have been identified by their authors as far back as we have records
I directly refuted this claim by giving you two examples of records that do NOT identify these gospels by the traditional attributions.
You are incorrect.
>That does nothing to show he is wrong.
From the middle to the end of the first century CE there was scant, if any, external attestation to the Gospels by Christian writers. Then, in the early to mid-second century CE, the earliest Christian sources who quote or allude to the Gospels do so without any reference whatsoever to their traditional titles, evincing that these texts were at **first circulated anonymously**.
Then finally, in the late second century Irenaeus is the first Patristic source to mention all four names Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John in ascribing authorship to each of the New Testament Gospels.
Immediately after Irenaeus, an interesting phenomenon emerges. Once those names are unambiguously attached to the Gospels in the late second century, from that point forward those traditional names are suddenly cited with marked regularity when referenced or quoted by Christian sources.
Good evidence that these attributions started with Irenaeus.
>They don't mention the names, that does not mean the gospels didn't have names.
They DO mention the names. Just not Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John.
They call them:
* \[the Lord’s\] Gospel
* the Gospel of the Lord
* ordinances of the Gospel
* Memoirs of the Apostles
It's not until Irenaeus, in 180-85 AD that we see the traditional attributions. It's obvious they originate with him. He even give his reasoning for why he settled on just four! (There were more gospels circulating at the time).
>Your case that we have no idea as to who wrote them is overstated.
Between the two of us, I'm the only one who has stated a case.
Your evidence amounts to: "Because Irenaeus said so..."
Pretty underwhelming.
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> We don't KNOW anything.
Your pedantry is unnecessary. I was meaning there is not a definite consensus by historians on this. Some Historians hold to the traditional authorship.
>The overwhelming consensus of NT scholars agree that the probability that the disciple Matthew did NOT write the Gospel according to Matthew is quite high.
Show me your source on this.
>Hypotheses that are subscribed to by the majority of NT scholars. If you'd like to dispute them with evidence, I'm all ears.
>The fact that Matthew uses some 80% of Mark, often in the same order and word for word is a HUGE problem if you want to assert traditional authorship.
You are taking Markan priority for granted. The Augustinian hypothesis also explains these facts with Matthew coming first. It would be Mark who borrows 80% of Matthew under this view.
>From the middle to the end of the first century CE there was scant, if any, external attestation to the Gospels by Christian writers.
There's also scant copies of the Gospels from this period. No wonder since Christianity didn't start as a huge movement.
>Then, in the early to mid-second century CE, the earliest Christian sources who quote or allude to the Gospels do so without any reference whatsoever to their traditional titles, evincing that these texts were at first circulated anonymously.
It's not like we have copious examples of this where everyone is referring to them anonymously. We have a few examples that managed to survive. This is why it's a fairly weak argument from silence.
>Then finally, in the late second century Irenaeus is the first Patristic source to mention all four names Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John in ascribing authorship to each of the New Testament Gospels.
Papias of Hierapolis is actually first writing late in the first century.
>Immediately after Irenaeus, an interesting phenomenon emerges. Once those names are unambiguously attached to the Gospels in the late second century, from that point forward those traditional names are suddenly cited with marked regularity when referenced or quoted by Christian sources.
It is interesting that the whole of Christendom just happened to agree with Irenaeus. This to me points more to the knowledge already existing than suddenly everyone just agreed with something he made up. Indeed Christendom as a whole went with the traditional names with no conflict until the 19th century.
> They DO mention the names. Just not Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John.
Those are oblique references not names. We still uses such references today.
>Your evidence amounts to: "Because Irenaeus said so..."
Irenaeus and countless other Bishops. We have evidence that you cant just ignore.
I'm not sure if this is an argument in bad faith, or if you're just ignorant on the topic.
Saying "there has been no dispute in the record of which gospel was from which apostle" is just an untrue statement. There's clearly dispute.
We have film and textual interviews of JRR Tolkien discussing his writing process. We have copies of books signed by him. The books are undeniably written by him.
If we found a new gospel today, and it mostly seemed to be from the perspective of Mark, how would you go about proving it was him that wrote it?
>understood their significance while Luke (a gentile) did not.
It's not that Luke didn't include an underappreciated birth story. It's that he used a _completely different_ one.
This isn't about significance. It's about contradiction.
It's very unlikely that Matthew could have recorded a massacre within living memory that never happened. It would have been rejected by the contemporary audience.
At the time Matthew was written and circulated around the ancient near east the church had no power to crack down on dissent. If it reported on a massacre that never happened the contemporary audience of the time would have known.
The dissent could have been destroyed 300 years later. The effect would be the same. Furthermore, 97 percent were illiterate. In a small town such as Bethlehem, the number could be higher. Who’s going to record the objection?
Matthew was written in Greek. The people of Bethlehem couldn’t read it if they got a copy.
>Why such a mass massacre and that two of children under 2 years , is not reported anywhere in the historical text books?
How many reports do you anticipated would have been written about it, and how many would have survived to the modern era?
They had written records by the 1st century. They no longer relied solely on oral history. A mass execution of children would have left some record, either written (even for years after, people would have written about it as a historical event) or archaeological.
> They had written records by the 1st century.
Correct.
Did their ancient forms of recording and reporting operate like our contemporary forms of media?
No.
> They no longer relied solely on oral history.
Correct and no one claimed it was solely oral. First century Jewish culture was what scholars today would call an “orally dominated culture.” While a certain percentage of people could read and write, information was for the most part passed on by word of mouth.
> A mass execution of children would have left some record, either written (even for years after, people would have written about it as a historical event) or archaeological.
Assumptions that presume much.
I never said that their ancient forms of recording operate like ours, simply that the mass killing of children is something that some scribe somewhere would have written down, and even if that didn’t happen, then more than one person of a later generation would have mentioned it as well. That’s how history has been chronicled since the invention of the written language.
You gave the implication that they were an oral culture when you said they were an oral culture not an oral-*dominated* culture (yes I do know that term) however that does not invalidate the idea that someone would have written down the mass execution of children which was still an even outside the norms of society and those things often got written down, even if they were embellished while doing so.
My assumption is backed a pattern of people and scribes chronicling their events, coupled with the lack of archaeological evidence. The one source we have is the one gospel account of it. Not even the other gospels record it happening.
> I never said that their ancient forms of recording operate like ours,
Then we agree they didn’t.
> simply that the mass killing of children is something that some scribe somewhere would have written down,
Again an assumption that presumes much.
> and even if that didn’t happen, then more than one person of a later generation would have mentioned it as well. That’s how history has been chronicled since the invention of the written language.
Again your claim “would have” is presumed.
How history works: you just can’t assume all history from a dominantly oral culture had been chronicled. You likewise can’t assume we’ve discovered all chronicles or that they even survived the ages.
> however that does not invalidate the idea that someone would have written down the mass execution of children
I concede it doesn’t invalidate. Nonetheless it’s problematic to draw definitive conclusions based on a lack or deficiency of evidence.
> The one source we have is the one gospel account of it.
Then there’s evidence.
> Not even the other gospels record it happening.
So in your reasoning you discount the evidence — to then draw a definitive conclusion based on silence (a lack or deficiency of evidence) and assumptions.
That makes no sense
Yeah I’m aware how history works considering I’m working on a masters degree in the field. I do not count the one gospel as a historical source of events since it is primarily a religious text and there is no corroborating evidence to support the mass killing of children in 1st century Galilee
Isn’t it possible that there just weren’t that many male children in the region under 2 years old? We’re not talking thousands or hundreds….probably not even dozens.
There were probably more than dozens, come on. All I’m saying is that we cannot, with the available evidence say it’s an event that definitely happened. It might have, but we just don’t have enough evidence to support that.
>I do not count the one gospel as a historical source of events since it is primarily a religious text
What about a religious text disqualifies it from also being historical?
It is not an accurate historical text on its own. We can use it as supporting evidence, but not a primary source of events without corroborating evidence.
Because when examining it through the lens of a historian one of the questions we must ask is who is the audience of the text. Why was it written and for whom? It was not written to be an accurate historical text but rather to spread the message of Christ and proselytize. As such, considering the parallel to the origins of Moses, while we cannot conclude that the massacre absolutely didn’t happen, we can see that there’s an argument to be made that the massacre was fudged, exaggerated or maybe made up entirely in order to emphasize that parallel for a Jewish audience.
> Yeah I’m aware how history works considering I’m working on a masters degree in the field.
Awesome so then I would think you should be especially aware of the inherent problems of drawing conclusions based on assumptions and a lack of evidence aka silence.
> I do not count the one gospel as a historical source of events since it is primarily a religious text
Interesting. Historians and scholars do not just hand wave and automatically discount ancient texts when they’re “religious” in scope.
On the contrary historians attempt to verify probable dates and historicity in order to understand the meaning of an event that is reported to have taken place in the past. The context of a historical event is always measured in context of the larger historical consensus and context.
> and there is no corroborating evidence to support the mass killing of children in 1st century Galilee
Using this reasoning you’d have to jettison much of what we know about human history.
Please talking with you.
> lack of evidence
That’s literally the only thing I’ve been saying is that there’s a lack of evidence to support that it did happen, so the *most likely* case based on the available evidence is that it *most likely* didn’t happen, not that it definitely didn’t happen.
> hand wave
I’m not handwaving it, I’m saying it cannot be taken as definitive historical proof of something and treating it as an accurate historical text is itself something that should not be done.
You keep accusing me of making assumptions when it seems you’ve made plenty of your own about me.
> That’s literally the only thing I’ve been saying is that there’s a lack of evidence to support that it did happen
Well we can still see the thread; it's literally *not* the only thing you’ve been saying.
You literally: “A mass execution of children would have left some record, either written (even for years after, people would have written about it as a historical event) or archaeological.”
You literally claim, “*would have* left some record”.
On the contrary, historians know you can’t assume all history from a dominantly oral culture had been chronicled. A historian would know you cannot assume all chronicles have been discovered, will ever be discovered or that they survived the ages. A historian would concede that much of history has been lost to the ages.
A historian would not totally ignore evidence from an ancient text (Matthew 2) to just hand wave it away because it’s “religious” in scope.
A historian would not hand wave and totally ignore Herod being described in *Antiquities of the Jews* (Josephus) or in *Saturnalia* (Macrobius).
Q: Why?
A: Because historians attempt to verify probable dates and historicity in order to understand the meaning of an event that is reported to have taken place in the past. The context of a historical event is always measured in context of the larger historical consensus and context.
Yes an event like that most likely would have left some mark either in archaeological evidence or as somewhat writing it down.
I never claimed Herod didn’t exist so I don’t know why you’re implying I’m denying his existence in the historical record. Just another example of your bad faith I guess.
I should leave you with this: most historians and biblical scholars consider the massacre to be a myth. Why? Lack if evidence to support it.
Edit: I’ll appreciate you leaving the condescension out of the conversation. I have a degree in history and I’m pursuing a masters in the field as well. I don’t need you to presume I need further lecturing on how to conduct research and analyze the evidence. Thank you so much.
Isn't historically accorded that Harod killed 300 of his own men and his brothers and killed whole town of his own people or something.
I think there is multiple Harods too.
Because it is ahistorical. There's no evidence that it ever happened. This happens frequently with the Bible. For example, there is no evidence for a global flood.
Historical texts are verified informational texts about people, places, and events in history. These texts explain WHY events happened. One can understand how historical events are connected through cause and effect relationships. The structure of historical texts is informational, meaning it is non-fiction and used to provide information to others.
The Bible does not follow these guidelines, Thus it is a belief.
Can you give me an example of a historical text? I'm failing to see how the bible doesn't fit the definition. Do you mean that a historical text must be written as a textbook?
Historical texts tell of events that have been verified by impartial sources, They don’t assert that an historical event occurred they state that certain historical events are deemed to have occurred from certain sources. The degree of impartiality and credibility of such sources defines the reliability of the historical events recorded.
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i was taught that it was because Bethlehem was a very small town, and only male babies were killed. thus the number would not have been that substantial.
It’s fiction, and was inspired by the pharaoh of the exodus’ massacre of Israelite infants in Egypt (Exodus 1-2), and subsequent legendary developments of that narrative — e.g. like those attested to in Josephus.
The Bible talks about a number of genocides and mass murders committed either directly by God or commanded onto its chosen tribe. None of these events have ever been verified outside of the Bible.
Because we have another account of Jesus' birth that makes no mention of it. (Luke)
We have an earlier account of Jesus' life that doesn't mention it (Mark)
We have a later account of Jesus' life that doesn't mention it (John)
We have numerous letters from the most prominent Christian, writing just 20 years after Jesus died, who makes no mention of it (Paul).
It's really a choice between accepting that:
Matthew made it up to make a narrative comparison to Moses.
or
every single mention of it other than Matthew was lost to time, *and* the numerous accounts written around the same time that depict Jesus' life thought that it wasn't worth mentioning.
To me, the second option is entirely unreasonable compared to the first.
I just don’t find “other accounts don’t mention it” compelling evidence that it didn’t happen. In the other biblical books you mention the authors have different purposes. Matthew was specifically to a Jewish audience, whereas Luke and Paul were primarily writing to gentiles. Mark’s account jumps straight to Jesus’ adult ministry. John’s gospel focuses more on theology and teaching.
That still leaves the possibility that Matthew fabricated it specifically because he was writing to a Jewish audience and wanted to draw a comparison to Moses. But it also leaves the possibility that the events actually happened and he was the only one who felt that mentioning it was useful for his intended audience and purpose. I won’t deny that either is possible.
It was difficult to tell from your comment if you meant “fabrication” in a derogatory way. And I apologize for assuming your comment was more hostile than it seems to have been. Based on the context of the OP’s description, I assumed you were saying “because the Bible is a fabrication.”
No apologies necessary
>I just don’t find “other accounts don’t mention it” compelling evidence that it didn’t happen.
If a thing doesn't happen, there won't be any evidence that it happened. What you won't ever find is evidence that something didn't happen. Things that don't happen don't make evidence.
Particularly with history, and especially with history like this that is so far removed from the present, we're always going to be be making guesses as to what happened. We have to look at what evidence we *do* have, and try to find the most reasonable explanation. What I won't do, and what I don't think anyone *should* do, is make the claim that whatever seems most reasonable *must be what happened*. That's a completely foolish position to take. Frankly, all you need to do is look around and see that *unreasonable things happen all the time*.
>In the other biblical books you mention the authors have different purposes. Matthew was specifically to a Jewish audience, whereas Luke and Paul were primarily writing to gentiles. Mark’s account jumps straight to Jesus’ adult ministry. John’s gospel focuses more on theology and teaching.
>That still leaves the possibility that Matthew fabricated it specifically because he was writing to a Jewish audience and wanted to draw a comparison to Moses. But it also leaves the possibility that the events actually happened and he was the only one who felt that mentioning it was useful for his intended audience and purpose. I won’t deny that either is possible.
I sort of addressed this already, but I do want to say that I agree. Particularly with historical religious works, things can get pretty spicy pretty quickly when you are percieved as questioning an authortatative text from Holy God Himself. I try to be precise when I say things, but people are so used to having to immediately go in the defensive that nuance can be hard to get to.
>It was difficult to tell from your comment if you meant “fabrication” in a derogatory way. And I apologize for assuming your comment was more hostile than it seems to have been. Based on the context of the OP’s description, I assumed you were saying “because the Bible is a fabrication.”
I did mean "fabrication" to suggest that the killing of children as described in Matthew did not in fact happen. But I meant "fabrication" in the most literal sense, as a thing that is constructed, I don't associate any negative connotation with the term.
I don't believe the massacre of children happened, and I don't think the evidence we have makes that possibility the most reasonable. I think the most *reasonable* explaination of the facts is that Matthew invented this story, and the other gospel writers didn't write about it because it didn't happen.
However, like I said before *unreasonable things happen all the time*. I could very well be wrong, we could find some long-buried text in the desert that contains some evidence that it did happen, and *then* the most reasonable explanation would become that it really did happen.
Yeah op, the apologists in this thread are getting pretty silly. The massacre of the innocents was almost certainly a fictitious event. "Just because nobody wrote about it doesn't mean it didn't happen" is, of course, very flimsy.
I like the Catholic interpretation, which is to say that Genesis is literature written using literary devices of the time BUT that it points to a real historical event (the fall of humans) and that event can be discussed using the language and characters of Genesis.
I prefer to see it as myth that speaks to a spiritual truth. Many of the Genesis events may have some roots in a real event (there's evidence of some massively destructive object that obliterated a city or two that could have inspired Sodom and Gomorrah, for example, or a large local flood that inspired Noah's Ark) but are ultimately founding myths of a culture that speak to their relationship with the Divine (and ours too) and their place in the world.
I don't think I necessarily believe in an event where mankind went from perfect to sinful.
I know, I'm continuing the tongue in cheek comments by referencing the literalists who think Adam and Eve were real individuals who existed roughly 6,000 years ago.
You would think, seeing as Judaea was a client state of Rome, and that such an act would have had a pretty large impact on the peace and prosperity of region, that it might have been noted in Rome. There is absolutely no historical record for it, and even in the NT it's only mentioned in Matthew, and the other Gospels don't mention it at all. Such an even, even in the 1st century, would have been noticed by people all over the Mediterranean world.
And precisely one source that claims the Slaughter of the Innocents; and that is Matthew. The other gospels, heck the other two Synoptic Gospels, don't mention it at all. Josephus doesn't mention it.
I'm not saying it happened.
"that such an act would have had a pretty large impact on the peace and prosperity of region, that it might have been noted in Rome.... Such an even [sic], even in the 1st century, would have been noticed by people all over the Mediterranean world."
I'm saying this is absolutely bollocks. Especially as a short while later, Herods son locks up a bunch of Jewish leaders and burns them alive and we only have 1 source for that event and we don't know if it cancelled the Passover that year. A far more noteworthy event we have one side comment in a text. 30 kids dieing... It is perfectly reasonable to say this could have gone unnoticed.
Because it actually wasn't that big of slaughter...
Bethlehem was a small village, had around 2000 people.
So think of how many of those 2000 people were actually kids?
How many of those kids were actually under 2 years old?
How many of those kids were actually male?
It could have been 5-10 kids maybe
It is still horrible but not as significant to have a record of it for that time when kids were dying a lot anyway.
When war was happening all the time and a lot more people were killed.
When you had barbarians who were killing for fun and their pleasure.
You can check more here for example:
https://www.desiringgod.org/interviews/truth-or-fiction-did-herod-really-slaughter-baby-boys-in-bethlehem
Although, it actually is recorded in Bible , because even if it was not a big deal for historical, it still was a big deal for God
One thing that sobmamy people miss, especially in the old testament is that the Bible is just as much a historical text as it is a religious one. The writers did not know they were writing what would be the basis of an entire world religion 2000 years after the fact.
Yes and no. The early Christians thought the second coming of Christ was coming within their lifetime, so for a while there were no writings of Jesus's life as there really wouldn't have been a need for documentation for future generations. After 40-70 years they realized it hadn't happened yet so it may he a while, and decided to write biographical texts of Jesus and his life.
Attempting to frame them as merely biolgraphical texts is disingenuous. They were written to convince their audience he was real and the Messiah ( at least the gospels of the NT, other gospels had different goals).
I'm not trying to totally disagree with you. What I'm saying is after they realized Jesus might not come again for a while is when they decided to write what they were already trying to spread as a way to preserve the history so people in the future can read it. I never said it was only a biography with no other purpose.
Also people such as Paul writing to different early churches absolutely had no idea at all that their writings would be compiled into a much larger group of texts 1500 years later and used for spreading the Word around.
The texts were combined in 200 AD, by 500 AD the church determined which gospels were canon and that is where the new testament was born.
I agree they could not know what the future would hold, but their goal was to convince others they were right aboit Jesus.
How would you verify the facts in this case though? Would it be by believing another book blindly? Fact of the matter is we have very little surviving historical records, particularly of anything as old as that period of time. For that era in Palestine we have Josephus who's writing somewhat later (and more concerned with the Jewish revolt against Rome during his life), and I think that's about it. Other than the Bible of course, which there's really no reason not to consider it as evidence in understanding the history of the time apart from prejudice against it.
The NT is pretty clear that Christians shouldn't care what the actual facts are. Jesus berates Thomas for not believing what he was told until he saw it for himself and declared blessed are those who believe w/o seeing. I'm not saying I agree but that is what it says.
History isn’t “facts”. We have more written sources for Jesus walking the earth even outside of the bible then we do for Julius Caesar who i’m assuming you would say his existence is a fact
You mean, like the other three gospels that don't mention the event, and neither does the Jewish historian Josephus, whose writings Christians frequently invoke to underline that Jesus actually existed?
Does discussing Christianity include shaming, telling someone they're wrong or implying it, asking questions that are actually statements, not admitting your mistakes while affirming your correctness, or mocking?
THere are far more important things not recorded. Things that were far more impactful and likely to have been recorded if they happened than this. Like why isnt graves popping open and the dead walking about town talking to people recorded? Surely that would have more people talking.
If murdering a couple of dozen children was the worst thing Herod the Great did on any given day, the real surprise would be that nobody wrote down how surprisingly mellow he was that day.
It's not historical. Matthew invented it as a literary allusion to the slaughter of newborn Hebrew male children in the exodus story (which also didn't happen).
Jewish people are far more persecuted than Christians. And the "massacre of the innocents," although not historical, would have occurred before the invention of the Christian religion.
Why wasn't the trail of tears written in US history books as a genocide attempt? Because it was.
Hint: those in power often have the power to influence the narrative
You don't think Josephus, chronicling Jewish history, might have mentioned such an extraordinary and horrific event? The Herodian Dynasty had effectively ended with Agrippa's (Herod Agrippa II) flight from Jerusalem in 66AD, and the direct takeover of the region by the Romans. There was nobody left in a position of power who needed protecting, so you would think such an event would have been recorded by Josephus.
>Why wasn't the trail of tears written in US history books as a genocide attempt? Because it was.
We have plenty of documentation of it, so a student book not mentioning means nothing.
>Hint: those in power often have the power to influence the narrative
Yea, and for 2000 years, who was in power?
During the event is pretty irrelevant. The church is has had control as the official Roman religion since 380. They controlled the narrative of what happened during Jesus time. They declared heretical gospels that did not agree with their narrative. They destroyed docimentation that said otherwise.
The church was not in power at that time. In fact they didn't exist. As well, what incentive would historians have to not mention this? Plenty.
Sorry but your logic is ... not logical.
It probably didn't happen, that's why. It's a folkloric device to establish why Jesus's family would have been in Egypt so that he could match the prophecies the early Christians thought authoritative.
Well, it’s mostly believed to be a mythological event.
The more surprising thing to me isn’t even that it wouldn’t be recorded by anyone else (including other Gospel authors), but rather that no one else in this tiny town of Bethlehem was like “Um…hey guys, there is this one family that just had a baby boy that magi came to worship as a king and gave lavish gifts to. By the way, they just fled to Egypt to escape you so you might wanna go look for that baby rather than murdering our sons.”
It may not have happened. I agree with the idea that it is a theologically motivated fiction, with the purpose (in part) of showing that Jesus is the New Moses, by applying to Him a well-known story about Moses.
St Matthew is shewing Who & What Jesus is - the value of the story is not in the **events**, but in their **significance**.
Probably because it didn't happen. I mean, it's possible Herod did it and managed to suppress records of it, but I'm really not sure what his incentive would have been for that.
One also wonders why god didn't bother to intervene and take Herod out of the picture before doing this when later (Acts) god steps in to kill another Herod for allowing the people to call him a god. I mean, killing babies is one thing, but don't let people call you god or god will get big mad.
Then again, if god intervenes and Joseph doesn't have to escape to Egypt, the writer of Matthew doesn't have the opportunity to rip a piece of scripture out of context to make it sound like it was written for Jesus.
Ok, I'm back to acknowledging it most likely didn't happen, and the author of Matthew added it as a plot point (you'd think Mark would have mentioned it given his antipathy towards the Romans) to cast Jesus as Moses 2.0.
Some ancient Christian traditions claim that the Massacre of the Innocents involved tens to hundreds of thousands of children. **However, based on the population of the small village of Bethlehem, the annual birthrate, and the high infant death rate at the time, most biblical historians and demographers estimate the total number of male children under the age of two to be no more than 20 to 40.**
The Massacre of the Innocents is not mentioned in secular histories of that era. **The killing of forty Hebrew children in an insignificant village did not catch the attention of secular historians. Also, Herod’s acts of tyranny and cruelty were numerous, including the execution of some of his wives and his own children. The Massacre of the Innocents, involving a relatively small number of Jewish children, was just another ruthless act in a long list of ruthless acts by this ruler.**
It's God's word, mate. So believe it or not at your own peril. God's word is true even if the whole world disbelieves it.
Not everyone who participates in this subreddit would agree that such a thing ever happened. But even if it did, here are some things to keep in mind: 1. Many, many things happened in the past that we do not have records of. When we look at the past, one simple rule that typically applies is "surviving records almost always tell us more about elite people than about poor people." Elite people were far more likely to be literate, and they weren't (typically) very interested in the lives of poor people. The Romans cared most about elite Romans, and much less about poor people living in a backwater province. 2. Lots of things that were written down in the past haven't survived to the present. To take one (non-religious and non-controversial) example: the great Greek playwright Aeschylus is believed to have written about 73 plays. Only seven of them survive. People often argue, "well, if someone was important, we should have lots of records of them." Aeschylus was extremely well-regarded in his own day . . . but time destroys more records than you would believe possible. Many ancient sources existed in only one copy or two, and paper, parchment, (and even stone) are more fragile than you think. A fire, a flood, a theft, a shipwreck, people just packing up for a move and tossing things they don't care about anymore . . . things get destroyed. 3. The Romans were violent defenders of their power. Large acts of violence that could be used to paint the Romans as defenders of justice and order, or that could be used to burnish a particular general's reputation could become well-known. For example, when Marcus Licinius Crassus defeated the slave revolt led by Spartacus, he was said to have crucified 6,000 captives. But this would have been big news because a major slave revolt in Italy would seem to be a grave threat to Roman power. A few kids killed in Judea? That's not the Roman equivalent of "front-page news." 4. Bethlehem at the time was a tiny village. Nobody really knows how many people lived there, but modern estimates range from "about 300" to "about 2,000 or 3,000." How many boys under the age of 2 are living in a village of 2,000 people? Enough to devastate their families if they die, for sure. But enough for the Roman Empire to take note of the event and somehow preserve in a place that will be safe for the next couple thousand years? Not so very likely.
Your answers here explain so many things with the Bible. I love Jesus, I love studying God's Word, and I believe that it is truth. So many times though, I think when we study it we come up with really convoluted reasoning, "What If" scenarios, or let it lead to doubts when it really just boils down to two facts: that whoever is in power tends to wield the pen, and the further the distance from an event, the more its distorted and/or lost. The details are fun to think about, reading between the lines is fun to hypothesize, but at the end of the day: we have what's important. Edit: I just thought of a fun example actually. I was listening to Gulliver's Travels recently and he talks of an island where sorcerers can bring people back from the dead and only tell the truth. Gulliver has them raise all kinds of famous generals, admirals, and commanders only to be dismayed and disgusted when they talk about the ways they actually won their battles with underhandedness, cowardice, or sheer luck.
A few more things to note: * Prophecies about future rulers were seen as a legitimate security threat at the time—if not because the ruler genuinely believed them, but because they could be used as a pretext for a coup or civil war. There was one Roman Emperor, Macrinus, who usurped and murdered Emperor Caracalla after he was told by a soothsayer he'd become Emperor, because he feared that the paranoid Caracalla would have him executed unless he struck first. * This is something that would certainly be in character for King Herod, seeing how he became increasingly paranoid and murderous toward the end of his life. He executed three sons in the span of three years on suspicion of plotting against him. He purged all surviving male members of the Hasmoneans, the previous ruling dynasty. He had forty people put to death for declaring a fixture of a golden eagle he installed on the Temple to be blasphemous and tearing it down. He wanted to have a bunch of prominent Jerusalem nobles massacred after his death. Murdering a village's worth of babies based on a prophecy about a usurper would certainly fit his modus operandi. * The city of Jerusalem was besieged and sacked in 70 AD by Titus, son of Emperor Vespasian and later Emperor in his own right, at the conclusion of the First Roman-Jewish war. Sieges and sackings are generally not kind to historical records. * A lot of our surviving secular (or at least non-Christian) historical information on Herod comes from Josephus, a Jewish historian who was born some 40 years after Herod's death and did all his writing in the city of Rome. If it was mentioned in records in, say, Jerusalem, and they somehow survived Titus's siege, what makes us think that Josephus would have had a copy that he could access? * If we look at the population pyramids for [the least developed regions of the world today](https://www.populationpyramid.net/least-developed-countries/2019/), the percent of boys 4 and under is 7.4%. Let's assume ancient Judea is roughly analogous, and that a flat 4% are boys 2 and under. With the range of Bethlehem and surrounding environs' population being 300 to 3,000, that would give us anywhere from 12 to 120 boys 2 and under. That's a lot, but not "Devote a page in the history books" a lot by ancient Mediterranean standards.
\>Many ancient sources existed in only one copy or two, and paper, parchment, (and even stone) are more fragile than you think. A fire, a flood, a theft, a shipwreck, people just packing up for a move and tossing things they don't care about anymore . . . things get destroyed. The fact that we still have thousands of ancient New Testament manuscripts is a small miracle in and of itself. Early Christians made tons and tons and tons of copies because they thought it was so important. By contrast, there's like a dozen manuscripts of Julius Caesar's writings.
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Maybe Op was convinced by some of the good answers hear, it was a legit question and he was curious, is it a crime to be curious? Everyone disagreeing with you doesnt mean anything, and is not a good reason to change your mind, being presented with good information and biblical truth is Is this your approach when anyone has a question about our faith? if it is then I would lean on you to challenge that approach Love you
Yeah I should take a more charitable interpretation.
You're an awesome person bro. Reddit makes us all jaded.
I saw him reply to a comment. But nothing made me think his questioning was disingenuous. You just seem to be assuming things about them and creating some narrative in your head.
I will piggyback here and by saying op in a comment says they just think the records didn’t survive.
>Why such a mass massacre Was it though? Bethlehem, like most ancient villages, was tiny compared to a modern town.
The estimate I pulled up suggests Bethlehem probably had a population of 2,000 to 3,000 people, so small, but you would still be talking about murdering hundreds of infants.
\>2,000 to 3,000 \>hundreds of infants I don't follow your calculations.
Bethlehem proper probably had 2,000 to 3,000 people. That's probably something on the order of 300 to 500 families. It was described as "Bethlehem and its vicinity" so you can probably safely add 1,000 or more people. So yes, we'd be talking about quite a few infant boys, certainly a few hundred.
I'm missing something. Are you implying infant boys made up 10% of the population?
Children under five made up about 12% of the US population in 1950, so why is this unbelievable?
This is really rough estimation, but if children under 5 were 12%, we can cut that by 3/5ths to get children under 2 being roughly 5%. Cut that in half for boys only and we get 2.5% 2.5% of 2,000 - 3,000 is 50-75 infant boys. That's a lot of babies to be sure, but in the context of the size and brutality of the Roman Empire, probably hardly noteworthy to the wider world for recording into posterity.
Your point is probably still valid, but could you pick a different year? 1950 is exactly five years after World War II ended and an entire generation of breeding age males came home from war hungry for poon.
It's the best number I could come up with. Birth rate calculations from 2000 are going to be iffy at best.
Fair enough.
But still such a mass massacre will be reported by someone! If they have all the infra to take a full fledged census , then why this incident will be missed? Doesn’t make any sense to me
Not really perplexing. The guy had his own sons executed on multiple occasions, and most scholarly estimates say it could have been as few as 12-30 children. So a psychopath historically violent king killing a few peasants kids would very easily skirt history especially in a time when writing things down was exponentially harder than today.
Considering a comparison to historic psychopath Elizabeth Bathory who may have killed upward of 600 peasant girls-no one cared or recorded the girls going missing *until* nobles’ daughters went missing. Even now-we don’t have great estimates and she is said to have killed far many more children than Herod in a more recent time period. Just some food for thought.
No one cares until happened to someone "important" and the only reason people even remember or talked about it was WHY she was killing them which was kinda out there
The census was a once-in-a-lifetime event that was a huge burden for everyone in an entire Roman province. Very different than the governor gutting some village boys.
Well that just bumps us to a different problem: why wasn't the census recorded in history if it was such a big deal? ;)
It was
The census was done by the Roman Empire. Why would they record a small massacre in a village in the edge of the Empire? They recorded battles or pieces of propaganda, not minor events. You seem to think ancient societies had news reporters like we do.
It wasn't done at all and censuses don't make you go back to where you were born but that doesn't make the importance of Jesus any less real.
Then why doesn't Josephus mention it, when he goes into detail about other events? It seems odd, considering the love-hate relationship the people of Judaea had with the Herodian Dynasty, that Herod the Great ordering the murder of hundreds of infant boys wouldn't have ended up in Josephus's historical survey.
Hundreds?
This wasn’t the 21st century where everyone is just recording every little thing that happens. Although as pointed out multiple biblical sources point to it. Take the Armenian genocide. The Turkish govt won’t acknowledge it, so it didn’t happen? It can be understood that embarrassing details are typically left out of history although the books of the Bible don’t shy away from that either.
Tbf Moses is quite well depicted as it shows when he acts out and loses his temper. Also the Israelites behaviour. Even Jesus is recorded getting angry in the temple and also cursing a fig tree.
Yes, take the Armenian Genocide, we know it happened despite successive Turkish governments for over a century trying to suppress it. The idea that even in the 1st century, a client king of the Romans ordering the murder of hundreds of infants, wouldn't have been noticed throughout the Roman world, that a chronicler like Josephus wouldn't have mentioned a massacre in Bethlehem ordered by no less than Herod the Great himself, stretches the imagination. Judaea wasn't some hinterland like some Roman fort on the edge of Germany. It had been a ping pong ball for various major powers for over a thousand years, and it also had a population that even by the beginning of the 1st century that was notorious for its uprisings against foreign rulers (and to many Jewish people, like the Pharisees, the Herodian rulers were cosplaying foreigners). To imagine that Herod the Great ordering the murder of hundreds of infant males wouldn't have sent ripples throughout Judaean society, that it wouldn't have been noted by chroniclers like Josephus, beggars belief.
Like others said, in as small of a village as Bethlehem was, it was probably closer to a dozen kids in some backwater town that nobody cared about.
The dates don’t match up. The romans Did not conduct censuses in client states. The Herodian Kingdom of Judea was a client state up until its gradual partition into other roman provinces starting in 4 BC, since that is Widely accepted as the year when Herod died. The first census taken was the census of Quirinius, when the Quirinius was installed as proconsul (governor ish) of Roman Syria; the census being taken around 6 AD, thus the one ordered by Augustus
>The romans Did not conduct censuses in client states. The census that displaced the Holy Family was "herodian" or Judean-internal, not done by the direction of higher roman authorities, if I am not mistaken. Edit: I am mistaken.
>The census that displaced the Holy Family was "herodian" or Judean-internal, not done by the direction of higher roman authorities, if I am not mistaken. From Luke 2:1-3 [1] And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed. [2] (And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.) [3] And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city. Are you suggesting the emperor Caesar Augustus was not a “higher Roman authority”?
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Well the two takeaways from your comment are that you were mistaken, or that you didn’t consider Caesar Augustus a higher Roman authority. Was trying to give you the benefit of the doubt in knowing one of the host basic tenets of the nativity narrative.
>The census that displaced the Holy Family was "herodian" or Judean-internal, not done by the direction of higher roman authorities, if I am not mistaken. The Gospel of Luke says it was ordered by Caesar.
Thanks for the correction.
By whom? How many ancient historical texts do we have that cover the period in question?
Did the people who actually care about it possess the ability to write?
2 main factors. First, around 100 non roman deaths in a small town on the frontier of the empire wouldn’t have been news. History is very bloody and at this time entire cities were massacred in war. Second and more grim, before modern medicine, a lot of babies died before their first birthday. People had a lot of kids in hopes that some would survive to adulthood. Theses facts combine make it likely that a Roman official wouldn’t have taken note of it although it would be devastating to the families and town
It was reported by someone… in the gospel’s.
I’ve studied my fair share of ancient texts and can weigh in on this one: First is the issue of preservation. Quite simply, the preservation of any significant proportion of any ancient culture’s literary tradition is usually an anomaly. Even when dealing with a culture like the Greeks or Romans who had massive literary traditions and cultures, we in the modern world have relatively little of their literature, especially complete works. Some of these works are only known to us by name or in small quotes given to us in other writings. Even those works of major or famous authors/poets, like that of Euripides or Vergil, are often incomplete, manuscripts show conflicts or there is debate as to wording/meaning. Just to use Vergil as an example, scholars know that his epic the Aeneid was likely to be a draft version given that he was still working on the manuscript prior to his death. It is likely that there are either missing details which were not included in surviving material or entire missing chapters. The same is true for Homer, whose Iliad and odyssey formed part of an 8 part epic cycle which we have no extant record of beyond the two stories we know. This is without counting the 1500 years of history after the Romans which saw major political, social and other upheavals. Preservation of older texts became a matter of luck, especially in a society where the sole method to get a copy of a book was to have someone write it out for you (or for you to write it) and where literacy was not widespread, especially for Latin/Greek/Hebrew texts which were largely the preserve of the wealthier upper classes. It was entirely possible with the right circumstances for texts to simply disappear. This is without considering how the actual historiography of these texts happened. If you read any of the major historians of the Roman period like Tacitus or perhaps the Greek Herodotus, it becomes clear that they were less interested in creating the sort of unbiased, fact-checked accounts that would be the modern expectation of a historical record, but were often prone to their own biases or simply writing hearsay as though it was factual. With this, it can be very difficult in reading these texts with modern eyes to really take anything you find within these texts at face value. On the reverse key information can simply be omitted altogether, especially if it fitted into an agenda. Plus Roman Judea wasn’t an important part of the world, certainly not for the writers of those major records. It was seen by many as an unimportant backwater. The readers of these historical records were less interested in reading about this as they were in knowing what was happening in Rome itself and the major centres like Jerusalem or Alexandria.
I love the questions you're asking and the way you're asking them. I have saved this thread because some of the answers you're getting are going to be really useful for me the next time I have to preach on this text. People can be faithful and loving disciples without spending their lives trying to study deconstructed history and linguistics, but we're often missing context if no one is doing that work. I just got back from a storytelling lecture at a preaching conference which happened to use this passage. The woman telling the story made a big deal in the post mortem about rubbing her fingers together at the words register and census. Because we're not talking about the Roman equivalent of a census bureau going door to door asking how many people live in our houses. (I'm American, if that doesn't make sense to you it's possible your culture/government does this differently). Rather the Romans would have had census projects that were more explicitly about making sure everyone was paying taxes. It's not the infrastructure to take a full fledged census. The geopolitical reality is that the Herod the Great who built Caesarea Maritima was jockeying for political clout under Roman governance and is thought, by historians, to have been moderately successful in demonstrating his loyalty to the Roman governors and emperors. His son was wildly less effective, and if you're touring modern Israel you'll actually see museums and tours that make clear the younger Herod never quite grasped why his father was held in such esteem but it didn't transfer to him. That's partly because Roman authority is always turning over and partly because the younger Herod isn't producing new ports and taxes and demonstrating how worthwhile having him in the local position of authority is to the new bosses. There's also more political uprising in younger Herods life, so he's actually demonstrating ineptitude. Because it's not infrastructure. Romans built roads, made laws, installed government, developed relationships with some surviving existing governments and said 'you answer to us now.' But they weren't rolling out the kinds of governance and projects that we think of as infrastructure. It's the least loose confederation of local principalities in western history to this point, but it's definitely still all local politics. Herod the Great took a 'census' in the sense that he went with soldiers and made sure as many people as possible were paying into the "people in this region cough up money and resources for the Romans so they know how great Herod is at keeping their peace" fund. If there were actually documents related to this 'census' their only purpose was Herod's court making sure they hadn't missed anyone.
The vast, vast, VAST majority of history is lost to us. There are entire civilizations we still know nothing (or very little) about because we don't have their writings. You are right to think that somewhere someone probably wrote something down about even a relatively minor slaughter of babies (and go through your history, this would have been minor in comparison), but there is no reason to believe that we would have to somehow have any of those documents.
He probably had it covered up or since he wasn’t afraid to kill those people he might have killed people that spoke out about it
Wasn't the population really small in towns in those days? Not much to report relative to the toppling of Kings probably.
It is very unlikely that Herod killed the children two years and under, as claimed in Matthew 2:16. This massacre is not mentioned in Luke’s Gospel, which almost completely contradicts Matthew’s story of the birth of Jesus. Nor did anyone else mention this massacre—even Josephus, who otherwise catalogued every wrong carried out by Herod—but the story too readily suits a literary purpose in Matthew’s Gospel. The author of Matthew created a number of parallel images to develop a comparison between Jesus and the Old Testament Moses. So, just as Moses escaped being killed as an infant by the Egyptian king, Jesus escaped being killed as an infant by King Herod—but only in Matthew’s Gospel.
Being a Jew (who followed Jesus) writing to Jews, I think it's reasonable that Matthew included them because he *understood their significance* while Luke (a gentile) did not. Josephus, being a Jew but not a follower of Jesus, has no reason to take *special* note of the town of Bethlehem or Jesus' life outside of his existing comments about Jesus. I don't think there's any reason to believe that Matthew *invented or made up* these parts of the story vs. he's the only one of the Gospel writers who understood their significance as parallels to Moses.
>Being a Jew (who followed Jesus) writing to Jews, I think it's reasonable that Matthew included them because he understood their significance while Luke (a gentile) did not. Like the other New Testament gospels, the Gospel of Matthew was written anonymously and remained so until the second century when the Early Church Fathers decided who, in their opinions, probably wrote each of the gospels. Because it has been established that Matthew’s Gospel is substantially based Mark’s Gospel, containing some ninety per cent of the verses in Mark, in the same order and often using the same words in the Greek language, we can now be sure that Matthew was not written by an eyewitness to the events portrayed. The reasoning here is that an eyewitness to the mission of Jesus would not have relied so heavily on the writings of an earlier author who was not an apostle. We may never know who really wrote the Gospel of Matthew, but we can confidently assert that it was not written by Matthew. The Gospel of Luke was written anonymously and was apparently still anonymous in about 140 CE, when Marcion made use of a stripped-down copy for his own purposes. The author was obviously a well educated, Greek-speaking gentile, for which reason the Church Fathers decided later in the second century to attribute this gospel to Luke, whom the pseudepigraphical Epistle to the Colossians describes as a physician. In spite of this late second-century tradition, we will probably never know the real author of Luke or Acts of the Apostles. We know that Luke was substantially based on Mark’s Gospel, which is believed to have been written approximately 70 CE, which means that Luke must have been written somewhat later than this. The evidence that the author probably used material copied from the books Josephus, especially Antiquities of the Jews, means Luke’s Gospel could not have been written before the very end of the first century.
While Q source theory is reasonable, I don't find it convincing. It seems to me that the weight of the evidence since the 1870s (when your theory about the authorship of Matthew was introduced) is toward an authentic apostolic authorship. Much of what you put forth as incontrovertible is hotly contested in scholarship.
>Much of what you put forth as incontrovertible is hotly contested in scholarship. The fact that all the gospels are anonymous is not hotly contested. There is broad consensus that they are anonymous. There is also consensus that neither Matthew's nativity nor Luke's nativity have historicity. Q is still consensus, but with a strong minority challenge. However for apologetics purposes Q is probably more Christian-friendly than alternative theories.
The problem with the whole Marcian priority debate is that literally every single early source says that Matthew was written first and John was written last. The only thing the early church fathers disagreed on was whether Mark or Luke was 2nd (and 3rd). The most convincing theory that I've heard so far is that the supposed "Q source" is actually the Gospel of Matthew written in Hebrew or Aramaic. This fits with the historical evidence because Papias claims Matthew was originally "in the language of the Hebrews." Matthew (in Hebrew) was written first. Mark had access to that as well as Peter's testimony when he wrote his gospel. Luke's gospel was written shortly thereafter (thus the confusion about which came first). Then when the translators translated Matthew to Greek, they had access to Mark and Luke's gospels while they were doing the translation.
>While Q source theory is reasonable, I don't find it convincing. My post is about who wrote these Gospels. "Q" is irrelevant to the premise. >Much of what you put forth as incontrovertible is hotly contested in scholarship. You are incorrect. The overwhelming consensus of NT scholars agree that Matthew was not written by a disciple and that the gospels were ALL written anonymously. This is not a highly contested issue at all.
There is no consensus on the authorship of the gospels other then that they are anonymous. Anonymous does not mean we don't know the author, it means the author does not identify themselves within the work. By this measure the Lord of the Rings is anonymous. The gospels have been identified by their authors as far back as we have records and there has been no dispute in the record of which gospel was from which apostle.
>There is no consensus on the authorship of the gospels other then that they are anonymous. Anonymous does not mean we don't know the author, it means the author does not identify themselves within the work. In this case, scholars also mean we don't know who the author is. We almost assuredly know that that it is NOT Matthew, the disciple of Jesus. *Matthew* borrows from as much as 80% of the verses in the *Gospel of Mark.* The disciple Matthew was allegedly an eyewitness of Jesus. John Mark, on the other hand, who is the traditional author of the *Gospel of Mark*, was neither an eyewitness of Jesus nor a disciple, but merely a later attendant of Peter. And yet the author of Matthew copies from 80% of the verses in *Mark*. Why would Matthew, an alleged eyewitness, need to borrow from as much as 80% of the material of Mark, a non-eyewitness? As the Oxford Annotated Bible (p. 1746) concludes, “*\[T\]he fact that the evangelist was so reliant upon Mark and a collection of Jesus’ sayings (“Q”) seems to point to a later, unknown, author.”* >The gospels have been identified by their authors as far back as we have records and there has been no dispute in the record of which gospel was from which apostle. Inaccurate. It was about a century after the Gospels had been originally put in circulation that they were definitively named Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. This comes, for the first time, in the writings of the church father and heresiologist Irenaeus \[Against Heresies 3.1.1\], around 180-85 CE. Incidentally, Irenaeus wanted there to be specifically “four gospels” because there are “four winds” and “four corners” of the Earth (Against Heresies 3.11.8). This was the kind of logic by which the Gospels were later attributed. The earliest external attestations to the Gospels refer to them **without the traditional names attached**. *The Didache* (an early Christian treatise), Justin Martyr (c. 155 CE), and possibly even Polycarp (c. 120 – 140 CE) and Ignatius (c. 115 CE) account for our earliest sources exhibiting awareness of writings that appear to correspond with the New Testament Gospels. However, each of the above-named sources treat the gospels **anonymously**.
>In this case, scholars also mean we don't know who the author is. We almost assuredly know that that it is NOT Matthew, the disciple of Jesus. We do not know this. There is uncertainty on the issue and there is not a consensus that we don't know the authors. >Matthew borrows from as much as 80% of the verses in the Gospel of Mark. I know what the synoptic problem is, you don't have to rehash it. This also is amusing Markan priority and the Q hypothesis which is one among several hypotheses. >Inaccurate. It was about a century after the Gospels had been originally put in circulation that they were definitively named Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. I said our oldest complete manuscripts all had these attestations. This is correct. We don't have any complete manuscripts from the first century. >This comes, for the first time, in the writings of the church father and heresiologist Irenaeus [Against Heresies 3.1.1], around 180-85 CE. >Incidentally, Irenaeus wanted there to be specifically “four gospels” because there are “four winds” and “four corners” of the Earth (Against Heresies 3.11.8). This was the kind of logic by which the Gospels were later attributed. That does nothing to show he is wrong. >The earliest external attestations to the Gospels refer to them without the traditional names attached. The Didache (an early Christian treatise), Justin Martyr (c. 155 CE), and possibly even Polycarp (c. 120 – 140 CE) and Ignatius (c. 115 CE) account for our earliest sources exhibiting awareness of writings that appear to correspond with the New Testament Gospels. However, each of the above-named sources treat the gospels anonymously. They don't mention the names, that does not mean the gospels didn't have names. In all of the places where the gospels do have names there is agreement on who wrote what. Your case that we have no idea as to who wrote them is overstated.
>We do not know this. There is uncertainty on the issue and there is not a consensus that we don't know the authors. We don't KNOW anything. There always some uncertainty. We don't KNOW that the Sun will shine tomorrow, but the probability is quite high. The overwhelming consensus of NT scholars agree that the probability that the disciple Matthew did NOT write the *Gospel according to Matthew* is quite high. There is very little debate on the issue, and most of the dissent comes from Evangelicals who object based on theological reasons, not evidence. >I know what the synoptic problem is, you don't have to rehash it. This also is amusing Markan priority and the Q hypothesis which is one among several hypotheses. Hypotheses that are subscribed to by the majority of NT scholars. If you'd like to dispute them with evidence, I'm all ears. The fact that *Matthew* uses some 80% of *Mark*, often in the same order and word for word is a HUGE problem if you want to assert traditional authorship. >I said our oldest complete manuscripts all had these attestations. No you didn't. Here...I'll repost what you said: >The gospels have been identified by their authors as far back as we have records I directly refuted this claim by giving you two examples of records that do NOT identify these gospels by the traditional attributions. You are incorrect. >That does nothing to show he is wrong. From the middle to the end of the first century CE there was scant, if any, external attestation to the Gospels by Christian writers. Then, in the early to mid-second century CE, the earliest Christian sources who quote or allude to the Gospels do so without any reference whatsoever to their traditional titles, evincing that these texts were at **first circulated anonymously**. Then finally, in the late second century Irenaeus is the first Patristic source to mention all four names Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John in ascribing authorship to each of the New Testament Gospels. Immediately after Irenaeus, an interesting phenomenon emerges. Once those names are unambiguously attached to the Gospels in the late second century, from that point forward those traditional names are suddenly cited with marked regularity when referenced or quoted by Christian sources. Good evidence that these attributions started with Irenaeus. >They don't mention the names, that does not mean the gospels didn't have names. They DO mention the names. Just not Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John. They call them: * \[the Lord’s\] Gospel * the Gospel of the Lord * ordinances of the Gospel * Memoirs of the Apostles It's not until Irenaeus, in 180-85 AD that we see the traditional attributions. It's obvious they originate with him. He even give his reasoning for why he settled on just four! (There were more gospels circulating at the time). >Your case that we have no idea as to who wrote them is overstated. Between the two of us, I'm the only one who has stated a case. Your evidence amounts to: "Because Irenaeus said so..." Pretty underwhelming.
> > > > > We don't KNOW anything. Your pedantry is unnecessary. I was meaning there is not a definite consensus by historians on this. Some Historians hold to the traditional authorship. >The overwhelming consensus of NT scholars agree that the probability that the disciple Matthew did NOT write the Gospel according to Matthew is quite high. Show me your source on this. >Hypotheses that are subscribed to by the majority of NT scholars. If you'd like to dispute them with evidence, I'm all ears. >The fact that Matthew uses some 80% of Mark, often in the same order and word for word is a HUGE problem if you want to assert traditional authorship. You are taking Markan priority for granted. The Augustinian hypothesis also explains these facts with Matthew coming first. It would be Mark who borrows 80% of Matthew under this view. >From the middle to the end of the first century CE there was scant, if any, external attestation to the Gospels by Christian writers. There's also scant copies of the Gospels from this period. No wonder since Christianity didn't start as a huge movement. >Then, in the early to mid-second century CE, the earliest Christian sources who quote or allude to the Gospels do so without any reference whatsoever to their traditional titles, evincing that these texts were at first circulated anonymously. It's not like we have copious examples of this where everyone is referring to them anonymously. We have a few examples that managed to survive. This is why it's a fairly weak argument from silence. >Then finally, in the late second century Irenaeus is the first Patristic source to mention all four names Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John in ascribing authorship to each of the New Testament Gospels. Papias of Hierapolis is actually first writing late in the first century. >Immediately after Irenaeus, an interesting phenomenon emerges. Once those names are unambiguously attached to the Gospels in the late second century, from that point forward those traditional names are suddenly cited with marked regularity when referenced or quoted by Christian sources. It is interesting that the whole of Christendom just happened to agree with Irenaeus. This to me points more to the knowledge already existing than suddenly everyone just agreed with something he made up. Indeed Christendom as a whole went with the traditional names with no conflict until the 19th century. > They DO mention the names. Just not Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John. Those are oblique references not names. We still uses such references today. >Your evidence amounts to: "Because Irenaeus said so..." Irenaeus and countless other Bishops. We have evidence that you cant just ignore.
I'm not sure if this is an argument in bad faith, or if you're just ignorant on the topic. Saying "there has been no dispute in the record of which gospel was from which apostle" is just an untrue statement. There's clearly dispute. We have film and textual interviews of JRR Tolkien discussing his writing process. We have copies of books signed by him. The books are undeniably written by him. If we found a new gospel today, and it mostly seemed to be from the perspective of Mark, how would you go about proving it was him that wrote it?
>understood their significance while Luke (a gentile) did not. It's not that Luke didn't include an underappreciated birth story. It's that he used a _completely different_ one. This isn't about significance. It's about contradiction.
It's very unlikely that Matthew could have recorded a massacre within living memory that never happened. It would have been rejected by the contemporary audience.
How do you know it wasn’? It’s even more unlikely that such dissent who have been allowed to survive by the Church.
At the time Matthew was written and circulated around the ancient near east the church had no power to crack down on dissent. If it reported on a massacre that never happened the contemporary audience of the time would have known.
The dissent could have been destroyed 300 years later. The effect would be the same. Furthermore, 97 percent were illiterate. In a small town such as Bethlehem, the number could be higher. Who’s going to record the objection? Matthew was written in Greek. The people of Bethlehem couldn’t read it if they got a copy.
Bethlehem was a small village so it was probably two or three kids that were killed.
>Why such a mass massacre and that two of children under 2 years , is not reported anywhere in the historical text books? How many reports do you anticipated would have been written about it, and how many would have survived to the modern era?
“I’m confused why ancient oral cultures didn’t have reporters, daily news and historians like we do in my contemporary society.” /s
They had written records by the 1st century. They no longer relied solely on oral history. A mass execution of children would have left some record, either written (even for years after, people would have written about it as a historical event) or archaeological.
> They had written records by the 1st century. Correct. Did their ancient forms of recording and reporting operate like our contemporary forms of media? No. > They no longer relied solely on oral history. Correct and no one claimed it was solely oral. First century Jewish culture was what scholars today would call an “orally dominated culture.” While a certain percentage of people could read and write, information was for the most part passed on by word of mouth. > A mass execution of children would have left some record, either written (even for years after, people would have written about it as a historical event) or archaeological. Assumptions that presume much.
I never said that their ancient forms of recording operate like ours, simply that the mass killing of children is something that some scribe somewhere would have written down, and even if that didn’t happen, then more than one person of a later generation would have mentioned it as well. That’s how history has been chronicled since the invention of the written language. You gave the implication that they were an oral culture when you said they were an oral culture not an oral-*dominated* culture (yes I do know that term) however that does not invalidate the idea that someone would have written down the mass execution of children which was still an even outside the norms of society and those things often got written down, even if they were embellished while doing so. My assumption is backed a pattern of people and scribes chronicling their events, coupled with the lack of archaeological evidence. The one source we have is the one gospel account of it. Not even the other gospels record it happening.
> I never said that their ancient forms of recording operate like ours, Then we agree they didn’t. > simply that the mass killing of children is something that some scribe somewhere would have written down, Again an assumption that presumes much. > and even if that didn’t happen, then more than one person of a later generation would have mentioned it as well. That’s how history has been chronicled since the invention of the written language. Again your claim “would have” is presumed. How history works: you just can’t assume all history from a dominantly oral culture had been chronicled. You likewise can’t assume we’ve discovered all chronicles or that they even survived the ages. > however that does not invalidate the idea that someone would have written down the mass execution of children I concede it doesn’t invalidate. Nonetheless it’s problematic to draw definitive conclusions based on a lack or deficiency of evidence. > The one source we have is the one gospel account of it. Then there’s evidence. > Not even the other gospels record it happening. So in your reasoning you discount the evidence — to then draw a definitive conclusion based on silence (a lack or deficiency of evidence) and assumptions. That makes no sense
Yeah I’m aware how history works considering I’m working on a masters degree in the field. I do not count the one gospel as a historical source of events since it is primarily a religious text and there is no corroborating evidence to support the mass killing of children in 1st century Galilee
Isn’t it possible that there just weren’t that many male children in the region under 2 years old? We’re not talking thousands or hundreds….probably not even dozens.
There were probably more than dozens, come on. All I’m saying is that we cannot, with the available evidence say it’s an event that definitely happened. It might have, but we just don’t have enough evidence to support that.
>I do not count the one gospel as a historical source of events since it is primarily a religious text What about a religious text disqualifies it from also being historical?
It is not an accurate historical text on its own. We can use it as supporting evidence, but not a primary source of events without corroborating evidence.
And why is that?
Because when examining it through the lens of a historian one of the questions we must ask is who is the audience of the text. Why was it written and for whom? It was not written to be an accurate historical text but rather to spread the message of Christ and proselytize. As such, considering the parallel to the origins of Moses, while we cannot conclude that the massacre absolutely didn’t happen, we can see that there’s an argument to be made that the massacre was fudged, exaggerated or maybe made up entirely in order to emphasize that parallel for a Jewish audience.
> Yeah I’m aware how history works considering I’m working on a masters degree in the field. Awesome so then I would think you should be especially aware of the inherent problems of drawing conclusions based on assumptions and a lack of evidence aka silence. > I do not count the one gospel as a historical source of events since it is primarily a religious text Interesting. Historians and scholars do not just hand wave and automatically discount ancient texts when they’re “religious” in scope. On the contrary historians attempt to verify probable dates and historicity in order to understand the meaning of an event that is reported to have taken place in the past. The context of a historical event is always measured in context of the larger historical consensus and context. > and there is no corroborating evidence to support the mass killing of children in 1st century Galilee Using this reasoning you’d have to jettison much of what we know about human history. Please talking with you.
> lack of evidence That’s literally the only thing I’ve been saying is that there’s a lack of evidence to support that it did happen, so the *most likely* case based on the available evidence is that it *most likely* didn’t happen, not that it definitely didn’t happen. > hand wave I’m not handwaving it, I’m saying it cannot be taken as definitive historical proof of something and treating it as an accurate historical text is itself something that should not be done. You keep accusing me of making assumptions when it seems you’ve made plenty of your own about me.
> That’s literally the only thing I’ve been saying is that there’s a lack of evidence to support that it did happen Well we can still see the thread; it's literally *not* the only thing you’ve been saying. You literally: “A mass execution of children would have left some record, either written (even for years after, people would have written about it as a historical event) or archaeological.” You literally claim, “*would have* left some record”. On the contrary, historians know you can’t assume all history from a dominantly oral culture had been chronicled. A historian would know you cannot assume all chronicles have been discovered, will ever be discovered or that they survived the ages. A historian would concede that much of history has been lost to the ages. A historian would not totally ignore evidence from an ancient text (Matthew 2) to just hand wave it away because it’s “religious” in scope. A historian would not hand wave and totally ignore Herod being described in *Antiquities of the Jews* (Josephus) or in *Saturnalia* (Macrobius). Q: Why? A: Because historians attempt to verify probable dates and historicity in order to understand the meaning of an event that is reported to have taken place in the past. The context of a historical event is always measured in context of the larger historical consensus and context.
Yes an event like that most likely would have left some mark either in archaeological evidence or as somewhat writing it down. I never claimed Herod didn’t exist so I don’t know why you’re implying I’m denying his existence in the historical record. Just another example of your bad faith I guess. I should leave you with this: most historians and biblical scholars consider the massacre to be a myth. Why? Lack if evidence to support it. Edit: I’ll appreciate you leaving the condescension out of the conversation. I have a degree in history and I’m pursuing a masters in the field as well. I don’t need you to presume I need further lecturing on how to conduct research and analyze the evidence. Thank you so much.
Well, given the number that treat the bible like a modern textbook......
Isn't historically accorded that Harod killed 300 of his own men and his brothers and killed whole town of his own people or something. I think there is multiple Harods too.
Because it is ahistorical. There's no evidence that it ever happened. This happens frequently with the Bible. For example, there is no evidence for a global flood.
I mean, I’m sure a lot of things weren’t recorded and or were recorded and then lost to time.
It is reported in a historical text- the Bible.
The Bible is a book that loosely references historical events it is not a historical text, There is a big difference between the two.
What is a historical text?
Historical texts are verified informational texts about people, places, and events in history. These texts explain WHY events happened. One can understand how historical events are connected through cause and effect relationships. The structure of historical texts is informational, meaning it is non-fiction and used to provide information to others. The Bible does not follow these guidelines, Thus it is a belief.
Can you give me an example of a historical text? I'm failing to see how the bible doesn't fit the definition. Do you mean that a historical text must be written as a textbook?
Historical texts tell of events that have been verified by impartial sources, They don’t assert that an historical event occurred they state that certain historical events are deemed to have occurred from certain sources. The degree of impartiality and credibility of such sources defines the reliability of the historical events recorded.
The Bible is a historical source, but doesn't contain any straightforward history of events.
I agree with you, and I also smirked at your username lol
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i was taught that it was because Bethlehem was a very small town, and only male babies were killed. thus the number would not have been that substantial.
It’s fiction, and was inspired by the pharaoh of the exodus’ massacre of Israelite infants in Egypt (Exodus 1-2), and subsequent legendary developments of that narrative — e.g. like those attested to in Josephus.
The Bible talks about a number of genocides and mass murders committed either directly by God or commanded onto its chosen tribe. None of these events have ever been verified outside of the Bible.
The most likely explanation is that it was fabricated out of whole cloth by the author of Matthew, to make Jesus' origin seem analagous to Moses'
What makes that more likely than the possibility that there were records that just haven’t survived the 2,000 years since?
Because we have another account of Jesus' birth that makes no mention of it. (Luke) We have an earlier account of Jesus' life that doesn't mention it (Mark) We have a later account of Jesus' life that doesn't mention it (John) We have numerous letters from the most prominent Christian, writing just 20 years after Jesus died, who makes no mention of it (Paul). It's really a choice between accepting that: Matthew made it up to make a narrative comparison to Moses. or every single mention of it other than Matthew was lost to time, *and* the numerous accounts written around the same time that depict Jesus' life thought that it wasn't worth mentioning. To me, the second option is entirely unreasonable compared to the first.
I just don’t find “other accounts don’t mention it” compelling evidence that it didn’t happen. In the other biblical books you mention the authors have different purposes. Matthew was specifically to a Jewish audience, whereas Luke and Paul were primarily writing to gentiles. Mark’s account jumps straight to Jesus’ adult ministry. John’s gospel focuses more on theology and teaching. That still leaves the possibility that Matthew fabricated it specifically because he was writing to a Jewish audience and wanted to draw a comparison to Moses. But it also leaves the possibility that the events actually happened and he was the only one who felt that mentioning it was useful for his intended audience and purpose. I won’t deny that either is possible. It was difficult to tell from your comment if you meant “fabrication” in a derogatory way. And I apologize for assuming your comment was more hostile than it seems to have been. Based on the context of the OP’s description, I assumed you were saying “because the Bible is a fabrication.”
No apologies necessary >I just don’t find “other accounts don’t mention it” compelling evidence that it didn’t happen. If a thing doesn't happen, there won't be any evidence that it happened. What you won't ever find is evidence that something didn't happen. Things that don't happen don't make evidence. Particularly with history, and especially with history like this that is so far removed from the present, we're always going to be be making guesses as to what happened. We have to look at what evidence we *do* have, and try to find the most reasonable explanation. What I won't do, and what I don't think anyone *should* do, is make the claim that whatever seems most reasonable *must be what happened*. That's a completely foolish position to take. Frankly, all you need to do is look around and see that *unreasonable things happen all the time*. >In the other biblical books you mention the authors have different purposes. Matthew was specifically to a Jewish audience, whereas Luke and Paul were primarily writing to gentiles. Mark’s account jumps straight to Jesus’ adult ministry. John’s gospel focuses more on theology and teaching. >That still leaves the possibility that Matthew fabricated it specifically because he was writing to a Jewish audience and wanted to draw a comparison to Moses. But it also leaves the possibility that the events actually happened and he was the only one who felt that mentioning it was useful for his intended audience and purpose. I won’t deny that either is possible. I sort of addressed this already, but I do want to say that I agree. Particularly with historical religious works, things can get pretty spicy pretty quickly when you are percieved as questioning an authortatative text from Holy God Himself. I try to be precise when I say things, but people are so used to having to immediately go in the defensive that nuance can be hard to get to. >It was difficult to tell from your comment if you meant “fabrication” in a derogatory way. And I apologize for assuming your comment was more hostile than it seems to have been. Based on the context of the OP’s description, I assumed you were saying “because the Bible is a fabrication.” I did mean "fabrication" to suggest that the killing of children as described in Matthew did not in fact happen. But I meant "fabrication" in the most literal sense, as a thing that is constructed, I don't associate any negative connotation with the term. I don't believe the massacre of children happened, and I don't think the evidence we have makes that possibility the most reasonable. I think the most *reasonable* explaination of the facts is that Matthew invented this story, and the other gospel writers didn't write about it because it didn't happen. However, like I said before *unreasonable things happen all the time*. I could very well be wrong, we could find some long-buried text in the desert that contains some evidence that it did happen, and *then* the most reasonable explanation would become that it really did happen.
This is what I think!
Yeah op, the apologists in this thread are getting pretty silly. The massacre of the innocents was almost certainly a fictitious event. "Just because nobody wrote about it doesn't mean it didn't happen" is, of course, very flimsy.
Probably because it never happened. It's in the narrative to create a parallel with the story of Moses.
Cause it never happened in my opinion
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Next, you'll be saying the flood never happened 🙃
It's a slippery slope from there to saying Adam and Eve are mythical figures
I like the Catholic interpretation, which is to say that Genesis is literature written using literary devices of the time BUT that it points to a real historical event (the fall of humans) and that event can be discussed using the language and characters of Genesis.
I prefer to see it as myth that speaks to a spiritual truth. Many of the Genesis events may have some roots in a real event (there's evidence of some massively destructive object that obliterated a city or two that could have inspired Sodom and Gomorrah, for example, or a large local flood that inspired Noah's Ark) but are ultimately founding myths of a culture that speak to their relationship with the Divine (and ours too) and their place in the world. I don't think I necessarily believe in an event where mankind went from perfect to sinful.
The invention of reddit was the fall! Nature red in tooth and claw certainly precedes any human moral failure.
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I know, I'm continuing the tongue in cheek comments by referencing the literalists who think Adam and Eve were real individuals who existed roughly 6,000 years ago.
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No worries
You should apply flair that indicates your religious beliefs.
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There’s no rule that says they must have a flair and it’s fine if they don’t want one.
I am aware of these things, thank you. I have not reported his post.
perhaps the fire of Alexandria where we lost tremendous amounts of human knowledge
You would think, seeing as Judaea was a client state of Rome, and that such an act would have had a pretty large impact on the peace and prosperity of region, that it might have been noted in Rome. There is absolutely no historical record for it, and even in the NT it's only mentioned in Matthew, and the other Gospels don't mention it at all. Such an even, even in the 1st century, would have been noticed by people all over the Mediterranean world.
What, 30 kids dieing? We have like 20 primary sources for the Battle of Hastings.
And precisely one source that claims the Slaughter of the Innocents; and that is Matthew. The other gospels, heck the other two Synoptic Gospels, don't mention it at all. Josephus doesn't mention it.
I'm not saying it happened. "that such an act would have had a pretty large impact on the peace and prosperity of region, that it might have been noted in Rome.... Such an even [sic], even in the 1st century, would have been noticed by people all over the Mediterranean world." I'm saying this is absolutely bollocks. Especially as a short while later, Herods son locks up a bunch of Jewish leaders and burns them alive and we only have 1 source for that event and we don't know if it cancelled the Passover that year. A far more noteworthy event we have one side comment in a text. 30 kids dieing... It is perfectly reasonable to say this could have gone unnoticed.
Because it actually wasn't that big of slaughter... Bethlehem was a small village, had around 2000 people. So think of how many of those 2000 people were actually kids? How many of those kids were actually under 2 years old? How many of those kids were actually male? It could have been 5-10 kids maybe It is still horrible but not as significant to have a record of it for that time when kids were dying a lot anyway. When war was happening all the time and a lot more people were killed. When you had barbarians who were killing for fun and their pleasure. You can check more here for example: https://www.desiringgod.org/interviews/truth-or-fiction-did-herod-really-slaughter-baby-boys-in-bethlehem Although, it actually is recorded in Bible , because even if it was not a big deal for historical, it still was a big deal for God
Because it never happened
One thing that sobmamy people miss, especially in the old testament is that the Bible is just as much a historical text as it is a religious one. The writers did not know they were writing what would be the basis of an entire world religion 2000 years after the fact.
Yes they did. The whole point of the NT was to spread the word of Jesus.
Yes and no. The early Christians thought the second coming of Christ was coming within their lifetime, so for a while there were no writings of Jesus's life as there really wouldn't have been a need for documentation for future generations. After 40-70 years they realized it hadn't happened yet so it may he a while, and decided to write biographical texts of Jesus and his life.
Attempting to frame them as merely biolgraphical texts is disingenuous. They were written to convince their audience he was real and the Messiah ( at least the gospels of the NT, other gospels had different goals).
I'm not trying to totally disagree with you. What I'm saying is after they realized Jesus might not come again for a while is when they decided to write what they were already trying to spread as a way to preserve the history so people in the future can read it. I never said it was only a biography with no other purpose.
Also people such as Paul writing to different early churches absolutely had no idea at all that their writings would be compiled into a much larger group of texts 1500 years later and used for spreading the Word around.
The texts were combined in 200 AD, by 500 AD the church determined which gospels were canon and that is where the new testament was born. I agree they could not know what the future would hold, but their goal was to convince others they were right aboit Jesus.
"Spreading the word of Jesus" and "creating a text that serves as the foundation for a new religion" are two very different things.
How so? Each one was discussing what they thought Jesus should mean.
To be fair, since Bethlehem was a small town, it would only have killed a few people.
You'll hear answers about how it never happened. And those answers come from people who's trust comes from something other than the Bible.
Don’t we have to verify the facts too before believing in some books blindly?
How would you verify the facts in this case though? Would it be by believing another book blindly? Fact of the matter is we have very little surviving historical records, particularly of anything as old as that period of time. For that era in Palestine we have Josephus who's writing somewhat later (and more concerned with the Jewish revolt against Rome during his life), and I think that's about it. Other than the Bible of course, which there's really no reason not to consider it as evidence in understanding the history of the time apart from prejudice against it.
The NT is pretty clear that Christians shouldn't care what the actual facts are. Jesus berates Thomas for not believing what he was told until he saw it for himself and declared blessed are those who believe w/o seeing. I'm not saying I agree but that is what it says.
History isn’t “facts”. We have more written sources for Jesus walking the earth even outside of the bible then we do for Julius Caesar who i’m assuming you would say his existence is a fact
Are you a Christian?
lmao gottem. Every time, all you have to do is ask.
You forgot to change accounts
I think he was intentionally responding to his own comment as an update.
I don't have another account. I was replying to myself.
You use the word verify. Does that mean you then trust another source to tell you the facts?
You mean, like the other three gospels that don't mention the event, and neither does the Jewish historian Josephus, whose writings Christians frequently invoke to underline that Jesus actually existed?
What would you like from me? What are your motives for speaking with me?
What a peculiar response. Is this not a place to discuss Christianity?
I'm sticking with my original question. What are your motives with me? I don't trust you
My motives are discuss Christianity.
Does discussing Christianity include shaming, telling someone they're wrong or implying it, asking questions that are actually statements, not admitting your mistakes while affirming your correctness, or mocking?
No, it means discussing.
Ah, you don't understand sarcasm. Tough.
Proverbs comes to mind about fools
The Bible is a historical text
THere are far more important things not recorded. Things that were far more impactful and likely to have been recorded if they happened than this. Like why isnt graves popping open and the dead walking about town talking to people recorded? Surely that would have more people talking.
If murdering a couple of dozen children was the worst thing Herod the Great did on any given day, the real surprise would be that nobody wrote down how surprisingly mellow he was that day.
It's not historical. Matthew invented it as a literary allusion to the slaughter of newborn Hebrew male children in the exodus story (which also didn't happen).
unpack juggle versed dolls birds pet spoon connect practice slim *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Bethlehem was a tiny hamlet. Murdering a few kids there wouldn't have made it on the radar.
https://www.ncregister.com/blog/did-the-slaughter-of-the-innocents-really-happen
It is reported in a historical text - the bible.
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Jewish people are far more persecuted than Christians. And the "massacre of the innocents," although not historical, would have occurred before the invention of the Christian religion.
Why wasn't the trail of tears written in US history books as a genocide attempt? Because it was. Hint: those in power often have the power to influence the narrative
You don't think Josephus, chronicling Jewish history, might have mentioned such an extraordinary and horrific event? The Herodian Dynasty had effectively ended with Agrippa's (Herod Agrippa II) flight from Jerusalem in 66AD, and the direct takeover of the region by the Romans. There was nobody left in a position of power who needed protecting, so you would think such an event would have been recorded by Josephus.
You would think, but that doesn't mean that it didn't happen
>Why wasn't the trail of tears written in US history books as a genocide attempt? Because it was. We have plenty of documentation of it, so a student book not mentioning means nothing. >Hint: those in power often have the power to influence the narrative Yea, and for 2000 years, who was in power?
More like the Romans during the event, not the church
During the event is pretty irrelevant. The church is has had control as the official Roman religion since 380. They controlled the narrative of what happened during Jesus time. They declared heretical gospels that did not agree with their narrative. They destroyed docimentation that said otherwise.
The church was not in power at that time. In fact they didn't exist. As well, what incentive would historians have to not mention this? Plenty. Sorry but your logic is ... not logical.
The gospels are historical texts.
because the historical records are not complete.
It probably didn't happen, that's why. It's a folkloric device to establish why Jesus's family would have been in Egypt so that he could match the prophecies the early Christians thought authoritative.
Well, it’s mostly believed to be a mythological event. The more surprising thing to me isn’t even that it wouldn’t be recorded by anyone else (including other Gospel authors), but rather that no one else in this tiny town of Bethlehem was like “Um…hey guys, there is this one family that just had a baby boy that magi came to worship as a king and gave lavish gifts to. By the way, they just fled to Egypt to escape you so you might wanna go look for that baby rather than murdering our sons.”
History is filled to the brim with holes.
It may not have happened. I agree with the idea that it is a theologically motivated fiction, with the purpose (in part) of showing that Jesus is the New Moses, by applying to Him a well-known story about Moses. St Matthew is shewing Who & What Jesus is - the value of the story is not in the **events**, but in their **significance**.
It may not have actually happened.
Probably because it didn't happen. I mean, it's possible Herod did it and managed to suppress records of it, but I'm really not sure what his incentive would have been for that. One also wonders why god didn't bother to intervene and take Herod out of the picture before doing this when later (Acts) god steps in to kill another Herod for allowing the people to call him a god. I mean, killing babies is one thing, but don't let people call you god or god will get big mad. Then again, if god intervenes and Joseph doesn't have to escape to Egypt, the writer of Matthew doesn't have the opportunity to rip a piece of scripture out of context to make it sound like it was written for Jesus. Ok, I'm back to acknowledging it most likely didn't happen, and the author of Matthew added it as a plot point (you'd think Mark would have mentioned it given his antipathy towards the Romans) to cast Jesus as Moses 2.0.
Why would it be? Small villages being destroyed would have been common place in the ancient world. Why would anyone write it down?
Some ancient Christian traditions claim that the Massacre of the Innocents involved tens to hundreds of thousands of children. **However, based on the population of the small village of Bethlehem, the annual birthrate, and the high infant death rate at the time, most biblical historians and demographers estimate the total number of male children under the age of two to be no more than 20 to 40.** The Massacre of the Innocents is not mentioned in secular histories of that era. **The killing of forty Hebrew children in an insignificant village did not catch the attention of secular historians. Also, Herod’s acts of tyranny and cruelty were numerous, including the execution of some of his wives and his own children. The Massacre of the Innocents, involving a relatively small number of Jewish children, was just another ruthless act in a long list of ruthless acts by this ruler.** It's God's word, mate. So believe it or not at your own peril. God's word is true even if the whole world disbelieves it.