The slaughter of innocents

[WillingToDie]

In the book of Mathew we are told that Herod ordered all males under the age of 2 to be slaughtered.

However, josephus, who seemed to enjoy reporting Herod's misdeeds, makes no mention of it happening. One would think that such an event would be recorded.

However, we do know that towards the end of his life, particulalryl on his death bed, he had a lot of people killed. Could the slaughter of the children have just caught caught up in the middle of this, and escaped mention?

Thoughts?

[aaronjm]

All I know is that Matthew wrote this in order to fulfill the prophesies of Jeremiah 31:15, I am not sure why Josephus, or any other writings of that time didn't mention this. William F. Albright had this idea "If the event is historical, given the small size of "Bethlehem and its vicinity," it did not involve a large number of boys age two and under. Albright estimates the area had about 300 people at the time. Brown estimates that the population was no more than a thousand. Given the birth rate and high infant mortality rate of the time, either of these figures would mean at most only a few dozen children killed.[2] This would not have been a particularly large atrocity for the period in general and Herod in particular and thus might have escaped mention by Josephus and others." Other than that, I have no idea. G-d bless

Aaron

[WillingToDie]

All I know is that Matthew wrote this in order to fulfill the prophesies of Jeremiah 31:15, I am not sure why Josephus, or any other writings of that time didn't mention this. William F. Albright had this idea "If the event is historical, given the small size of "Bethlehem and its vicinity," it did not involve a large number of boys age two and under. Albright estimates the area had about 300 people at the time. Brown estimates that the population was no more than a thousand. Given the birth rate and high infant mortality rate of the time, either of these figures would mean at most only a few dozen children killed.[2] This would not have been a particularly large atrocity for the period in general and Herod in particular and thus might have escaped mention by Josephus and others." Other than that, I have no idea. G-d bless

Aaron

I hadn't heard that, but it makes sense to me. Thanks bro

[cymba22]

In the book of Mathew we are told that Herod ordered all males under the age of 2 to be slaughtered.

However, josephus, who seemed to enjoy reporting Herod's misdeeds, makes no mention of it happening. One would think that such an event would be recorded.

However, we do know that towards the end of his life, particulalryl on his death bed, he had a lot of people killed. Could the slaughter of the children have just caught caught up in the middle of this, and escaped mention?

Thoughts?

This is the same josephus that excaped masada due to his pedge to help the romans...he wrote what he was told too.

[apothanein kerdos]

In the book of Mathew we are told that Herod ordered all males under the age of 2 to be slaughtered.

However, josephus, who seemed to enjoy reporting Herod's misdeeds, makes no mention of it happening. One would think that such an event would be recorded.

However, we do know that towards the end of his life, particulalryl on his death bed, he had a lot of people killed. Could the slaughter of the children have just caught caught up in the middle of this, and escaped mention?

Thoughts?

It very well could be. We know there were two different Herods during the time of Jesus. We also know that the Herod that ordered the death of children died shortly after this (remember that Joseph fled with his family to Egypt to escape this and shortly thereafter returned due to the death of Herod).

[Iryssa]

I've heard this discussed multiple times. The reality is, the area in which the children were killed (Bethlehem and area) was very small. On a political scale, with someone like Herod at least, killing about a dozen kids probably went unnoticed, silenced by seemingly more devastating events, as each area focused on its own problems. Back then, they didn't have News at Five, so the spread of such an event would have been rather slow, by our standards, and by the time it got around, what could be done? There was probably some event in another town that made Herod paranoid (a local leader gaining too much influence, a vocal group of Jews trying to start an uprising, that sort of thing), and there would have been more killings for other people to worry about. As much as we'd like to think that sort of thing would get the world's attention and cause some sort of rebuttal (as it would now), during Herod's time, it probably didn't. He was just that dreadful that things like that would have faded into the background of his cruel reign.

[Leonard]

I've heard this discussed multiple times. The reality is, the area in which the children were killed (Bethlehem and area) was very small. On a political scale, with someone like Herod at least, killing about a dozen kids probably went unnoticed, silenced by seemingly more devastating events, as each area focused on its own problems. Back then, they didn't have News at Five, so the spread of such an event would have been rather slow, by our standards, and by the time it got around, what could be done? There was probably some event in another town that made Herod paranoid (a local leader gaining too much influence, a vocal group of Jews trying to start an uprising, that sort of thing), and there would have been more killings for other people to worry about. As much as we'd like to think that sort of thing would get the world's attention and cause some sort of rebuttal (as it would now), during Herod's time, it probably didn't. He was just that dreadful that things like that would have faded into the background of his cruel reign.

Iryssa:

I had always assumed the explanation you offer to be the correct one, but I understand that a few years back, archeologists found a large crypt near Bethlehem, dating to around that period, with over 1,000 baby's skeletons in it.

I don't receive those academic journals anymore, but I do wonder if anybody else has more current info on this. Especially if we find the 'Slaughter of the Innocents' (These babies are regarded in Orthodoxy as the first Martyrs by the way) was as massive as all that, it seems singularly peculiar that it is unmentioned in history....