CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES

Facing a Secular World…
Herod’s Massacre of the Innocents:
Fact or Fiction?
by Jeff Himmel

I don’t know about you, but reading the story of Jesus’ birth always creates for me a sense of wonder and anticipation. Many well-meaning religious folks have glamorized it into a humble but happy tale told in pictures on holiday cards. Yet, as the Gospels record it, the joy of the Messiah’s coming was tempered by some harsh realities, including one particularly savage act by King Herod:
When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi. Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled: ‘A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more’ (Matthew 2:16-18, NIV).
Commonly called "the massacre of the innocents," it is this event for which Herod the Great is best known. But today many historians deny that it ever happened.
A perfect example is a recent Discovery Channel documentary, Herod: Madman or Murderer? It’s an excellent biography of Herod’s life. But when it comes to the murder of Bethlehem’s infants, there is marked skepticism. Discovery Channel’s website has this to say:
King Herod…is best known for his fleeting role in the birth of Jesus. In a fit of anger over the purported birth of the "King of the Jews," texts say that he ordered the slaughter of all boys in Bethlehem who were two years old and younger. But, as experts reveal, there is no historical evidence for the slaughter.
In this case, "no historical evidence" means the massacre is not mentioned by any ancient writer outside the Bible. Even Josephus, the Jewish historian who tells us so much about Herod, says nothing about this event. Thus the "expert" verdict: it didn’t happen.
However, there are good reasons to believe that this state-sanctioned mass murder really did take place.

First, brutality of this sort was one of Herod’s defining traits. He was a ruthless tyrant who moved to destroy any perceived threat to his power. Among his victims were his uncle, his wife Miriamne, and three of his own sons. On at least one occasion he put to death the entire families of some alleged conspirators. Furthermore, by the time Jesus was born, the aged king was suffering from agonizing illness, chronic depression, and fits of madness. From such a cruel and unstable man, the butchering of a town’s children in order to eliminate a rival is exactly the kind of thing we might expect.

Second, it shouldn’t surprise us that most historians would overlook this event. Bethlehem was just a village in the hill country, with a population of only a few hundred. By most estimates, the number of children affected by Herod’s order was less than fifty. That’s still appalling to us, but in those harsh times it would not have been exceptional. To a historian chronicling important events in the Roman Empire, some murdered children in an obscure town in a distant province might not be newsworthy. What’s more, Herod committed so many atrocities that, sad to say, historians were liable to overlook a few.

Besides, there may indeed be another reference to the slaughter in Bethlehem. A fourth-century pagan writer named Macrobius mentions that Herod ordered the killing of some children ages two and younger in Syria (in Herod’s time, Judea was considered part of Syria). The similarity of details makes it hard not to think the same incident is in view. If it is a different event, it just proves that Herod was fully capable of doing the very thing Matthew describes.

Third, even if Matthew is our only record of this event, that alone is no reason to reject it. As proof, consider two similar situations.
(1) Josephus, who we’ve already mentioned, is the only source for much of our information about Herod. Do historians dismiss his account just because it’s the only one we have? Hardly. The Discovery Channel documentary relies heavily on Josephus. So why is Matthew treated differently?
(2) The Jewish Talmud (c. AD 135) reports that, after his wife Miriamne’s death, a disturbed Herod kept her body preserved in a vat of honey. No source outside the Talmud records this story. Discovery Channel’s response? They report it without reservation. So why is Matthew treated differently?
Is this what being an "expert" means? Based on exactly the same amount of evidence — one written account — scholars believe that Herod kept his dead wife in a honey barrel, but not that he killed some babies in Bethlehem. Josephus records something that’s found nowhere else, and scholars thank their lucky stars to have his account; Matthew records something found nowhere else, and scholars call it "no historical evidence." Is that a fair approach to history?

This brings us to the heart of the issue: Are the New Testament Gospels reliable historical accounts?

Much of modern scholarship answers no: the Gospels are not, and were never intended to be, accurate historical records. Instead, each one is a religious discourse in which facts have been rearranged, embellished, and sometimes even made up in order to support the author’s point of view.

The Bethlehem massacre is a case in point. Critics have accused Matthew of concocting the story in order to paint Herod in a bad light. But why would he need to do that? Herod’s brutality was common knowledge; why dream up a crime when so many real ones were well known? And just who would Matthew have needed to convince of Herod’s wickedness? His gospel is aimed at a Jewish audience, and no group of people knew Herod better, or loathed him more, than the Jews did. Matthew simply had no reason to fabricate this event.

Scholars charge that the Gospel authors had no intention of producing reliable history. But the authors themselves say otherwise. Luke, for instance, claims from the start to be writing a carefully researched, orderly account of things exactly as they happened (Luke 1:1-4). By their appeal to eyewitness testimony, the Gospel writers insist that they are correctly reporting the facts (Luke 1:2; John 19:35; 21:24). Their attention to detail, including the mention of dates, rulers, political developments, geographical features, and various elements of local custom, is an open invitation for readers to check their accuracy. This is strange behavior for men who supposedly had no interest in historical precision.

As for Matthew’s record of the slaughter in Bethlehem, every indication is that he meant it to be a factual account. Matthew wrote his gospel sometime before AD 70, possibly as early as the 40s. Herod’s great-grandson was in power, and the legacy of Herod’s reign was still strongly felt. Even if we set aside his being inspired, Matthew would have had access to first-hand information about Herod through eyewitnesses and written accounts. And so would his earliest readers. If Matthew had made up this event, it would have been little trouble to discredit him. Early unbelievers did (unsuccessfully) attack the Gospels on several fronts, but we know of no ancient skeptic who disputed Matthew’s testimony about Herod.

Scholars charge that the Gospels are not reliable. Yet, from a textual standpoint, the Gospels and Acts are far more reliable than even the most highly respected secular histories from the same period (the works of Tacitus and Suetonius, for example). "If the New Testament were a collection of secular writings," observed F. F. Bruce, "their authenticity would generally be regarded as beyond all doubt" (The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable?, 15). Just as this is true of the text of the Gospels, it is true of their historical content. Each time their historical accuracy has been tested, it has stood firm. Constant scrutiny, including comparison with other ancient histories and archaeological evidence, has only served to confirm the Gospel record. Why, then, is there such readiness, even eagerness, to dismiss their testimony as irrelevant?

The answer, of course, is that the great claim of the Gospels is something that few people want to accept. "Most hostile critics of the Gospels readily admit that, were it not for the supernatural elements they contain, the Gospels would easily be accepted as sterling examples of Jewish historical literature" (Kenneth L. Chumbley, The Gospel Argument for God, 22). The skeptic contends that we can’t rely on the Gospels for historical information (including Matthew’s data about Herod) because of their spiritual claims. I contend that just the opposite is true: It is precisely because of their proven historical soundness that we must seriously consider what the Gospels say about Jesus, including His claims to deity, His teaching, His miracles, His resurrection, and the hope that He alone provides. This happens to be exactly what the Gospel writers ask of us.

In the words of John:
"What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the Word of Life…what we have seen and heard we proclaim to you also, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ" (1 John 1:1-3).
Thanks to Jeff Himmel for this great submission to our theme.

(Join us Wednesday nights at 7:30 p.m. for more studies like this one. Don Hooton or Buz Turk will be teaching. For more church info, www.simplychristians.net.

ePOINTS is powered by simplychristians.net
FORWARD THIS TO A FRIEND OR SUBSCRIBE THEM!
To subscribe yourself or a friend, email e-points@sbcglobal.net
with "subscribe" and your email address in the message.
To unsubscribe, email e-points@sbcglobal.net with "remove" in the subject line