Massacre of the Innocents

Historicity

Though many readers follow the author of Matthew in identifying a prophetic allusion from Jeremiah 31:15, others see this episode as expressly crafted for the purpose of recording apparently fulfilled prophecy. The Massacre of the Innocents is not mentioned in the other gospels nor in the early apocrypha. Nor is the episode mentioned by Josephus, who among other atrocities, records Herod's execution of two of his sons by his wife Marianme because he believed they posed a threat. (The Jewish War (I.535–7) and Jewish Antiquities (16.121–7, 356). The episode was notorious and displeased Herod's patrons in Rome.

Related Topics:
Jeremiah - Prophecy - Apocrypha - Josephus

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The execution of the two sons, who Josephus describes as the ?young men,? has been represented by Robert Eisenman as the original that inspired the account in Matthew: "Here Herod really did kill all the Jewish children who sought to replace him, as Matthew 2:17 would have it, but these were rather his own children with Maccabean blood." (Eisenman 1997 p. 49). Other scholars, however, note that Herod?s murder of the ?young men? reveals the deep-seated suspicion and jealousy that Matthew portrays as Herod?s motivation for the Massacre of the Innocents and therefore renders the account ?historically plausible.? (Witherington 2001 p. 71). Josephus records several examples of Herod?s willingness to commit such acts to protect his power against perceived threats, but suggests that not all such acts were recorded, as he summarizes that Herod ?never stopped avenging and punishing everyday those who had chosen to be of the party of his enemies.? Antiquities 15.2.

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The earliest pagan reference to the Massacre of the Innocents is by Ambrosius Theodosius Macrobius, a pagan philosopher of the 4th century. The reference is found in Macrobius? The Sacturnalia:

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:When heard that Herod king of the Jews had ordered all the boys in Syria under the age of two years to be put to death and that the king's son was among those killed, he said, "I'd rather be Herod's pig than Herod?s son."

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Macrobius, The Sacturnalia, trans. Percival Davies (New York 1969), page 171.

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Unlike Matthew, Macrobius places the massacre in Syria and combines it with the separate killing of one of Herod's sons. Because of Macrobius? conflation of two different accounts and the fact that he shows no other signs of dependence on Matthew, New Testament scholar Paul Barnet has posited that Macrobius was relying on an independent source. (Barnett 1993 p. 103). However, given the popularity of Matthew among Christians, the spread of Christianity by that time, and the late date in which Macrobius wrote, Raymond E. Brown and other scholars conclude that Macrobius' reference is derivative of the Matthean account, though not directly dependent on it. http://christiancadre.blogspot.com/2005/05/slaughter-of-innocents-in-matthew.html

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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.http://christiancadre.blogspot.com/2005/08/how-many-children-in-bethlehem-did.html 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.

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The early churches had much higher estimates for the number killed. The Byzantine liturgy had 14,000 Holy Innocents and an early Syrian list of saints states that there were 64,000. Modern scholars consider these numbers implausible.

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