Massacre of the Innocents

[atalanta]

can anyone tell me of any ancient historians, apart from the Gospel writers, who recorded Herod's Massacre of the Innocents ?
I can't find any myself, but wouldn't you think that such a ghastly crime as the killing of hundreds of new-born babies would create such scandalised outrage that it would be mentioned by all sorts of contemporary historians ?

[plautus]

Contemporary historians criticise tyrants at their peril!

[FredPuli43]

lol @Plautus. And it's why 'treason doth never prosper' too. (For, if it prosper,none dare call it treason). The answer, unsurprisingly, is that there is no contemporary record of it extant. It may just be an attempt by the gospel writer to fit Jesus's life with what was foretold, or understood to be foretold, in the Old Testament. But it may have happened and passed unreported in the local media!

[plautus]

Thanks for the "treason" aphorism. How very true! Now that you have got me thinking, is there actually such a thing as a contemporary historian? Surely he's a journalist!

[FredPuli43]

I suppose a contemporary historian is a someone who writes about past events which happened in their lifetime and which they witnessed or had immediate report of. 'Journalist' must be one who writes on the day, with the intent that his account be published immediately. and 'diarist' is one who writes on the day, but without that intent. And 'fantasist' is one who writes pieces in the Daily Mail.

[FredPuli43]

The aphorism on treason (supra) was written by Sir John Harington, a courtier, poet, and sometime soldier (b 1561 d 1612). He also invented the flushing lavatory, I see, but whether those facts are connected, I know not:
" Treason doth never prosper. What's the reason? Why, if it prosper, none dare call it treason"

[naomi24]

The story is related in only one Gospel – Matthew - and there is no historical evidence to support it. Like much of the story of Jesus, it’s another piece of the jigsaw that doesn’t fit.

[woofgang]

Apparently its a tool that has been used before and since. In understand that the same story is told around the birth of Krishna, and of course King Arthur (or Merlin) is said to have done the same thing in order to obliterate his son by incest, Mordred.

[jake-the-peg]

I've often thought this.

The criticise tyrants argument doesn't really stand up.

Jospehus was writing nearly 100 years after Herod the Great, he wasn't intimidated enough to refrain from mentioning that Herod murdered his sons!

I don't think many serious biblical scholars believe this to have actually happened

[chakka35]

As naomi says, the alleged massacre is referred to only by the unknown author of "Matthew", writing some 90 years after the 'event'. It is mentioned by no-one else at all. It does not appear in any biography of Herod or any other contemporary accounts of Judaism around the early 1st Century written by historians like Philo or Justus (who don't mention Jesus either). Nor is there any sign of the tremendous demographic effects of such slaughter in the subsequent population.


Al part of the overall Jesus myth.