Τότε Ἡρῴδης ἰδὼν ὅτι ἐνεπαίχθη ὑπὸ τῶν μάγων ἐθυμώθη λίαν, καὶ ἀποστείλας ἀνεῖλεν πάντας τοὺς παῖδας τοὺς ἐν Βηθλέεμ καὶ ἐν πᾶσι τοῖς ὁρίοις αὐτῆς ἀπὸ διετοῦς καὶ κατωτέρω, κατὰ τὸν χρόνον ὃν ἠκρίβωσεν παρὰ τῶν μάγων. τότε ἐπληρώθη τὸ ῥηθὲν διὰ Ἰερεμίου τοῦ προφήτου λέγοντος, Φωνὴ ἐν Ῥαμὰ ἠκούσθη, κλαυθμὸς καὶ ὀδυρμὸς πολύς· Ῥαχὴλ κλαίουσα τὰ τέκνα αὐτῆς, καὶ οὐκ ἤθελεν παρακληθῆναι, ὅτι οὐκ εἰσίν.
Then Herod, seeing that he was made a fool of by the Magoi, became very angry, and he sent for and killed all the children in Bethlehem and in all its regions from the age of two and younger, according to the time which he ascertained from the Magoi. Then the word was fulfilled through Jeremiah the Prophet who said,
Matthew 2:16-18
“A voice was heard in Rama,
a great weeping and lamentation:
it is Rachel crying for her children,
and she does not want to be comforted,
because they are no more.”
This passage, to put it bluntly, has caused a bit of a headache for those who hold to the historicity of the narratives recorded by the Synopticists. To present one particular voice as representative of the commonly-held position in Second Temple scholarship, it will suffice to quote from Grabbe’s good introduction to Second Temple Judaism:
Thus, Herod had his faults, but his reign was also characterized by many good points. Any evaluation must consider both sides of the question. One thing he probably was not guilty of was the ‘slaughter of the innocents’. This is a legend reported only by the writer of Matthew 2:16-18 and has no basis in anything known from the history of that time. No other source mentions it, not even Josephus (who despised Herod), much less the Gospel of Luke, as they almost certainly would have had it taken place.
Gabbe, An Introduction to Second Temple Judaism, p. 24
The problem is that this tidbit of information, that Herod the Great, around the turn of the millennium, orders the slaughtering of a bunch of innocent children, only comes down to us in Matthew. The claim is that such a situation is wholly incredible, and on this basis, the account as given in Matthew ought to be thrown out as little more than propaganda.
I do not intend to solve every problem presented with this text. I am no historian, and I do not claim to be. I would, however, like to challenge this assumption that Josephus or Luke must have written about such an event, had it happened. This assumption is explicit in Gabbe’s explanation of his interpretation of the data: if this event took place, then Josephus or Luke would have written about it.
Did the mention of Luke in Gabbe’s analysis strike you as odd? If it did, then you and I are probably thinking along the same lines. And I think that Luke’s omission of this episode is key to an intelligent and cordial disagreement with the analysis.
To begin the discussion, it should be remembered that neither Matthew nor Luke are the Stoic ideal of neutral writers simply reporting what happened for the sake of recounting itself. All of these authors have “axes to grind,” and are trying to demonstrate something with the information they include. Therefore, it is a fair question to ask, “why does Matthew include this episode?”
In my estimation, the portrayal of Jesus in Matthew 2 draws a parallel between Moses and Jesus as demonstrated by the fulfillment of Messianic prophecies. Just like Moses of old, the greater Moses will lead his people out of Egypt in a great New Exodus (Matt. 2:13-15), and the Massacre hearkens back to the “original” massacre of the innocents under Pharaoh, who sought the life of all young Hebrew males out of fear in the same way as Herod the Great (Ex. 1:15-16). Perhaps, if that’s off base, there’s a contrast which this story makes between the wicked king, Herod, and the King whom God Anointed, His Messiah. But nevertheless, I don’t think that Matthew was under any compulsion to include this episode per se; I think that he selected this episode for inclusion within the composition of the gospel because it fit with his narrative agenda.
But let’s think about Luke for a second. Luke is also a Synopticist, so he is working with the same sources as Matthew; in fact, in many solutions to the Synoptic Problem, Luke has Matthew — as in all solutions to the Synoptic Problem besides the Two-source Hypothesis4 (I make no statement on the precise relationship between Luke and Matthew here). So, within those sources, be they oral or written, presumably exists this story about Herod the Great slaughtering the innocents; unless we imagine that Matthew just made this story up, which is highly unlikely (notice that Gabbe doesn’t even say that — to him it is a preexisting legend which Matthew reports). This implies that in all likelihood Luke had some awareness of this story, but chose not to include it.
This is incredibly relevant I think to the assumption that, had this event taken place, it must’ve been reported elsewhere. Because, in Luke, you have an example of one who chose to write a biography of Jesus with an infancy narrative, likely having some sort of knowledge of this event, who chose not to include it. Perhaps you could imagine that Luke knew of this story but disagreed with its historicity, but such is completely conjecture. I think a better reason is that this story simply did not fit the agenda for the narrative he was trying to tell. Herod the Great is not even a character within Luke’s nativity narrative. Wouldn’t it come off as odd and unnatural if the story of Jesus’ presentation to the Temple was interrupted with, “and also Herod the Great killed a bunch of babies!” This episode simply does not fit into the narrative which Luke has constructed. So I see no reason to say that Luke was bound to include it.
So, I say all of this to make the point: we should not assume that an author had to say anything. Neither Matthew nor Luke were just flatly listing events which happened from BC 4 – AD 33, such that it would be odd if they missed some. They were, on the contrary, constructing cohesive historical narratives which tell the story they were trying to tell.
Josephus’ exclusion, however, is somewhat interesting, since the Massacre is something which would fit exceptionally well within his agenda, as, Josephus takes every juncture to slander Herod in Jewish War (as Gabbe rightly points out). However, I would like to again stress the point that Josephus was not bound to write anything. He wrote what he wrote for his purposes.
Unlike I did for Luke, I do not have a grand theory about why Josephus excluded this information; as I said, I don’t have all the answers. But I don’t think that Josephus’ exclusion of this is determinative of whether the event happened or not. There are reasons why an author may not include details about a certain event other than “it didn’t happen,” and I hope my explanation of the situation with Luke was illustrative of that fact.
I like the solution of 19th century theologian John Peter Lange3, who postulates that the slaughter of the Bethlehem infants was done in secret. There’s some hint to this effect within Matthew’s narrative itself, in that Herod’s determination of the time when Jesus’ star appears is done secretly (Matthew 2:7). There is no explicit confirmation that the slaughter is done in secret within the narrative, but the fact that Herod determines the time of the star’s rising secretly sets precedent for him making his attack against the Messiah secretly. And certainly doing something such as slaughtering a bunch of infants in a deliberate attempt to snuff out the Messiah would not have won him any favors with the Sanhedrin, so, practically, a secret slaughter makes sense for Herod’s political game — recall, Herod the Great was a cunning politician. This solution would also explain why the story only pops up in Matthew; in Christian history, such a story is very significant as it surrounds the birth of Jesus, and, since Mary Jesus’ mother was a significant player in the early Church, there is a firsthand witness through which this oral tradition could have been preserved. For those outside of the Church, however, this story is less significant — the slaughter of a few peasant children, as opposed to Herod’s more obvious atrocities — and was perhaps the object of a deliberate cover-up, such that Josephus had no means of knowing it. But take or leave that solution how you will; either way, solutions exist as to why Josephus would not include such an event.
I hope you found this discussion helpful. And, following the teaching of Matthew 2, may we all always follow our true Moses, who saves us from our slavery to sin. Amen.
Bibliography / Further Reading
- Gabbe, Martin. An Introduction to Second Temple Judaism: History and Religion of the Jews in the Time of Nehemiah, the Maccabees, Hillel, and Jesus. T&T Clark, 2010.
- Aland, Barbara, et al., editors. The Greek New Testament. 5th rev. ed., United Bible Societies, 2014.
- Lange, John Peter. The Gospel According to Matthew: Together with a General Theological and Homiletical Introduction to the New Testament. Translated and edited by Philip Schaff, Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1884.
- “The Synoptic Problem.” Hypotyposeis, http://www.hypotyposeis.org/synoptic-problem/.