Kosh

To get back to answering the OP,

with GMt dated to around 80 AD, the readers of it wouldn't exactly be considered "close" to the time of the alleged event...

Lucretius

The common ways of distinguishing these is ,or at least used to be,
1)Myths purely stories about gods spirits etc
2) Legends stories about semi historical people
3) History
However in the ancient world all these categories tended to overlap as has been said already the "meaning" behind the story being considered as important, if not more so than the actual historical facts ,as we would class them

Jayhawker Soule

That was very well said.

Crazy Liz

While the story is probably Midrash, it is also historically plausible. Herod Is known to have murdered children (even his own) when perceived to be a threat, and since Bethlehem was a rather insignificant village in the first century, there probably would only have been a handful of male infants there. If so, it may not have been an event considered significant enough for other historians to note.

blt to go

Good point. Like the alleged historian that wrote the Gospel of Luke. He/She certainly did not consider it very significant. In fact, it was so insignificant He/She decided to skip that whole Magi, Angel appearing to Joseph, flight to Egypt, angel appearing to Joseph again, flight back to Israel, hiding out in a little forgotten place called Nazareth. All required by the Slaughter of the Innocents.

Why, in reading GLuke, we are almost left with the impression that this alleged historian did not even know of this killing of children by Herod! Or that Jesus was supposed to be hiding out in Nazareth.

The author of Luke has Jesus' family, in complete disregard for his own safety as necessitated by the claims of GMatthew, regularly going back to Jerusalem once a year for twelve years. Back to the very heart of danger. Jesus even stirs up trouble, and his mother (in Luke) doesn't say anything about "Hey, don't you remember you were almost KILLED? Perhaps keeping a low profile would be a good thing!"

fta

The zombies invading Jerusalem during the Crucifixion is another of Matthew's tales that seems to have gone unnoticed by anyone else.

Matt 27:52-53: And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, And came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many.

Chili

The above (from Mat.2:20) is a sure indication that those children and Herod needed to die to set the inner child free.

The point here is that if the Immanent Will (Lord God) set the ego on a collision course with the inner man the inner determination to succeed must come to a sudden stop when destiny is reached. After this there is to be only one survivor and not a dozen causes that are looking for credit and reward . . . least of all any 'children' of Judaism over which Herod also ruled as King of Judea. Hence, with no Judea(ism) left there is no need for a King of Judea.

In Hardy's poem the inner determination to succeed was called the "salemandrine fire" that made "the seaworn crawl -- grotesque, slimed, dumb, indifferent," with Mary being the salemandrine fire that makes the seaworm (Eve) crawl, -- grotesque, slimed, dumb and indifferent (Adam, who hasn't got a clue where he is going but only knows that he is going).

dongiovanni1976x

I really wasn't talking about Mathew himself per se (or whoever the actual author is); I was referring to Matthew's intended audience. Do you think Matthew's audience knew this was supposed to taken as such a metaphor, or do you think Matthew was skilled in the art of persuasion and searched for "real" (in the sense that Moses and the prophets were considered historical) Old Testament verses to give credibility to the projected messianic attributes he believed Jesus deserved...(?)

JoeWallack

JW:
Hey, it's Great to be back at Herod's Palace.
JW:
I believe the only extrabiblical evidence available is Macrobius Saturnalia, II iv 11 circa 400:

http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/...rnalia/2*.html

"Cum audisset inter pueros quos in Syria Herodes rex Iudaeorum intra bimatum iussit interfici filium quoque eius occisum, ait: Melius est Herodis porcum esse quam filium."

Oh that Macrobius (chuckling), quite the sense of humor, eh Bede? As near as I can tell only the Latin version is freely available online. For those who never studied:

"When he had heard that Herod, king of the Jews, had ordered boys in Syria up to two years old to be killed, and that Herod's own son was among them, he said: "It's better to be Herod's pig than his son."

Course there are a few problems with this supposed quote (there always are), it says boys in "Syria", says Herod's son was among them and attributes a pun in Greek (son/pig) to a Latin emperor (mindful of that pesky French castle in England in HG). In Brown's classic, The Birth Of The Messiah, 752 pages of tedious fineprint focussing souly on The Infancy Narratives and subjecting the careful Reader to more excruciating pain than Mel Gibson's Jesus, he scours the heavens and Earth for support for just such an assertion as the supposed Massacre and this is the only extrabiblical evidence he is aware of.

I believe, with a perfect faith, that this valuable evidence which is directly on topic here now allows me to drift with some X-Uh-Jesus:

The Massacre story fits nicely with the Contrast Audience used by "Matthew". "Mark's" contrast was Jesus/Everyoneelse (as John Travolta was told in the classic Saturday Night Fever, "The Play's The Thing SonofManero"). "Matthew" adapting "Mark" to his time, which wanted a historical Jesus, has a contrast of Jesus/JewishLeaders ("John", the Last, uses Jesus/"Jews"). Showing the Earthly Jewish King as Destroying the Innocent made a nice Contrast to showing the Spiritual Jewish King as Saving the Guilty. Yes, this is Contrived Bede, but "Matthew", not having the literary ability or concern of "Mark" doesn't place this together in his Gospel as well as "Mark" would. "Matthew" also creates a theological problem by having thousands of Innocents murdered in order to Save Jesus who is supposed to Save everyone. Doesn't really work, does it?

For those who try to argue that the murder of relatively few babies in Bethlehem could have flown under the Radar:

#41
Matthew 2: (KJV)
16 “Then Herod, when he saw that he was mocked of the wise men, was exceeding wroth, and sent forth, and slew all the children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the coasts thereof, from two years old and under�

No historian writing close to this time mentions any such massacre. The author of Luke doesn’t mention it either. Josephus thoroughly documented the brutal deeds of Herod during Herod’s final years yet makes no mention of this incident which easily would have been Herod’s worst. Christian apologists estimate that there would not have been much more than 20 such murders of baby males in Bethlehem by Herod based on assumed population and birth rates thereby arguing that such a low number may have escaped Josephus’ attention. Even 20 murders of babies would have been Herod’s worst act. The apologists ignore that the text also says “and the regions all around it� (in all the coasts thereof). The early Church assumed that according to Matthew thousands of male babies were killed in the “massacre�.



Joseph

What's Black and White and Black and White and Black and White and Red all over? A Nun taking Flight down stairs.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Errors...yguid=68161660

http://hometown.aol.com/abdulreis/myhomepage/index.html

Chili

Religion was betrayed and everything had come to a sudden stop with the birth of Christ. It is just 'one' moment of awakening as in one blink of the eye wherein the human identity raptured and all faith became redundant and therefore all the remains killed as if they were children in Betlehem and Judea.

What's with all these male babies anyway? Are they the positive stands in a potential rout? or are they a real danger for Herod who himself gets killed?