Peter Kirby

Haran, you know German? I'm envious. And you have access to hundred year old articles in European theological journals? I'm doubly envious. Could you give us the highlights of what Conrady has to say? The title seems to be about the infancy Gospel of Thomas, although the Protevangelium of James could obviously be discussed as well since it's related. How has the idea been received? Does the author depend on making the infancy narrative an interpolation in order to maintain the priority of the infancy gospel? Do tell.

best,
Peter Kirby

Haran

J'ai peur que je lis la langue française mieux que la langue allemande, mais...

Ich verstehe ein bißchen Deutsch.

Since there are 3 major theological libraries within a half-day drive, I also have access to works (yes, even periodicals) that date back quite a bit further than 1900...

However, I never said that I read this book. I am repeating information from Elliot's Apocryphal NT, which I imagine you have read or at least skimmed, Peter. This may be why you questioned the work I presented. I accidentally presented the wrong work because I skipped to the following section (on IGoT) looking for Conrady's work.

Unfortunately, there are two works listed for Conrady among the references and I am not sure which is the appropriate one because the text does not say.

They are:

L. Conrady, 'Das Evangelium Jakob in neuer Beleuchtung', ThStKr 62 (1889), 728-84. (i.e. 'The Gospel of James in New Light')

L. Conrady, 'Die Quelle der kanonischen Kindheits-geschicte Jesus: Ein wissenschaftlicher Versuch (Gottingen, 1900). (i.e. The source of the canonical childhood-history of Jesus: A scientific essay)

The last one is probably it...

If I find the time to make a trip to the library in the near future, I might look them up.

However, it might be more productive for someone to find references from Celsus or an early critic of Christianity (or at least a critic of Orthodox Christianity) who condemns the story about Herod's "slaughter of the innocents".

From everything I've read about Herod, the slaughter would fit right in with his other murderous acts. I find it rather naive to say that Matthew must have been a "liar" or writing fiction, as others said.

Finally, Marduck, did you originally mean that no work, Christian or otherwise, mentions the "slaughter"?

Did you know that the apocryphal books, Prot. of James, Infancy Gospel of Thomas, Pseudo-Matthew, and perhaps other extra-canonical writings mention the "slaughter?

Marduk

“Finally, Marduck, did you originally mean that no work, Christian or otherwise, mentions the "slaughter"?”

Yes, I was not familiar with the Protevangelium of James.The only account I knew was Matt. My point was that not only is this killing first born babies business a big deal in a few Bible stories but you’d think someone else would have noticed such an act. I can almost understand overlooking a local preacher who was crucified, but an act like this from a prominent King should have at least been mentioned by Josephus (sp?) He mentioned other follies of Herod this would have been a big one, Caligula would have been impressed.
Matthew is full of wild things no one else seems to have caught; dead people besides Jesus coming back to life, Jesus riding two donkeys into town like a circus act, etc.

“Did you know that the apocryphal books, Prot. of James, Infancy Gospel of Thomas, Pseudo-Matthew, and perhaps other extra-canonical writings mention the "slaughter?”

No, but they all sound like post second century stuff with Matthew as the source.
I have heard the one about the time Jesus was a baby in Egypt and his diaper water cured someone of leprosy, and remember the time Jesus brought that dead boy back to life so he could tell his parents he fell down the steps and that no way did Jesus push him.

Peter Kirby

Origen, Against Celsus, Book 1, Chapter 61
That Herod conspired against the Child (although the Jew of Celsus does not believe that this really happened), is not to be wondered at. For wickedness is in a certain sense blind, and would desire to defeat fate, as if it were stronger than it. And this being Herod's condition, he both believed that a king of the Jews had been born, and yet cherished a purpose contradictory of such a belief; not seeing that the Child is assuredly either a king and will come to the throne, or that he is not to be a king, and that his death, therefore, will be to no purpose. He desired accordingly to kill Him, his mind being agitated by contending passions on account of his wickedness, and being instigated by the blind and wicked devil who from the very beginning plotted against the Saviour, imagining that He was and would become some mighty one. An angel, however, perceiving the course of events, intimated to Joseph, although Celsus may not believe it, that he was to withdraw with the Child and His mother into Egypt, while Herod slew all the infants that were in Bethlehem and the surrounding borders, in the hope that he would thus destroy Him also who had been born King of the Jews.

Not only is the singularly remarkable and barbaric story not to be found in the voluminous account of Herod by Josephus, nor in any other independent source, but also the story of the massacre of the innocents is intertwined with fiction-style motifs, such as the three magi who followed a star (who tipped off Herod) and the feigned ability of the author of Matthew to tell us of the happenings in the court of Herod. It is certainly not the opinion of naïve skeptics alone that this story is manifestly dubious.

best,
Peter Kirby

Haran

Thank you, Marduk. My point was to demonstrate that extra-canonical books contain the story.

You have a good point as to why Josephus (or another) would not have recorded the "slaughter", but there are several questions one might want to ask about the event.

How many boys under two were there in "Bethlehem and its vicinity"? What does the "vicinity" of Bethlehem include?

If the number was not large, would this have necessarily warranted a mention by Josephus?

Were the murders carried out with fanfare and announcements (this might definitely be talked about, but was it likely?), or were they carried out quietly by "secret agents" of Herod?

If it was done relatively quietly and the numbers were relatively small, would this have warranted a comment from Josephus?

Were the murders more targeted than Matthew knew or would have us believe? I am curious because the Prot. of James mentions that Herod suspected John the Baptist and sought him specifically, killing his father when his father would not reveal John's whereabouts!

It is quite easy to say Matthew made it up, but the fact remains that the "slaughter" falls well within Herod's personality as we know it.

Marduk

“It is quite easy to say Matthew made it up, but the fact remains that the "slaughter" falls well within Herod's personality as we know it.”

I’d concede that point, Herod was a paranoid megalomaniac who IIRC had members of his own family killed as well. Don’t have any idea about the number of infants killed.

Haran

Tantalizing... I figured Celsus might have said something (he seems to have denied just about everything Christian). Is there no elaboration as to why he did not believe?

Are there any other sources that you know of?

I don't doubt that there are those who consider it dubious, but to say that Matthew "lied" or that he was intentionally creating a work of fiction is pushing it, IMHO.

As to why Josephus might not have mentioned it, refer to my post to Marduk.

Peter Kirby

It is not clear.

Celsus was more credulous than many of the skeptics on this board: he accepted that Jesus was a real person who had the occupation of a carpenter, that Jesus learned the magical arts (while in Egypt), that Jesus claimed to be a son of God on account of such prowess, that he was crucified under Pilate, that he had followers such as Mary who saw him after his death, and that his novel doctrines were the origin of Christian theology.

If you don't take the statement of Celsus as evidence for anything, then why did you request that someone search for such statements?

There is a critical tradition that goes back a few centuries.

Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason

The story of Herod destroying all the children under two years old, belongs altogether to the book of Matthew; not one of the rest mentions anything about it. Had such a circumstance been true, the universality of it must have made it known to all the writers, and the thing would have been too striking to have been omitted by any. This writer tells us, that Jesus escaped this slaughter, because Joseph and Mary were warned by an angel to flee with him into Egypt; but he forgot to make provision for John [the Baptist], who was then under two years of age. John, however, who stayed behind, fared as well as Jesus, who fled; and therefore the story circumstantially belies itself.

David Friedrich Strauss, The Life of Jesus Critically Examined, vol 1., pp. 159-165

After receiving the above answer from the Sanhedrim, Herod summons the magi before him, and his first question concerns the time at which the star appeared (v. 7.). Why did he wish to know this? The 16th verse tells us; that he might thereby calculate the age of the Messianic child, and thus ascertain up to what age it would be necessary for him to put to death the children of Bethlehem, so as not to miss the one announced by the star. But this plan of murdering all the children of Bethlehem up to a certain age, that he might destroy the one likely to prove fatal to the interests of his family, was not conceived by Herod until after the magi had disappointed his expectation that they would return to Jerusalem; a deception which, if we may judge from his violent anger on account of it (v. 16) Herod had by no means anticipated. Prior to this, according to v. 8, it had been his intention to obtain from the magi, on their return, so close a description of the child, his dwelling and circumstances, that it would be easy for him to remove his infantine rival without sacrificing any other life. It was not until he had discovered the stratagem of the magi, that he was obliged to have recourse to the more violent measure for the execution of which it was necessary for him to know tlie time of the star's appearance. How fortunate for him, then, that he had ascertained this time before he had decided on the plan that made the information important; but how inconceivable that he should make a point which was only indirectly connected with his original project, the subject of his first and most eager interrogation (v. 7)!

Herod, in the second place, commissions the magi to acquaint themselves accurately with all that concerns the royal infant, and to impart their knowledge to him on their return, that he also may go and tender his homage to the child, that is, according to his real meaning, take sure measures for putting him to death (v. 8). Such a proceeding on the part of an astute monarch like Herod has long been held improbable. Even if he hoped to deceive the magi, while in conference with them, by adopting this friendly mask, he must necessarily foresee that others would presently awaken them to the probability that he harboured evil designs against the child, and thus prevent them from returning according to his injunction. He might conjecture that the parents of the child on hearing of the ominous interest taken in him by the king, would seek his safety by flight, and finally, that those inhabitants of Bethlehem and its environs who cherished Messianic expectations, would be not a little confirmed in them by the arrival of the magi. On all these grounds, Herod's only prudent measure would have been either to detain the magi in Jerusalem, and in the meantime by means of secret emissaries to dispatch the child to whom such peculiar hopes were attached, and who must have been easy of discovery in the little village of Bethlehem: or to have given the magi companions who, so soon as the child was found, might at once have put an end to his existence. Even Olshausen thinks that these strictures are not groundless, and his best defence against them is the observation that the histories of all ages present unaccountable instances of forgetfulness-a proof that the course of human events is guided by a supreme hand. When the supernaturalist invokes the supreme hand in the case before us, he must suppose that God himself blinded Herod to the surest means of attaining his object, in order to save the Messianic child from a premature death. But the other side of this divine contrivance is, that instead of the one child, many others must die. There would be nothing to object against such a substitution in this particular case, if it could be proved that there was no other possible mode of rescuing Jesus from a fate inconsistent with the scheme of human redemption. But if it be once admitted, that God interposed supernaturally to blind the mind of Herod and to suggest to the magi that they should not return to Jerusalem, we are constrained to ask, why did not God in the first instance inspire the magi to shun Jerusalem and proceed directly to Bethlehem, whither Herod's attention would not then have been so immediately attracted, and thus the disastrous sequel perhaps have been altogether avoided? The supranaturalist has no answer to this question but the old-fashioned argument that it was good for the infants to die, because they were thus freed by transient suffering from much misery, and more especially from the danger of sinning against Jesus with the unbelieving Jews; whereas now they had the honour of losing their lives for the sake of Jesus, and thus of ranking as martyrs, and so forth.

The magi leave Jerusalem by night, the favourite time for travelling in the east. The star, which they seem to have lost sight of since their departure from home, again appears and goes before them on the road to Bethlehem, until at length it remains stationary over the house that contains the wondrous child and its parents. The way from Jerusalem to Bethlehem lies southward; now the true path of erratic stars is either from west to east, as that of the planets and of some comets, or from east to west, as that of other comets; the orbits of many comets do indeed tend from north to south, but the true motion of all these bodies is so greatly surpassed by their apparent motion from east to west produced by the rotation of the earth on its axis, that it is imperceptible except at considerable intervals. Even the diurnal movement of the heavenly bodies, however, is less obvious on a short journey than the merely optical one, arising from the observer's own change of place, in consequence of which a star that he sees before him seems, as long as he moves forward, to pass on in the same direction through infinite space; it cannot therefore stand still over a particular house and thus induce a traveller to halt there also; on the contrary, the traveller himself must halt before the star will appear stationary. The star of the magi could not then be an ordinary, natural star, but must have been one created by God for that particular exigency, and impressed
by him with a peculiar law of motion and rest. Again, this could not have been a true star, moving among the systems of our firmament, for such an one, however impelled and arrested, could never, according to optical laws, appear to pause over a particular house. It must therefore have been something lower, hovering over the earth's surface: hence some of the Fathers and apocryphal writers supposed it to have been an angel, which, doubtless, might fly before the magi in the form of a star, and take its station at a moderate height above the house of Mary in Bethlehem; more modern theologians have conjectured that the phenomenon was a meteor.

Both these explanations are opposed to the text of Matthew: the former, because it is out of keeping with the style of our Gospels to designate any thing purely supernatural, such as an angelic appearance, by an expression that implies a merely natural object, as a star; the latter, because a mere meteor would not last for so long a time as must have elapsed between the departure of the magi from their remote home and their arrival in Bethlehem. Perhaps, however, it will be contended that God created one meteor for the first monition, and another for the second.

Many, even of the orthodox expositors, have found these difficulties in relation to the star so pressing, that they have striven to escape at any cost from the admission that, it preceded the magi in their way towards Bethlehem, and took its station directly over a particular house. According to Suskind, whose explanation has been much approved, the verb for "went before" (v. 9) which is in the imperfect tense, does not signify that the star visibly led the magi on their way, but is equivalent to the pluperfect, which would imply that the star had been invisibly transferred to the destination of the magi before their arrival, so that the Evangelist intends to say: the star which the magi had seen in the east and subsequently lost sight of, suddenly made its appearance to them in Bethlehem above the house they were seeking; it had therefore preceded them. But this is a transplantation of rationalistic artifice into the soil of orthodox exegesis. Not only the word for "went before," but the less flexible expressions "till it came," etc. denotes that the transit of the star was not an already completed phenomenon, but one brought to pass under the observation of the magi. Expositors who persist in denying this must, to be consistent, go still farther, and reduce the entire narrative to the standard of merely natural events. So when Olshauson admits that the position of a star could not possibly indicate a single house, that hence the magi must have inquired for the infant's dwelling, and only with child-like simplicity referred the issue as well as the commencement ot their journey to a heavenly guide; he deserts his own point of view for that of the rationalist, and interlines the text with explanatory particulars, an expedient which he elsewhere justly condemns in Paulas and others.

The magi then enter the house, offer their adoration to the infant, and present to him gifts, the productions of their native country. One might wonder that there is no notice of the astonishment which it must have excited in these men to find, instead of the expected prince, a child in quite ordinary, perhaps indigent circumstances.

It is not fair, however, to heighten the contrast by supposing, accordinj to the common notion, that the magi discovered the child in a stable lying in the manger; for this representation is peculiar to Luke, and is altogether unknown to Matthew, who merely speaks of a house in which the child was found. Then follows (v. 10) the warning given to the magi in a dream, concerning which, as before remarked, it were only to be wished that it had been vouchsafed earlier, so as to avert the steps of the magi from Jerusalem, and thus perchance prevent the whole subsequent massacre.

While Herod awaits the return of the magi, Joseph is admonished by an angelic apparition in a dream to race with the Messianic child and its mother into Egypt for security (v. 13-15). Adopting the evangelist's point of view, this is not attended with any difiiculty: it is otherwise, however, with the prophecy which the above event is said to fulfil, Hosea, xi. 1. In this passage the prophet, speaking in the name of Jehovah, says: When Israel was a child, then, I loved him, and called My son out of Egypt. We may venture to attribute, even to the most orthodox expositor, enough clear-sightedness to perceive that the subject of the first half of the sentence is also the object of the second, namely the poeple of Israel, who here, as elsewhere, (e. g. Exod. iv. 22. Sirach xxxvi, 14.) are collectively called the Son of God, and whose past
deliverance under Moses out of their Egyptian bondage is the fact referred to: that consequently, the prophet was not contemplating either the Messiah or his sojourn in Egvpt. Nevertheless as our evangelist says, v. 15, that the flight of Jesus into Egypt took place expressly that the above words of Hosea, might be fufilled, he must have understood them as a prophecy relating to Christ-must, therefore, have misunderstood them. It has been pretended that the passage has a twofold application, and, though referring primarily to the Israelitish people, is not the less a prophecy relative to Christ, because the destiny of Israel "after the flesh" was a type of the destiny of Jesus. But this convenient method of interpretation is not applicable here, for the analogy would, in the present case, be altogether external and inane, since the only parallel consists in the bare fact in both instances of a sojourn in Egypt, the circumstances under which the Israelitish people and the child Jesus sojourned there being altogether diverse.

When the return of the magi has been delayed long enough for Herod to become aware that they have no intention to keep faith with him, he decrees the death of all the male children in Bethlehem and its environs up to the age of two years, that being, according to the statements of the magi as to the tune of the star's appearance, the utmost interval that could have elapsed since the birth of the Messianic child. (16-18) This was, beyond all question, an act of the blindest fury, for Herod might easily have informed himself whether a child who had received rare and costly presents was yet to be found in Bethlehem: but even granting it not inconsistent with the disposition of the aged tyrant to the extent that Schleiermacher supposed, it were in any case to be expected that so unprecedented and revolting a massacre would be noticed by other historians than Matthew. But neither Josephus, who is very minute in his account of Herod, nor the rabbins, who were assiduous in blackening his memory, give the slightest hint of this decree. The
latter do, indeed, connect, the flight of Jesus into Egypt with a murderous scene, the author of which, however, is not Herod but King Jannaeus, and the victims not children, but rabbins. Their story is evidently founded on a confusion of the occurrence gathered from the Christian history, with an earlier event; for Alexander Jannaeus died 40 years before the birth of Christ. Macrobius, who lived in the fourth century, is the only author who notices the slaughter of the infants, and he introduces it obliquely in a passage which loses all credit by confounding the execution of Antipater, who was so far from a child that he complained of his grey hairs, with the murder of the infants, renowned among the Christians. Commentators have attempted to diminish our surprise at the remarkable silence in question, by reminding us that the number of children of the given age in the petty village of Bethlehem, must have been small, and by remarking that among the numerous deeds of cruelty by which the life of Herod was stained, this one would be lost sight of as a drop in the ocean. But in these observations the specific atrocity of murdering innocent children, however few, is overlooked; and it is this that must have prevented the deed, if really perpetrated, from being forgotten. Here also the evangelist cites (v. 17, 18) a prophetic passage (Jerem. xxxi. 15), as having been fulfilled by the murder of the infants; whereas it originally referred to something quite different, namely the transportation of the Jews to Babylon, and had no kind of reference to an event lying in remote futurity.

While Jesus and his parents are in Egypt, Herod the Great dies, and Joseph is instructed by an angel, who appears to him in a dream, to return to his native country; but as Archelaus, Herod's successor in Judasa, was to be feared, he has more precise directions in a second oracular dream, in obedience to which he fixes his abode at Nazareth in Galilee, under the milder government of Herod Antipas. (19-23) Thus in the compass of this single chapter, we have five extraordinary interpositions of God; an anomalous star, and four visions. For the star and the first vision, we have already remarked, one miracle might have been substituted, not only without detriment, but with advantage; either the star or the vision might from the beginning have deterred the magi from going to Jerusalem, and by this means perhaps have averted the massacre ordained by Herod. But that the two last visions are not united in one is a mere superfluity; for the direction to Joseph to proceed to Nazareth instead of Bethlehem, which is made the object of a special vision, might just as well have been included in the first. Such a disregard, even to prodigality, of the lex parsimonies in relation to the miraculous, one is tempted to refer to human imagination rather than to divine providence.

Why are you fighting this, Haran? This has been recognized as a nonfactual story for a long time. Do you doubt that there are errors in the Gospel of Matthew? If you agree that GMatthew is not inerrant, which stories would you deem nonfactual, if not this one?

best,
Peter Kirby

Haran

Celsus shows that someone early-on disbelieved the story of the "slaughter". I'm not sure why you think I do not accept him as evidence "for anything". I am disappointed that we have no more to go on about why he rejected the story than we do.

I am not one who likes to dismiss things easily. I tend to believe there are nuggets of truth (sometimes large and recognizeable nuggests) underneath many stories deemed to be "fictional". It is much easier to dismiss something as fiction because one does not believe it than it is to give the author some benefit of the doubt that they are telling what they seem to believe to be factual truth.

No.

Careful... Who is "fighting"?

I would assume from this question that you have a set group of stories that you deem nonfactual? In deeming them nonfactual, does that mean you believe without a doubt that they are nonfactual (i.e. not a shred of underlying truth)?

P.S. - Brown (who seems to believe the infancy narratives are some sort of midrash - not exactly fiction as we know it...) states in his Birth of the Messiah that others have calculated the possible number of male children that could have been slaughtered by Herod to be something less than thirty. Was it worth a mention in Josephus? I just don't know.

Sauron

Then the scope of this verse is wrong - both in the geographic range of the slaughter, as well as in the implied number of children killed:

MAT 2:16 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, according to the time which he had diligently enquired of the wise men.

MAT 2:17 Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet, saying,

MAT 2:18 In Rama was there a voice heard, lamentation, and weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not.

"All the coasts thereof" - yes, in the vicinity of Bethlehem, but apparently Matthew is claiming that the slaughter extended as far as Ramah.

Slaughter of all male children under 2 yrs old - hard to imagine any scenario where that could be kept quiet. Especially among a Jewish population that was already hypersensitized to the Roman occupation and every injury that caused - - as well as sensitized to the acts of Rome's proxy, Herod.

Given that Josephus was no fan of Rome or its proxy, it's hard to see him passing up an opportunity to report such a damning and cruel act - had it ever happened, of course.